Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good

evening, and welcome to the November fifth City of Alvin and Information Meeting. Yeah. It's M and A meeting. It's the it's the commission annual retreat. It's an opportunity for us to think back on the past year and look forward to the upcoming year.

Like our other meetings, it's healthier hybrid format with both in person and virtual option via Zoom. Tonight, there's an opportunity for public comment during the oral communication portion of the agenda. All written comments that have been submitted prior to 11AM today, Monday, November 5, will be summarizing the report. Our agenda item, we only have one item, which is animal retreat, but there are several components to it. We will have some opening remarks from the deputy mayor.

They will be an opportunity for us to honor missionary Perez at this as her last meeting. We will have the fun game highlighting our accomplishments. And following that, we will hear about development trends and strategy. Closing presentation tonight will be by sitting chief demographer who will give us the person relation on the demographic trends involved here. Now let's forward with the roll call. Vice Chair Liu?

Here.

Commissioner Perez? Here. Commissioner Geppel?

Here.

Here. And I'm chair. Can I make a motion to approve tonight's agenda? I don't believe that we approve tonight's agenda. Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Do the same thing here. I am incredibly thankful to you all for everything you do for our city. I completely are I'm biased, but I think this is the best land commission. This is the best commission among all of our commission. And this is the best group we ever had, and you individually come to a really super prep. I can work prep in any group that I've ever seen. Come with great questions. This is a we don't agree with each other. It is awesome in my opinion. We'll listen to each other, very respectful.

So I'm really curious to know what is the team, what how can even work build work all together. I don't even know what is that level looks like. Yesterday, he's already replaced. And we have a lot of new members that we are coming. The culture is so good that when now is, like, like, on the the the train is already running very well, and everyone come, they understand the culture, they adjust, and they will work.

It's amazing move. I'm just thankful and looking forward to next year and the additional stuff that we do. Homeland, Gilbertson, and Miedel Housing was they were the biggest three things that I have been involved as to my commissioner and council, and you guys did a great job in all of the trees. It came to the to to us. And mayor Robinson and it's interesting because we changed some of the usual recommendation, but she always says to me that this is the planning commission that is when this stuff comes from them, we don't discuss any long hours.

We really trust them. And she repeats that to me all the time. This is a great group. When they recommend something to us, we are not really going back and feel better. So that shows how amazing your work is, listening to all of these stakeholders, listening to the public, and making the confirmation. So I'm just thankful, and I appreciate you all. That's it, sir.

Thank you. Now we can go to director, Emil King. Would you like to make any remarks about the commission?

Sure. Yeah. Thank you, chair. So this is the the first full year that I haven't been to every single commission meeting. I can I can tell because they did away with my And now I have it like a little? Yeah. Was trying to think back over over my career. I've been to many, many, many commission meetings, and I just I really appreciate everybody's hard work on the commission. Change has occurred over the over the past year. We've had commissioner Kalad, commissioner of Ardaba, And then we'll we'll be able to thank commissioner Ferris as well.

But as change occurred, it's just great to have new members come on, and you can tell by the the complexity of the projects and the rigor that you that you get into discussing those and kind of debating the policy parts, it really strengthens the commission. So I've been able to listen in to most all commissions. I'm on the I'm on the phone listening in now instead of being in person. I just couldn't be happier with the the way the commission is jailed and your rigor to pull you into the the sometimes real tough policy at the base we need to have. I do go to all the council meetings, especially ones where I where we have some to my department or if the phone services is presenting.

And the the way that the transmittals have occurred just instead of I'm just very pleased by the preparations done by the the commissioners, the the chair, vice chair, and then staff just getting all of the notes together. And they often say the presentation is the easy part with council. It's the questions, right, that they ask in the way that the commission representatives have been able to to clearly answer the questions that come from beyond. So it's just been great estimation. Let's see.

The the things that really I'm noting is we can see the commitment from all of you. Now this does take a lot of time, so I just really appreciate that you're you're putting in the time and the meetings and the homework to get ready, for the meetings. That really does show, at at your formal meetings, your preparation. And above all, it's the passion you all have for Bellevue, making a great place to to the and welcoming new people. We're gonna be coming here in the future years.

So just gonna be happier. All of the detail accomplishments, I know that's gonna be in the the icebreaker exercise, so I'm not gonna, like, give away any hints or anything on that one. But as we go through the rest of the the evening, you'll be able to to hone in, like, meetings, hearings, some of the details about. So thank you for for letting me have a documents chair.

Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Now we go to on. Would you like

to provide any updates for us? I just want to make one comment on the calendar. I wanted to let you know that I'm working with managers and staff across the city to identify the agenda topics for the upcoming year, 2026. And there's an opportunity to address some of the topics that were brought up in the survey. So when we get to that portion of the program, I'd like to talk with you about some of the things that you would like to dig into deeper, a little deeper, and I think to your agenda for 2026.

Thank you. Maybe we can now go to the communication from the public. Kate, did we have any public comments that you received? There was one written comment received since your last meeting. That comment was asking for more information about comments received regarding the critical areas ordinance. I responded to the email, and I included my response when I forwarded that comment to you today, but that was the only comment.

Then moving to the ORAS communication, do we have anyone signed up for that blood communication?

No. And there's nobody online and nobody present here.

It just takes, like, four minutes to

be done.

Great. Okay. We're gonna go start with the study session. Yeah. I would like to start the retreat with the appreciation for the commission affairs service. I would like to share certification of recognition of you, and I will have some remarks, and then I will ask for his remarks. And following that with that, I will ask some of the commissioner who would like to share their remarks about commissioner Ferris. And no pressure. You can just wanna pass. I wrote it down because it's easier for me when I'm getting emotional and I wanna read something.

Do my nose. I'm noticing my name. I just wanna say from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It has been such a joy and privilege to serve with you on the planning commission. Your kindness, your calm presence, and your genuine care for people have made a real difference here. You always showed up ready to listen, ready to learn, and ready to make thoughtful decisions about everything. That's real. I really appreciate that. I've learned a lot from watching you lead with the humility and strength. You brought grace and ground up wisdom to every conversation, and you never lost sight of the people behind the policies.

Bellevue is a better place because of your service. Mhmm. And I'm a better person because serving alongside of you. As your next step to the whole wing, I'm so excited what is ahead. You're I'm really, incredibly lucky to have you. And I know you're gonna go continue lifting our families and our community, and I'm sure I'm gonna go keep watching you and cheering for you. Thank you. I'm sorry. No. I don't meant to cry. Understand. I did it. Know.

Oh, because of your new job. I see. That means that his her computer is being blocked to access the chat GPD by Google That's right. Cipher security system. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. No. But this is what I have been telling you from the second we met. I think you you make everyone around you get by your presence, by your kindness, the way that you think about yourself, and you are you care about everyone.

Like like, if all of the human being would be like you, I think we believe in much better place. We're very caring. People ask me what is the one quality of the affiliate planning commission for. My number one is just be an independent team here and because we are all going to be inputs. And it's very important to be here every month, all of the stakeholders, at the end of the day, we just think independently and say, what we believe that this for the view.

I think that's the card you are hanging out with them. It's very interesting because sometimes you for some reason, maybe because of your husband's role or your role, some of the nonprofits, you don't have the perception. And whoever challenged me when I say this, you know, right, of idea of you, I said, okay. Just look at their votes. Look at her old six and a half half years, you know, almost seven years, how she conducted herself. And I think the proof is in all of the public record. I'm very proud of you. To me, you are the most qualified learning function of I have ever. I'm actually seeing you. I'm bored.

You're you put your full package. You're kind. You you know the topic very well. You study. You study. You listen very well, and you always have this presence of calmness, and then you deliver your and you change your mind. Like, many times you stop it being here, and then you listen to all of the commissioner or public, and then I saw the gradual shift. So you said, okay. Now I listen to people. I listen to more colleagues, and now I didn't mean my quote is changed on some I think that's exactly the process that it should look like.

Never seen anyone it it respect the whole process and more than you. So, again, just appreciate you. I'm very happy for booking. I think the full amount of system needs people to be elevated. I'm really happy that you are continue volunteering your time to to figure calls.

And I don't think and everyone should know that you offer You talk a lot, and you offer to be a mentor to the next plan to the commission. Because when we start, people are all lost. I am sure maybe you will join. We were all lost. Like, what are we doing here?

What is what are this lang lingo and everything else? You already bought in you you said, no. We we should do a system structure for volunteering. And I think that's beautiful, and I'm going to make a comment. So if don't I'm I'm already self conversation with Chow mein to see the people like you who have done, sir, two terms or for some reason, they are not finishing their second terms, but they still want to give back. Okay. How can we have structured mentorship program for the new people? Is the learning curve is even if someone can hand hold for a bit and. Thank you. I'm going to be your life. If you want, you would not have your phone.

Thank you.

Even though I didn't there's nothing talent. So we are going to be thank you so much. Thank you. Everything.

Now it's open if anyone else wants to ask something.

I I I wrote a couple of things here. So

Okay. We've So got

so appreciate everything that you've

done even before I started my mission.

Really,

appreciate you for all that. When I first started paying attention to the planning mission, you were sharing. And so I'd say, like, my first formative memory of commission was you gabbling Alexander in a meeting. I think that memory does just whatever is not just self memory, but I can better get rid of that. So, no, I I just think it's been so great to have you on the vision. You you you embody so much of what we strive for. And you are able to form opinion on things. You're listening to them. You change that opinion, and you're so efficient with the time that you're getting lost. I appreciate And based on you, just

Now we need to cover that. But,

seriously, if there's a lot to say, there's you're very insightful. Good listener, but I wanna thank you for your positivity. Always with a smile, always constructive, always positive. Always getting married people to know. You were talking about culture. And when I started, I was lost, very lost. I'm serious. And Carol was very supportive. I think that permits some informs and will be over to them. So you're gonna be missed. Mhmm. I would say good luck with you. But, yeah, I hope we stay in touch. Thank you

so much, sir.

Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that.

I was just gonna say I I really appreciate the opportunity to serve with you on the planning commission. I mean, in a lot of ways, it reminds me a lot of my my oldest son when he was playing violin in in the orchestra. He played right next to his his best friend, Nan, who was a really good violinist. And, I mean, we thought he my wife and I thought he did really well, actually, that year, but we found out, like, many years later that he was actually playing air violet. He he

wasn't actually playing at all. You know? He was just next to somebody who was extremely talented.

That's kind of, like, especially when I started. That's that's how I felt.

So

So, you know and, you know, you you you bring smarts. You you and and I'd say just really good in purpose, you know, for the the benefit

of the

city. I really appreciate that, and I I worry more about you.

Thank you. Thank you. Well,

I mean, as the first official mentee

on your list, you know. They're always the best. We know that.

I it's been an

I really wanna thank you for being so welcoming. And Mariah and I are only a few months into the commission, but all of you guys have been incredibly welcoming and and great resources. I definitely can say that throughout all the meetings, you, in particular, I hear your comments, I hear your questions, and it's really useful for me to hear them because they really ground conversations. We can kind of reorient these things in a way that I that's been really helpful for me to understand the issue and change my mind on something because you bring such a level of of care and thoughtfulness to to everything that you say and everything that you you've done on the commissions. I know, it's all been a short time that we, you know, commissioned together, but I'm

I'm really thankful to have had that time to

to serve with you and and see different and try to

set up try to make that informed. Yeah.

Yeah. Just

let's see. I've had we've

had quite the career with Hal, and then we've been on the on the commission. It's just been great having him on the commission. We we met before, so you've been doing great things before you became the commissioner, and I've just been always impressed by your steady force, asking great questions, kind of totally assured that your core values are you can tell what your core values are. And while you are talking about other options there, you do have your opinion to bring some of what your core values are. And, you know, the key things about having a a community that values equity was very not the thing you're doing.

And, you know, your work before the commission was about a desire to have stable housing for everybody in the community, and that does show through in a lot of different things that you do on the commission, but that's I mean, that's your your or things you're looking at. And, again, we'll be interacting a lot post your commission career. We'll probably call you commissioner affairs to a little bit. Yeah. Like Caroline after that. But just yeah. You're gonna be a great part of the the community board and and just get kudos.

I

a lot of wonderful things, and I definitely relate to a lot of the comments and the firm. I think we've been working together since I started at WU, and so we really were helpful in understanding the dynamics of the mission. Maybe you would have the first care, maybe the second second check we started. And those were really interesting times because we had to get in during the pandemic and to figure out how does this mission function virtually, and it was a while to make quite a of. Not here anymore.

And I've just been struck. I think others have serviced you on that, just been struck with your implementation and how you bring that to all forward conversations. You know, you definitely have a great young passion, which is how's. I feel like a staff person. Yeah.

And I I think very similarly, I always thought that you did a wonderful job of being passionate about particular issues, but being very mindful and trying very hard to remain objective and to not ever come across as if they were pushing agenda or trying to direct the conversation. And then it becomes more of a subject matter expertise, which is exactly what you want different planning commissioners from different backgrounds. Great. And I know I I I know that you had to purposefully try to do that, and and I always really appreciated watching you do that because I thought you struck such a really good balance between processing amendment amendments or amendments that touched on subject matter that you felt very strongly about, but probably going to be balanced that objective quality. And then the other thing for for the time that I've been the the legal support provided commission, we've had quite a few different lawyers, which is kind of a blessing and a curse.

We probably have more lawyers now than we've ever had on the

on the finance. We we need more chairs. Yeah. Exactly.

But but but I I I also I also appreciated that. I thought that you did a really good job of bringing some of your expertise from from your your background and also your career when needed, but without ever being heavy handed or or using it in a way that you make shape or form trying to direct the conversation. Those are the two things that I always notice. Always appreciate it. That's part part of a big loss with you.

Thank you.

I'm. Will bring in to you. I've enjoyed working with you. A lot of what's been said, I I wholeheartedly agree with incredibly charm. You have a really good way of getting to the issue and asking the right questions and keep getting to the, I I guess, a really productive. As a staff person, that's appreciated. So it really does help kind of more efficiency breath and to really surface that one of the things we should eat. And so it's always helpful when when. There's. They're very kind.

They're just a very yeah. Giving person a good time too. Very much. I had this for for five years. Yeah.

I'll just close this out. I think the first planning commission meeting that I came to was in 2019, which I was thinking was maybe your first commission meeting, but now that I do the math, that's not that good. No.

I believe But I remember that.

Let me think. But yes. But I'll just everybody has commented on all of your wonderful professional qualities, and I'll just say, personally, I really enjoyed working with you. Person outside of all of your wonderful qualities as well. Thank you.

Well, I don't want to belabor that this has been wonderful. I've loved every single minute. But also have to say, I mean, I have learned so much from every one of you or, you know, the current commissioners, staff. I come back home even though it's a long, exhausting night. And almost always the first thing I say is just kind of think it's, like, really rich.

I'm working I'm working with the smartest. Again, I can point to each one of you guys. I'm so you can. Again, I just every single one of you brings such gifts to this work, and I just really, really appreciate every single one. And it is definitely with mixed emotions that I leave because I will miss every one of you so much. So, no, I'm not

gonna go away. Okay.

I will still pester. I still have people's phone numbers, and I am excited about trying to do some sort of a mentor program. I would have loved to have something like that when I first joined because it's pretty. So, anyway, I would just I don't know. Thank you all. Everybody, we have service recognition from the council, which just needs to be done here, but I'm gonna give it to you for now. Okay. But I feel bad. Yeah. Okay. And then this is a card that's all, like, Michelle is on the staff sign, and you can read it and cry by yourself. I think I have that. Yeah. I will say. Thank you.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Now we can go to the fun activity highlighting the accomplishment of the accomplishment of the commission in 2025. Please, can you meet us in the activity? And there's a pride in all of you. Yes.

I mean, seriously, one more joke.

No. I understand. Yeah. There is seriously You ever say two jokes.

There's surprises? Okay.

Yeah. Do it. Yes. It's true. If you can find your Anybody's not at all.

Find your bingo card. This is planning commission to bingo. We are going to be transported to a podcast inside the PC, the podcast. And as we read it, you will hear words that are on your bingo card, and you can take a poker chip and put it over the word that you hear. And, when you have a blackout, so all of your all nine squares, you yell bingo, and Matt is going to deliver a prize to you.

Woah. So this is gonna take a lot of skill then, clearly. Yes. He looks at the first nine way. Really? Podcasting.

Alright. Are there any questions about maybe Jim and I will judge you.

Nope. So I I

asked I asked one

of them.

I don't recall what I should do for for the icebreaker, and they and it said bingo.

So that's

what we're doing. Okay.

Do we have to wait for the entire word, or is the acronym okay?

Like, CPA?

Like, yeah, do we have to say, yeah, use code amendment, or is it okay?

Both

of those will be apparent. So Okay.

I yeah. I Either one. Like, the question is always.

Any other questions before we

Test the voice and who's in here. Alright.

Put your headphones on. Welcome to the Planning Commission recap episode of the Inside EC podcast, the minute by minute review of the minutes. I'm Katie Nets.

And I'm Brian Tackle now. Katie, I have to say, this was quite a year for the planning commission.

You said it, Brian. Let's go through some of the stats. The commission held 19 meetings in 2025.

That includes tonight's meeting and the meeting scheduled in December. Right?

Of course. You have to include those two in the stats. You know, Katie, it would have

been an even 20 if it weren't for the bomb cyclone that knocked out power and processed it. Do you remember that? I sure do. The meeting was canceled, but staff called the commissioners and community members registered to give comment to make sure they stayed safe at home.

The plan the planning commission is important, but not worth risking your life to attend. They held six, count down six public hearings already.

Wow. That's what I call cooking with gas.

Those hearings were about some pretty weighty stuff.

The year got kicked off right in February with a public hearing on Wilburton Vision, employee base, and Luca. Man, I have to say the commissioners worked hard for that recommendation.

Oh, yes. It was the culmination of many study sessions evaluating how to balance all of the priorities and implementing the Wilburton vision. They were carrying the forward the vision that they set in 2024. And Brian, boy, was it a nailbiter? There were 20 people who commented during the public hearing, and that does not include the hundreds, I mean, of pages of written comments that they read or all the testimony that at the previous study sessions.

That was

a late night of transit oriented development, but not the latest. No. Nope. The longest was April 23 clocking in at a whopping two hundred and thirty four minutes.

Ah, yes. That was the meeting our current chair was elected as vice chair.

Congratulations twice over, chair Conklin.

He was later elected as chair. But to get back to the meeting, it was so long because of the planning commission's careful consideration of the middle housing Luca. The public hearing was actually held on April 9, but they extended their discussion to a second meeting. They issued a recommendation on the middle housing movement that night and props to council for adopting it before the June deadline.

They certainly do put in the hours to make sure they are making the best recommendations possible.

If we're go if we're going through the highlights, we have to mention the great neighborhood, Grace. The Crossroads and Newport neighborhood area plans.

You know what my favorite part of those plans was? Really? I like how engaged the community was with the creation of the plans. There were throngs of people at all the meetings, and they made a lot of comments about the contents of the plans when they

were on the agenda.

The community was an integral part of those plans for sure. The commission even delayed making a recommendation on one in order to hear more from the community.

And I said it before. I'll say it again. Mission sure does care about the Bellevue community.

And the Bellevue supporters turn out for

the PC meetings. So you said there were six public hearings, and so far you've mentioned four.

What are the other ones?

Well, Brian, the PC made recommendations on the downtown sub area plan CPA, and the objective design.

Yeah. Bingo.

We have three videos.

Wait. Does the mail get it? Does the mail Yeah.

I think that's nice.

We got lots of them. I don't I

don't I have that.

She didn't count. Can't count. I lose.

I feel like you're

gonna have this prize.

Do want you me to check and make sure they're not cheating?

It's going on.

The downtown sub area plan CPA and the objective design loop, there were smaller changes to the land use code and the comprehensive plan, but important to stay current with state law and regional guidance. And when they hold the hearing on housing opportunities in mixed use areas No. We got one.

Alright. That Thank you so much.

Frank. Pleasure.

Well, we will bring the this to seven public hearings.

I'm looking for seven. Woah. You know what we haven't talked about yet? The roster.

Boy. Oh, boy. The changing roster sure kept the deputy mayor Malikutian busy with appointments. We had three resignations this year. Commissioner Luisa Kalov, missioner Vishal Bhargava, and commissioner Carolyn Ferris. What an

impact all three of them. This doesn't show how much their service on the commission is at a hand of hand.

No kidding. Service on the planning commission is demanding, but their impact is big. I'm so glad to see our new commissioners, commissioner Moriah Kennedy and commissioner Arcia step stepping up and already contributing to the commission's recommendations to council. I can't wait for the public hearing at the December meeting. You know, I congratulate

a chair, I would mention what a great job this former chair, commissioner Geppel, did during his tenure. He managed meetings with some significant discussion. He did

it properly with very even hands.

Yes. We have been blessed with great leadership on this squad. Congratulations to vice chair Lou as well who was elected in July.

Well, Katie, that's a wrap on a recap of the 2025 season. I'll raise my glass to an action packed 2026 season.

You're here.

You're here. You're there. Can stop.

Yeah. You're in.

You did not get a mug because you have wounds.

Know? Can. I'm

sure she was winning.

I have so many mugs. Okay.

Congratulations to all the winners. I told Kate and Tara I hate competition. I'm glad this is you went away for everybody.

Participated two years ago from the.

Yeah. You're welcome. The podcast was my idea too. I was like, I don't like that. Okay. K. K. Commissioner staff liaison will provide an overview of the feedback she received from the survey of the commission member this past month. April, ready for you.

Great. So six commissioners responded to the survey, and there were lots of ideas, enough to spend another study session on these topics, next year. So as I said, after the presentation, I'd like to have a conversation about what you'd like to dig into a little bit more. So three areas where the commission functions well. There was a lot of consensus on this.

People really appreciated the respectful and collaborative relationships on the on the commission. They enjoy a lot of the dialogue that happens during the meetings and really appreciate how well new members have integrated into those discussions. Folks also said they appreciated all of the preparation that their fellow commissioners put into each of the meetings. Everybody seems to come very well prepared and demonstrate their knowledge. Overall, the meetings are well structured and transparent, and there's appreciation for the presentations from staff, comments that they were are clear and high quality presentations.

And folks appreciated it also how sort of outcome oriented the the the discussions are that when people are contributing to the discussion, they're looking at moving the issue forward in a collaborative way. There are a few areas where the fund the commission could function better. Overall, people like the structure and efficiency of the meeting, but suggested that, I think, in general, they would like shorter meetings. And so focusing presentations on key decision points and then making sure that commissioner's comments are are brief and will use the plus one. As far as staff memos and presentations, folks wanted to, ensure that questions asked at previous meetings are answered, at that meeting.

That this came up many times that the briefings are very much appreciated, and I wanted to ensure that we have initial study sessions before we just jump right into sessions. In terms of public engagement, there were some suggestions to ensure commissioners and the public are aware of how to engage in projects at different stages, and then a suggestion to help the public comment effectively at the commission meetings. There was also some comments, not that it's this is not collegial. I think in general folks think that it is very collegial, but some suggestions that a mentorship program could be helpful, that folks mentioned a number of different training opportunities for meeting process. And then you guys all wanted to get to know each other better.

Yep. In terms of the agenda memos, presentations, and briefings, there were a lot of, like, individual suggestions, but sort of the high level, making sure that the the memos and the presentations are are clear and include the the context for the decision, like the scope that's council identified and the reasoning for the staff recommendations. Some suggestions to use more summaries, tables, maps to digest some of the key concepts and a lot of support for more briefings before the meetings. In terms of staff support, there was a suggestion or some suggestions to that staff can help the commission focus on council scope and their role in that process during the meeting. And then the reasoning for staff recommendations, there was some desire for staff to when the commission has ideas, to make sure that staff are applying their expertise to those ideas and responding to those from their expertise.

Community interactions. I think there was appreciation for how the critical areas ordinance tracked the community input and how that could be applied to other controversial topics. There was suggestions to attend more community events and different ways that we could encourage commissioners to do that. Is also a suggestion of spacing projects to reduce community confusion. I know some folks had some confusion over what was and what some of the other projects were.

And then finding ways to share events more widely with the community and in more languages. In terms of future topics, some suggestions were implications from the state legislative changes for the planning commission, so any legislation that might end up at the planning commission. There was an interest in learning more about the staff and their areas of expertise, learning more about the community engagement process generally, and then interested in training on procedural. And so so I'm going to end there, and I'll open it up for discussion for the next few minutes before Rebecca joins us.

Can we go to the first slide of the recommendation?

This is the very first one.

No. No. This not the good part. The one that

Oh, the big the Monday. Okay.

Can you just explain what was the of your career's quality engagement process? What was maybe a level from that?

Yeah. So just making sure that the I think this was more generally to make sure that the community understands when they can engage in the projects and how they can be effective. So when to engage with planning commission, when to engage with staff, and how to have effective comment at

We have a clear public engagement process for. For the. Can you move one song? Forward. Forward.

And then the support for briefings, is the briefings one on one, or is briefing No. The the decision?

The one on one briefings.

Didn't think we is there a staff that you have any comments on this? Like, it was just I'm wondering.

Haven't discussed it as a staff, so I I don't want to I'm out of turn.

But related question, because you

have staff that same survey.

Yeah. And is what kind of input? Staff?

I would say, in general, the staff feedback was pretty similar in terms of where things are functioning well, where it it could improve. Bryce had a very. I think I haven't gone through the staff results as much, So I can, yeah, review the staff input and Cross check them? Cross check it. And Yeah.

Yeah. I I think the staff input was more focused on kind of the mechanics of the mission rather than machine.

Let's see. I just wanna add on. And staff have been the ones who've taken the initiative to offer in advance given the questions that were raised by the commission, and it's been I think it's been but I I would defer to you for the sessions. Sure.

I mean, from the current policy team perspective, so we do all the leases that we will all our interest is kind of a successful productive meeting. And so if that were promising time on our end with briefings, if it's you know, I

think we're open to feedback and more feedback on the way.

So I think there's feedback given. We'd love to see responses to our questions and memos. Right? We can do that. I believe we'd love to because then we're it's a kind of move things along. That is our kind of chance from my team's perspective. They time, put in extra detail on the memos, do what that Mhmm.

Needed to kind of

keep things moving smoothly. Given, you know, you're working with community, we're active stakeholders, we want people to also be, you know, make sure. So some new kinds of things, so I would say.

Think I had that experience during the that I was had a question about FAR and CNO. And I was just like, I just I want to see Diamond this month. And then I think I came late, and I just, like, have thirty minutes call and just and just walk me through calculations. I wanted to know how it's working. Because I just wanted to have more knowledge, and he I couldn't remember who else was in with it. He just had thirty minutes to call in me and explain to me, and it was helpful for me because I just kind of stopped in it. And I read it and read it, but it was just so much explaining to me and wanting to write.

Yeah. Matthew, we've had some kind shares already in an email and says, hey. What's what's the story here? We usually have a story

to share, so

feel free that you can do that. We were totally.

One thing

I do wanna chime in, we sometimes get these last minute suggestions from folk come public, and sometimes that

are new or at

times have already just been to those. One thing that could be helpful is in doing the meeting just saying, hey. It's something and I

think you've done this a

lot better, especially recently. I'll just say that we had a time to look at this. And sometimes even saying, this isn't really a scope of work, something that that information can do. And we faced this a little bit initially with yesterday in the border, and I think we made a a call then. The people are really sure it's been fine. We saw it a couple times in the hospital, such nice when we set a chamber of. So I think even a bit of a a reaction, okay, can't talk about this, or it's not really considered you to us. Go to the ones from the last minute.

And one other thing I learned when I'm in the chair, I was talking to the kids and thought of that's not always not the benchmark. They reminded me they taught me that when I asked me about, okay. You did a benchmark in Denmark and this and that, I love doing that, but I'm basically adding this to about just talk that it's already defined by a council. Then, basically, I'm doing something that I'm not supposed to do, and that was, like, learning from you know? Like, I didn't know that. I'm asking this question all the time. And I appreciate if the staff tells me, like, hey. This is really fine. It's high to. This is not part of it.

We can take it back and consider it, but at this point, it's not in the scope of this study. It helps me a lot to just focus better.

So at this I was just gonna add something on maps in particular. I find that extremely helpful for some policy specialists that we have. I mean, on middle housing or know, critical areas where we can visualize a little bit more what the policy decisions that we're working on have in terms of the actual impact on all of the city. That that helps me in a big way because it makes it a lot more concrete about the, you know, the decisions, the trade offs, the whole work we're on. So, you know, maps or tables, really super helpful where that's possible to provide.

I think that I feel like I think the gyms to meetings to meet with the especially something complex like

It sounds like it might be useful to spend a a session talking about some of the tools or tactics that you guys would find helpful for the memos or for the presentations. Is that sound?

Can I just ask one more time about the staff? I think he was touching that. So can we have a structured way of one on one degree thing or degree thing for two people if they can have anyway, more has to do that. But for very complex stops before before the actual meetings, can we have more structure? I know we do that, but it's really not a structure to maybe decide. One on one, didn't you?

That's that's something that we can talk about. That was one of the suggestions is to have, like, here's you know, we do briefings at least two times, and you can opt into one of those times. You're right. Right now, what we do is more ad hoc. I send out an email and say, do you want a briefing before this? You know? And then I work with the staff schedules to set that up.

You have, like, an office hours or a good phone? I

can just not let you in if you're the fourth person.

You're late. Yeah.

I mean, I think I'll have to talk more with Anil and Hara about how that would work from a staff time perspective because you guys have very complex schedules. And our schedules are also changing. And so I want to make sure that we accommodate as many folks as possible with the with the the briefings. But there is a lot of support for more briefings, and I think that it does help the meetings go more smoothly. And as Nick said, that we have you know, staff that's what staff's goal is to make these meetings as soon as possible. So Just trying

to reduce the. I feel like that's where everything is going up. Gonna be great.

Having

Yeah.

Yeah. We we can talk about what that might work for you.

I have some suggestion for you guys. Aptive has a really good thing that people can see your schedule. They are saying your schedule. I schedule thirty minutes for you guys. It's, like, literally an option. I can help you guys do that one if you want to call attention that. I Yeah. But you need to design them. Sometimes a little more complex. I have to design them.

Okay.

Yeah. I was just gonna have another suggestion on if if there are any two regularly scheduled options.

You you would just

prebook. I'm gonna be at that one versus that one, and it it's already booked up. But this is an area that I obviously thought we were really cool. So

You weren't the only one.

I see. I see that. And and then I did have a question on a on a. I

have one more about the same while we were talking. My concern is that after we I'm sitting in denial, but after we use

Uh-huh.

Commissioner fairies, we have basically five new commissioner here less than a year and a half if I'm wrong. How how long you have been for a year and a half? Year and a half. So two year and a half to two months, three months.

Five months. Yeah. Five months.

So then you have another one that is brand brand new. So I I and I know you need to talk with team, but I think those are probably done with with this complex topic. I think we should be very careful here. Some topics doesn't mean that. It's going to be super, super helpful for them. And, again, as you mentioned correctly, I think the initial investment in this time has been for weeks seen or your team, But I think the meetings will be smoother. You have less meeting chaos than if you don't have meetings.

Yeah. That was another suggestion was to have maybe a little little bit of a longer onboarding for new commissioners. Like, here are the topics that the commission are currently discussing, and here's where we're at in terms of those topics. Especially

when there are some subject that we are talking about for the last, like, nine months. Right? Someone walk into it, and I had that one with I had that experience with Bill Burton. I walked into the comprehensive plan that people would work in two years. I went I don't remember. 2,000 pages, four weeks. I don't remember. It was so many pages, but it's really intense. Right? But, like, you guys can give it, like, a review of that, and I'm sure in, like, two hours. But for me, it took, like, ten hours.

Yeah.

So my concern would be, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Omar is telling me like,

on the presentations you put together and I thought the way you put together, you know, approaches to things. I mean, I like, the last one we voted on the critical areas, thought that was just an answer. That was really good in terms of the way all the different interests are coming up with something that was gonna be, you know, productive and addressing, you know, comments that we had. It was really good.

So I had made a suggestion, and I've never heard about him again. So it's probably a bad idea, but I would love to see a glossary.

And Oh, that's in here. Oh, it is. Okay.

I just didn't put it on the slide, because I was trying to Okay. Yes. And I'm I

was kinda imagining, so, like, as you do the presentations, you

can kind of do the glossary for that. And then over time, you build it up to

the point, and that becomes like a little maybe handbook for can you

share something? There's countless times that I'm going through, whether it's a memo or a presentation or whatever, and I see an acronym and don't necessarily know what it means. And I can't I'm looking everywhere. I'm trying to pick anyway, I can get one thing up.

Yeah.

We'll be sharing the. I like that running with the. I'm trying not grow up our. I believe it's just that. And our heads

specifically are would really love to get all of the.

And

you know, tools and. One of the things that was created by staff that I was really only for sort of blood raise plans was that we could see the different comments received Yeah. And how those were. And I I for having that for all complex issues and having a review of them being so helpful. I think it gets to some of them being jolly that I'm sure it's just something about it, and I'm just hey.

We've heard that on it. We've addressed it. It's been dealt with them. All hope with with churn. Because it okay. We have talked about it. It has been addressed for the. So I don't know. I can imagine the complexity. I'm not sure I would be able to put that together and then to do it. So don't know if

it's reasonable to say anything.

I can imagine that we can, have a discussion about what you guys have found helpful, and then I can put together kind of a a document of tools that that people could use, for their projects and communicating with planning commission. And then they you know, the project manager can choose the ones that are appropriate to that project. So if it is a complex topic with lots of input, especially technical input, that that is really great.

It really helps. Since you have the red light and you can go, hey. This is aesthetic. There's what we're doing. Right? Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, everybody. I think we are going to have an in 2026, our schedule is not as heavy as 2025. That's what I heard. I'm gonna go have one another discussion to talk about in this survey and the results. Okay. Rebecca Coeurner, development services director, and Nick Wimholt, coden policy director, and Tara Johnson, planning director, will provide an update on building trends in the city and and look forward for the future initiatives.

Okay. Can you hear

me okay?

Alright. Hold

on. We're both good. No. Mary Jo and I tested this, but

I did not. That's to see if I think he would.

Alright. Can you speak?

Can you hear me?

We can hear you now.

Hold

Okay. Excellent. Hello. I'm very glad to be here. I wish it was in person. That there's a couple people I haven't met yet, so hopefully, I'll get to meet you soon. My name is Rebecca Horner. I'm the director of development services. And I love this meeting every year because we get to highlight a little bit of what we do and some of the accomplishments that we have successfully made together. So next slide.

I wanted to talk a little bit about what we have been doing in the last year. It's been a pretty monumental year for us. We have a five year strategic plan, and it was several years out of date. So it was ripe for change in order to adopt a new strategic plan. And so we started that process at the beginning of last year or this year by actually, it was last year, by adopting a new vision statement, which is building the best Bellevue together and adopting a new mission statement, which is also listed here, you know, development services protects the quality, safety, and integrity of the built in natural environment.

We partner to enhance an equitable, inclusive, and livable city for everyone. And the significance of the new vision statement and mission statement is that it reflects partnership and working together, which is something that was not reflected in the vision and mission previously. So we have developed an entire strategic plan with four primary areas. We call it the balanced scorecard approach, but it incorporates all the different perspectives that we want to include in our strategic plan. It's five year.

It helps us feed directly into our work plan, and it we developed a customer perspective through many channels internally to gain customer feedback. And our department is about almost 200 people, so it can be challenging when you're trying to implement a vision like building the best Bellevue together through so many different team members who are individually doing their work every day. So we made sure that as we were developing the strategic plan that we engaged every single one of our team members in development services. And one of the primary criteria before we finalized the entire process was that every person in our department needed to understand or in our line of business needed to understand how their work specifically connected to the vision because it's not helpful if we don't have a 190 or 200 people working toward the achievement of this vision. So next slide.

We are a four department line of business. We take four departments, and together, we implement one line of service delivery. There are some functions in development services that are not part of the service delivery in terms of applications. Those would be code compliance officers, also code and policy. But for the most part, most of our department is delivering app services through application review, helping people work through the development process, either the entitlement process or the actual construction process.

So we've got all the people listed here who help us do implement that. Next slide. Like I said, we're pretty big. So this demonstrates our seven divisions that we have implementing our entire line of business. Those seven divisions represent four departments, as I've said, and all of our team members fold up under these.

So you'll see our land use division, our building division, our business services division, which helps us with a lot of technology and also centralizes some of our customer service and internal service delivery, the fire inspection, fire marshal, the transportation, utilities, and code and policy who you see most often when we have code amendments. So moving to the next slide. Oh, I one thing I do wanna say about the prior slide. The seven divisions are the permit services oversight committee is what we call it. It's one of those crazy PSOC acronyms.

But, essentially, the seven, those are our seven assistant directors and development services that make up our our leadership team. And you might hear us refer to PSOC. You might not, but that's essentially our leadership team. We are as four departments leading as one. So on the next slide, you can see our development activity over the past several years.

And what this demonstrates is that except for a couple blips in 2020 and 2023, we have been on a tremendously strong development cycle. So we've had a very high number of applications and permits. And while we do have some slowing in specific types of applications and permit types, we still have maintained a very high level of activity. And where we would normally see more strong ebb and flow of activity, we really haven't seen any ebb except for those two blips. So you can see on the next slide where the changes have been occurring.

So the the top of the bars are actually representing our major projects. Those are the the things that downtown you see the cranes erecting, and you can see that over time, we've had a reduction in major projects. But what I think is particularly notable is if you look over the last few years, the the bottom bars, blue and white hatch, the maroon, and then the solid blue, those are actually well, not the solid blue so much, but the red and below, those represent residential. So you can see that there's actually been an increase in residential activity over time, especially if if look at that lowest bar. And I think that reflects the city council's emphasis and planning commission helping deliver on that emphasis of more housing.

On the next slide, we have some different ways that you can learn about our current development. These are online. We have a map viewer. We have major project lists. We have permit timeline dashboards that you can look at.

We have an open data portal. You could subscribe to our weekly bulletin if you were not already. We have quarterly performance reports, and we do have a page on the Bellevue development committee, which is our consolidated stakeholder committee that we meet with quarterly and then sometimes more frequently if we have special need to engage with them, and we have recently because of all the code and policy projects. So you can learn more about these on our website. And then on the next slide, we dive a little bit into some of our major projects.

And what we have represented here are downtown major projects and BellRed major projects. You can see there's a number of projects that are in review, under construction, and then a couple in a pre application stage for both Bell Red and Downtown, which are major growth corridors and where we're trying to focus a lot of the growth in the next twenty years. On the next slide, there's a few pictures of projects that are in flight right now. They represent over 6,000 units dwelling units and about 2,000,000 square feet of office space. Pinnacle North And South, that's a pretty significant project that recently received entitlement.

Park Row, you may some of you may recall that a Buttsby Downtown Park, it's they've, it's had its entitlement for a little while now, and I'm I don't know if we know exactly when that's gonna move to construction, but that is entitled. And a couple other mixed use buildings in the downtown area. And then we have a similar slide in BellRed on the next slide where you can see a number of projects. Bridge OMFE is an affordable housing project. If you are in the Bell Red area, it's under construction right now.

I was recently out to the site last week, and they're doing some drainage installments now, but it's framed. You can drive by and see that. And then there's also a a micro apartment project that's, in review. So a lot of exciting things happening. Next slide. So that is the end of mine. I don't know if we're doing questions at the end or if you want to pause. You let me know.

Perhaps we can pause so that we can

ask a question. Yeah. Sure. You can pause another

time. Okay.

Rebecca, would you like us to pause for the question?

It's up to you. It might be easy. I think there's quite a few slides after this. If there are any burning questions, now might be easier to remember them.

I just wanted to add Wilburton. It's not on the major project list yet because that's almost, of of course, new. But I think the commission would be interested to learn that we have two complete applications for two projects in New Britain that has actually burned through the phase one catalyst provision and has started to into the phase two. Which one catalyst provision. So that's Broadstone East, which is on Northeast 8th.

Just here, like, 1 24th And 8th. Oh. Just on that one. Then the other one is KG. So Perception is my And so together, it's over a thousand house that are Wow. And then there are also, I believe, six reapplications for Wilburton. A lot of interest in Wilburton and early interest since this was all just adopted by. Seeing a lot of good progress. Mean, that vision we're

certain to I'm close to this group for sending the recommendation. Yes. Absolutely.

I don't have it because I'm sure you all So

if if the six oh, sorry. If the six three approvals, how many units would that be? I

don't have stats and, of course, but I believe they are all residential.

So 1,040 already six three. Just I just curious. Are they pursuing your or Unit's okay.

Do you think they have, like, 40 on-site and then over to somewhere around. Don't book. Mean, it's fine.

Just just be

I'm serious. Yeah. Well, I

really Yeah. We keep it.

Make a mistake. People want to know it. Yeah. Yeah.

We we can list it as

a question from the commission that we will respond to at our next Yeah.

Good to see how it's.

Any question? Yeah. Go ahead.

It's a thousand $60.70 dollar units that are now under a complete application. 44 And then $2,000,000 in for these two modules. So out of two projects that that they're gonna set, you know, 40, potentially, instead of.

2.8. It's Oh, that's

good. That's good.

Thanks. Sorry for that.

No. Thank you for adding the Wilburton. We didn't have any Wilburton slides in here, so thank you for adding that. Is your question I actually can't hear the quest the audio. I don't know if it's far away from a mic, so maybe somebody could repeat the question.

The

the question is whether the there's a relationship between this slide that shows all of the applications and the issued permits and this slide that breaks out breaks it out, by the the type of project.

It's a just a different metric, actually. So the other one is number of applications, and this is valuation of those applications. So like I said, we have quite a few applications. They're just value they have lower value. So they're not the major projects, but we have a lot of, like, home additions, renovations, smaller projects going on.

And

then this also includes other permit types. So you get a lot of tree removal from this. That was something the commission, and the council voted on was to have a better environment for every tree removed. So that's also adding to some old as well. So I do feel like a breakdown of this for us to make decisions on because we've seen that's an increasingly corporate rules, essentially, what that shows us a little bit of, like, our

it will also be helpful to track middle housing. It's a bit louder.

Yeah. We're gonna be launching a new fermenting for middle housing first of the year so that we can track that better. We have had. Hyper air. But it was closer to dozen. So we are tracking that very I got a long way, but we will be updating her.

I'm really feel like we're gonna have to get a bowl to get out of you. It's

raining. It was

okay. He's not good. It's not good.

Luckily, you are up the.

Should we move forward? Sorry. I just wanna be sure to Rebecca, can you hear again? Okay.

I get I can hear you now.

I think we can move forward. I know you have no problem here. I just now I need to keep up on the schedule.

I'm having trouble hearing the that are on that end that my voice is soft, so

I'm like, you know, I'm here.

I'm not You can stand up.

You wanna

see the

help? Yeah.

Are you able to hear me, though?

I can.

Yeah. I can

hear you. Yeah. Okay. So

Nick and I are gonna tag team. I'll start off with some of our long range planning work that's ahead, some of which got full time more into the commission. Others other aspects will not. But, you know, basically,

commission on data and then interest as

we think the chair said, we're starting to get your seats to be a little lighter for the commission in terms of more program. So definitely opportunities to some learning and education too. So a little bit on community engagement. That's a big priority with the city, both city council, obviously, came up with your survey responses. It's a big of the discussion that you have.

And, actually, at the start of the year, council provided direction as well as the budget as part of the budget process to create a new community engagement team. So that is part of the community development department. So, actually, we need a briefing with council early in 2026. So if that's an interest, it's good to really focus on what some of the focus areas are with that team and essentially to support community engagement to be consistent and fast support citywide with all our various projects.

So, of

course, we're gonna continue on with our new children to take private with great neighborhoods and all our planning activities. Really are using noncultural outreach assistance. We're gonna have more opportunities to do that as well as the metrics, and that's gonna be a big component of community and deviation routine. And now survey analysis price is a big part of some of most of our negotiations, and this is gonna be a big. And then on the regional front, a lot of what happens at the state level and even larger really trickles down a lot than the training mission does.

I know in the past, there's been an interest in learning about what some of the, I guess, some of the bills that have passed to the state legislature. So staff, of course, are involved reviewing legislation that that reached down to work program and. So we're looking forward to 2026. It should gonna be a lot on housing. There's also big focus on life impact and sustainability.

That would be a focus area. We have our ESI team that tracks that post. They actually do a lot of kind of sanitation there. Countywide centers, so that's been a big discussion with what our we keep on target. This is 2026 is a new year.

This is the year when the regional body is going to officially designate all values beyond white centers and all the regions. So a lot of work we put in a lot of work to submit our applications, and so they're gonna be tracking that very sleep. There's also opportunity for us to apply to the case of sleep for another regional foot center in addition to Fountain. So that's something we're gonna start, writing ourselves for. The next cycle will be in 2017, so we'll start some of that. Do we know where we're to? There's been some conversation up. There's a lot of.

It should be something like Downtown Bellevue. Right? Yeah.

It has to have a certain amount of density to the house, housing, access to transit.

Maybe hundred fifty hundred thirty hundred and thirty second and hundred and thirtieth. Those that infection We'll have to figure out

what the right boundaries are. But Thank you. Yeah. And then there's a lot of regional housing monitoring requirements as a result of hospital twelve twenty. And so we've done a lot of that work. Next week's done a lot of that work by. And now the next stage is going to be tracking off that, seeing how our progress we made. That's so this is our email. So Eastgate and Victoria's already where we talked to. Believe about that.

It's launching of city council. So that will be moving forward to the comp plan management process in 2026. And then similar to what we did this year, we'll be doing that same thing with the branch building, Big Hills, and Westlake Savannah should have achieved next neighborhoods that we're gonna start updating the neighborhood. And then early in 2026, we'll be presenting on by with the one privately initiated comprehensive plan amendment. It's been a while since the has processed any periodic update going through our process.

And then we have a couple city initiated CPAs that are gonna be focused on making some changes, minor changes to. So all of that, we probably learned about six. We talked a little about Belgrade. And then we also discussed this as part of the ESI, the sustainable development plan update. And know that came up with some question, I should have done.

Do we have enough capacity in our grid to support all values of growth as well as our transition to electric. And so council actually authorized a study, so that was ongoing and underway. And so we're working on that. I'm not sure that that will come forward to the planning commission, but we may we may do an appointment at some point to just provide results. Affordable housing, similar to the community engagement team, council also provided direction to the and opposite house.

So there's been some movement internally to read that as an organizational study that's underway and, of course, the affordable housing strategy that you see that we've been very boosted on is moving forward that will potentially get adopted as in so that we can see here. So then the next phase is how do we implement all those strategies? And then, of course, housing stability program funding so that we do our annual round of providing funding for housing projects, showing this a little bit. There are a number of different areas that our strategic planning team works on. A number of these things do not per se come to the planning commission because they're not good good amendments or amendments to the home plan, but touch on some of the policy work that we read the foundation for.

So things like urban. Metro site, what we call metro site, the. City So there's been a lot of work on that. The visioning in what's three months to realize on those properties, and that ties in with the newly created newly created about this. So Do you have the option?

You take me along. And then

I was like, the other way.

Projects on things like and some of our other master plans for our various departments in the city. Is another big big one that's just kicked out the master plan from all sets and then some of our transportation. And then PSI. So we have moved forward with the green very close to hopefully having council adoption on our sustainable value plan, which is potentially moving forward on November 18. So very excited about that.

And we just started work on phase two of the Wilburton Sustainable District. And so as that work proceeds and progresses, we need calculate enough. Calculating the operating. So there's some opportunities for just. And then we have our meditation. There's a lot of around resilience, our energy smart design program, and then, of course, we apply with several federal and state. That's the really help us to implement our environmental actions. I think that's the game. I don't know.

Or in past,

are you feeling good about your

decision? It's a lot of

work coming.

K. Also, we've been through it the last couple of years.

Come on. So

just to move quickly through some of the code amendments that you can expect. So as you all are aware, the comprehensive plan was updated in 2024. A lot of big changes happening, so we're still looking at. So we'll be kicking off kind of another round of code amendments to implement how policy work. So institutional zone, this relates to Fellview College specifically. So we'll be bringing that over to you all for discussion. Safe parking. This is relating to our affordable housing strategy updates and trying to formalize the process for state park right now. It's under very special rules. So wanting to figure out a better path with that happening.

Belgrade, Luca, you've got one the commission's got a briefing on this. We'll be there. We're driving towards a first track Luca next month, and then we'll touch and point this to you all in January, but

then we start diving into that.

Downloadability two point o. This is we're calling two point o. This is the first one I've been able to in 2017. So this is an opportunity to look at any implementation gaps between the policy amendments that happened in 2017, what we're seeing built over. And so that'll be a good item to just requiring the receipt downtown. Even everyone's favorite acronym coming up, perhaps the housing opportunities, things are serious. We'll all be having on December 10, hoping to continue moving that along. We do have to get to other things, so

let's keep that with it.

And then the state required updates. We have part of our form here because that's one of the bigger ones, but there are quite a few. But we are going to likely package the state requirements in the bus we've got where we're gonna address some cleanups. We're gonna address some minor state required updates that don't have a long discussion around them, but we just have to do them. There's I'm working on this.

I think we have, like, seven teed up that are just safer. And so that's something working with you all. So that's it. Oh, well, then, of course, you all have worked on the ADU work in middle housing. The next kind of evolution of that alluded to this earlier, we're gonna be establishing a permit type for these house units that can help facilitate the development of middle housing.

And then the council also has this one of their priorities, establishing a preapproved TAU, detached system program. And then at the I believe it was the night they adopted the housing coming package. There was suggestion to add the as well. So looking at establishing a group group program, this house is nice. Just to streamline the.

Okay. This is just a little more than. You will hear plenty about this, but the comprehensive plan was updated. So initially and I think they'll work on this one too in 2009. It was reimagined. And so as part of the complimentary update in 2024, policies were also updated. And the latest estimations were updated as well. So we're looking at greater density around some of the transit areas, just giving you most of all the properties of lift, looking at ways that we can better support housing and and kind

of keep up with some of

the growth that we are planning for. And then we also have established an arts district, the commission will have to wait on what does that look like in the loose code, and how do we start to support some of the vision that is really problem here. So imagine for Ohio land parts and streets are probably gonna be your biggest areas of discussion. So we are looking at we're working with stakeholders. We'll continue working with them. We're hoping the first year out to kind of land us in a good place for you all to then make it working on. True. We'll see. That's it.

Yeah.

First oh, not to the commission. We're gonna be publishing the first draft. In December. In December. For a station. Yeah.

I think that most of them

have a countdown call going.

We'll be dropping in the. And

then we'll come to. Alright. Just give an overview. We're not asking for anything for the call yet. We just wanna get you up to speed because it's stable. Of. I think you know the answer. The interface of it all. Yeah. We're we're, I mean, we're we're optimistic. We've been working pretty closely with the stakeholders, and we are very aware of the issues. And we are also very aware there are a lot of challenges in that. The street grid in particular has been. So Yeah. So we're we're being that's that we can clear that issue,

I think. We need one of those twelve

weeks that we need some one on one. For sure. I'm sure.

You're twelve minutes behind schedule. No. Let me get I'll you'll be watching. It's okay. That's the question. But can we have this PowerPoint by any chance? Okay. I think it would be sent out. Oh, I didn't see that.

Sorry. I think it was. Was sent out at, I think,

about one or two. I missed that. Sorry. Okay. Don't have it. Okay. Should I have questions? Sorry. I didn't know that. I didn't want to put up any question, but there's no question. Thank you so much. Thanks. We will go to next study down your habits, and I have that they'll be by the numbers and Bryce from value to chief demographic. They'll provide a more detailed information in the city of Belfast, which is amazing. I thought a

lot of

that and so interesting. Hey, Bryce. Thanks.

Hello, Bryce. Great job in the program. Thank you. I think I'm meeting most of you for the first time. See you. I'm getting a little bit of a late start. I recently gave a presentation in the style of. She has 20 slides, no more than twenty seconds per slide. I'm notoriously long winded, so I'm gonna try to fly through these. That way, hopefully

That would be great. So,

I'm just gonna show you a different a few different cuts of data about the Bellevue community and how it's changed over the last several decades. Something I think is a nice visualization are these dot density plots. So what I'm doing here is I'm taking the population of Bellevue, where they live. This is based on on census block data, and then coloring the dots based on the person's stated race and ethnicity. So what you can see here is dots about five residents that across the city, there's big pockets of what think of as Bellevue today that are blank.

Nobody's there or at least no Bellevue residents are there. We'll talk a little bit more about that. And the city is predominantly folks that are identifying as non Hispanic white in 1990, so just, you know, thirty years ago.

Yeah.

Fast forward to 2000, that starts to change. Some neighborhoods are starting to get a little more dense. We start to see a few more colors pop out, 2010. And then finally, in 2020, it looks very different. Kind of the two key takeaways are we're seeing some neighborhoods that are getting much more densely populated.

So downtown, for instance, that's now one of the biggest neighborhoods in the city in terms of population, whereas thirty five years ago, that's for lunch. And city as a whole is just getting much more diverse in terms of race. One of the ways that it's also showing up is it's not just the case that it's people of different race and ethnicities from The United States. We're seeing that from 1960 or so until 1990, there's this big growth in both the the population of people that were born inside of The US as well as Orangeborn, which is a Census Bureau of Designation of people that are either born as noncitizens or born to non US citizen parents. But starting in 02/1990, especially, nearly all of the growth in Bellevue's population is among foreign born residents.

The native born population is basically flatlined for the last forty years. So it's not just a case that it's, you know, this race and ethnicity story. It's also, like, literally people of different cultures that are moving here and making their home, and that's largely what the growth of the city has been. Kind of with that in mind, a fun little game I like to play. Does anybody have any ideas about where the top place that Bellevue residents will board? It's current Bellevue residents. Washington State. Washington State. Double one. Yeah.

That's a

little bit of trick question with on top of it. China shut down. But moving down the list, we see some of the the donor countries for a lot of the current residents that you might expect. So India, China, a lot of places across The United States, The US South, where I moved here from. It's very exciting. Choice. More in you than China? Slightly more. And, you know, these data are based on surveys, and these are also data that reflected from 2017 to 2021. 2021.

Or no. This is 2019 to 2023. Sorry. So, you know, there's a little bit of a recency loss of it might be the case that for, like, primarily in the last, like, three to four years, it's been more people moving China rather than India. But at least during this time window, it it was slightly more votes from India than China.

We are not even including that. Like, can read it. Don't even add. No.

So this is where people were born. So people that identify as being of an Indian descent or something. They're not born. That's only a.

So

kind of summarizing all that into three snappy little headlines, Bellevue went from being this kind of sleepy little suburban city to Seattle to now being firmly majority minority of about three fifths of the population identifying as something other than non Hispanic white. Nearly half of the population, and I suspect once new data get released, we're gonna see that continue to creep up higher born outside of The US. And over half the population report primarily speaking to language other people shouldn't know. Something that's kind of interesting to think about is, you know, the way that population that has grown into Bellevue and and come here, the way that looks across the city. So in terms of total residents by neighborhood, we can see there's a pretty vast variation in neighborhoods like Lake Hills, huge geographic areas, lots like historic neighborhood versus a place like BellRed that's primarily industrial.

There's only, like, a few little household developments in BellRed. Not I mean, not little. They they count for lot, but not very many in terms of new numeracy. But, you know, a pretty wide variation across the the 60 neighborhoods in Bellevue in terms of the number of residents. Something I think is kinda interesting between this slide and the next slide is if we look at total households, downtown creates over Lake Hills because downtown has got a lot of, like, small number of people in the households, whereas Lake Hill might be more family households and things like that.

So there's more people in a household. But in terms of just the sheer number of total households downtown, just dwarfing all the other neighborhoods in the city versus some of the smaller geographic areas like Victoria, Belgrade, again, considerably smaller in terms of these metrics.

And why are you highlighting those different colors?

I was just kind of trying to point out a little breakout colors. So we've got our high and our low, and then the neighborhoods that are either currently or on the docket for neighborhood area planning, and then all the other unimportant neighborhoods.

And

and another one, this one, I I thought, you know, for downtown, it it makes a lot of sense. It I can't remember where downtown is specifically. Yeah. So right there next to Bel Red. Very low homeownership in the downtown area versus maybe in some of the historically more single family oriented neighborhoods.

There's a lot more a lot higher homes homeownership rate. Something that I've actually had to double check is I was really surprised to see Bridal Trails way down here. That's because a lot of that multifamily development kind of on the the Eastern edge of Bridal Trails, that accounts for a lot more housing units. So when you add that all up, that looks like it's a relatively low. Something where there's a little bit less variation, but still, you know, meaningful across all the different neighborhoods is in the the rate of folks that were born inside the state of Washington relative to elsewhere.

Again, you know, this is a little bit more uniform across the city just because we're talking about, you know, the half of the city population, but still some pretty impressive variation across. I kinda talked about this briefly with the dot density plots, but I wanna dive in a little deeper because this is something that me as, like, a a new resident to Washington and also, like, new to being, like, the Oracle of things about Bellevue. I didn't necessarily have it the picture in my head, but folks that have been in the region a lot longer, probably this is a lot more obvious for you. But if we go back to the date of incorporation, what was the city of Bellevue was basically downtown. And then over time, Bellevue has really annexed a lot of unincorporated King County to take on the shape that we see today.

It really wasn't until twenty eleven, twenty twelve when the last annexations that were done, and then Bellevue took on its full shape of its current form.

Do you think more is coming?

There is more coming. There's a small little section right down here that's gonna round out this little corner that is currently in in defensive discussion. My understanding is that there's, like, maybe 10 more parcels along Lake Washington that are within our transportation zone?

It no. The those those parcels along Lake Washington are not assigned to any jurisdiction right now. They are also adjacent to Castle.

So they could get assigned

to the Castle instead of. But right now, they're correct.

And then what about that

little parcel down in the Southeast? Is that King County or that part?

So there's there are, I think it's 27 parcels in that area that Bryce was just pointing to that have sent a notice to counsel of an intent to petition for annexation. And so we are working with those owners to allow them to sign a petition, and then we'll bring that back to council.

Is it currently going to King County?

So those so for the most part, all of the unincorporated area that's within the urban growth boundary is assigned to some jurisdiction. And so those 27 parcels is about 50 acres, a little over 50 acres, are assigned to us. There is an incorporated area kind of along Lake Sammamish there. That's assigned to Issaquah. So we're not able to annex that unless there's a change in the King County or.

What about that area? Is that the connection to the Western Island? That's where

That's Beaux Arts. Beaux Arts has no interest in being a part of that. If you have interest in developing providing their sewer, their fires, and leaves. Please, everything. Yeah.

Like, Clark Hill.

Yeah. Medina. The.

I think they're better than that.

So I wanted to dive into a couple neighborhoods specifically that you might notice are, you know, from this jump from 1985 to 2012 are some of the newest neighborhoods to be a part of the city of Bellevue. So going back to 1967, I've got the neighborhood area of Bactoria outlined in blue, and then these little red reddish pink boxes are annexations out of the Earth. So that was the first annexation that overlapped with what the neighborhood boundary for Bactoria that we know it as today. It was 1986. There's a little bit more.

1995, nearly all of the neighborhood was a part of the city. And it wasn't until 2002 the last annexation that filled out the neighborhood boundary occurred. Eastgate's even a little wilder in part because it's a a larger neighborhood, but the first annexation occurred in 1964. There's kind of a flurry in the seventies into '89, getting around the perimeter of it. 2000, and there's

still this huge swath in the middle

that finally in 2012 became fully a part of the city of Bellevue. So something that's kind of interesting to think about is, like, when people talk about the urban fabric of the neighborhood or what Bellevue has done to, like, build infrastructure or walk by connections. I mean, these are places that are rare to literally do parts of the city. So the the opportunity to do those things is considerably less than some of the other things that's processing me that have been part of the speaker at least 60¢. And switching around to jobs, I I spent way too long making this map.

And as I finished, I was like, I'm gonna have 10 bullet points talking about the percentage of jobs that fall into those areas that's gonna look really small on the projector. At that point, there was a sunk cost of, like, building the map. But the idea was to highlight, you know, we have this overall trend line of jobs in Bellevue. So Bellevue, as everybody knows, regional jobs hub increasingly starting to step out of the little brother shadow of Seattle, kinda have its own identity as a a job top for the region unto itself. And that's been steadily increasing over time, but trying to show the ways in which, you know, those jobs have been highly you know, there's jobs all over the city, but there there's specific portions in the city that are absorbing a lot of those jobs.

So downtown, obviously, is about 40% of all the jobs in the city. This I 90 Corridor historically was a big part of that, but with Boeing moving out, a lot of the the tech buildings that are there are currently mostly vacant. That has actually shifted a lot. And I was really surprised actually to look at the we get we help PSRC develop their jobs estimates for Bellevue, and then eventually, they go through, like, a validation process that kicks out their their finalized numbers. And we just got the total employment numbers for Bellevue for 2024 for them, and there was a pretty significant job drop in that 990 Corridor.

That's kinda shocking. It made this area look a lot more like any other scenario.

Pretty wild.

Is it that on mostly the retail parts? Or

Yeah. Retail, but also some of those, like, huge Amazon towers. Okay.

It.

Down there. So, yeah, it's a mix. And, you know, the thing about this that is not really capturing the complexity is these are jobs based on where people's assigned work location is. So in, you know, 2025, the year about where there's so much, like, work from home and it's forms of of office life. This isn't necessarily reflecting, like, people that are going into the office five days a week.

It's just where people are assigned. It's a little bit of a box. Thinking about the top 10 places that Bellevue workers live. So this is people that are work in Bellevue, where they're coming from. The the biggest donors are are folks in Seattle. So, you know, we got a meal over here, cell, commuting into the city, helping to, you know, try to do our best. But, you know, some other big areas, the Homish County, I was kinda surprised to see, but maybe it should have been. Okay. Right here. A lot of other East Side cities.

So this is, you know, like Kirkland, Redmond, Savannah, and just. And then a lot from Cape County, Bellevue, obviously. But something that I thought was kind of interesting is zooming into Eastgate specifically. Clark County Wow. Is the ninth largest donor of of employers, and this is our employees.

And this is part of what I was saying with, like, the the work from home sort of thing. I I sincerely hope there aren't 300 people that are driving from Clark County, Washington to Bellevue five days a week. Oddly enough, I do have a friend that lives in Vancouver that works for a valve company that had losses in Bellevue. So maybe maybe that's what it is, but interesting. And Factoria, it looks a lot like Belle Bellevue as a whole.

Something that I think is kind of interesting is the way that the the different places jump around across the neighborhood. So you can see Pierce County is kind of floating around a little bit. North King County kind of fluctuates slightly. But, generally, across the the neighborhoods, it's it's looking like a fairly similar story. So not like the case that there's some pocket.

It's completely different sort of employment. And then something that I think is, like, a nice way to marry kind of the discussion about jobs and people commuting into the city and a large proportion of the workers in Bellevue coming from outside of Bellevue along with the way the housing has changed, housing has grown over time, is thinking about the way we can look at the median income. So median household income in Bellevue is quite high. It's one of the highest in the nation. And when we think about what that means relative to the supply of households at different economic thresholds in the region, the typical household in King County as well as the Seattle, Tacoma, Bellevue region, so that whole stretch from, like, Tacoma up to Seattle and Bellevue, is considerably lower than the Bellevue household.

So the supply of folks that live in the area and need to live somewhere is considerably lower than those that are able to access housing in Bellevue, which said a lot of things about, you know, the availability of housing where jobs that are close to working work, things like that. And then kinda zooming in to several different East Side cities, we can see even within the East Side, there is kind of a tale of two stories here where some of the South King County East Side cities, Kent, rent and look a lot like the surrounding area versus, you know, what are commonly thought of as a lot of the the more, like, tech heavy centers of of the East Side are a lot of more higher rate. So tell us tell us a story. Here is the This is based on 2024 data. So surveys that were collected from residents over the course of 2020.

So managed has the very highest household income in The United States. It also has, I think it needs to be said, the very highest gender pay gap in The United States. There's about a $100,000 difference between full time employed men and full time employed women in Savannah. Mhmm. So, you know, not not all, like, literacy.

So what's going on in Savannah? Do know?

I don't know. I really am, like, fascinated by these data. And now I've looked at it over the course of, like, three different years, and it does change, like, the number because there's surveys. But Savannah is just currently number one over and over and over again. So I don't know. I would be interested to dig into the data a little bit. I suspect that there's probably, like, a couple uber wealthy households where, you know, it's just the case that, you know, the the the male in the household is earning a lot of money doing something. And I I don't know. It's pretty interesting. What's kind of wild, though, is if you peel even further underneath the hood and you look within industries, that that gender pay gap holds across all industries.

So it's not the case that it's like, you know, men are attending to work in one industry and women and the other. It's even within the same industry. You see this persistent, gender pay gap, pretty well. So to kinda wrap up, my my pasteurized Pesacucha Pesacucha, I tried to find a few over, overlooked videos from around Cloverleaf downtown over time and just kinda see visually what all of this growth has has meant in terms of what people see when they come to Bellevue. And we can see that, you know, by the '19, ease, there starts to be some of the Microsoft towers that go up downtown.

Late two thousands, we can see either a a coastal haze or a fog. You you can choose your adventure there. And then finally into the late twenty tens, the the skyline that looks considerably more like the middle. So close it out, which is some photos from my favorite places in Bellevue and one place that's not currently in Bellevue. I think I'm happy to take questions. I want precious little time for them, which is, you know, potentially strategic.

Is the left one possible? Right?

It is. Yeah. Yeah. Something that hopefully you know about, but if you don't, I maintain the city's community data page. So if you Internet search with all the community data, I have five different data dashboards on there. I just checked. There's 61 different data visualizations covering 92 different topics. Unless you count tables

I don't know if

table tables count data visualization, but if that counts, I got more. But, yeah, there's there's a lot of stuff on there. Hopefully, they're they're interesting. Hopefully, they'd be helpful to learn stuff. If you ever have questions, reach out to me. If you ever say, hey. Your dashboards need to have this, let me know. I'm happy to have it as long as the data exists and the federal government allows me to access them.

Yeah. This is great. Thank you. I love it. Any questions?

Where are the photos?

Well, so we've got we've got the the lovely Mercer Slew here. I spend that's probably where I spend the second most amount of my time inside of the city of Bellevue. Love the Mercer. This is over in the Botanical Gardens, the little little bridge there. That's downtown park. This is technically not Bellevue. That's that's Bridal Trail State Park. However, Bridal Trail State Park is unimportant. So

I don't know.

It might be.

You know? It's outside the urban.

It might It is outside the urban growth boundary. But Sure. Whatever. And this is this is my little Easter egg. My challenge to you is if you if you haven't seen Mac, you don't know where it is, fine. Wow.

Challenge accepted.

I love it. Yeah.

Easter egg, you said?

Yeah.

And it it is in Bellevue, though.

It's in Bellevue. Yeah. It's really close to a place where a lot of people are.

Yeah. It's

downtown. Right? I know where you sit. I'm on the side. Go ahead. Any more question? Okay. Thank you so much. I love the dashboards that you're making. I'm in that phase sometimes, but I'm gonna be there. So I think I'm not gonna go close with any remarks because we probably talk about all the remarks, and I want to have a motion to the month of September. I'm gonna move you up. I'm like, let's let's do this. Okay. I would like to move that we return our meeting. Can we approve the minutes of

the Oh, yes. Twenty fourth first. Yes. I would like

to move that we approve

the minutes of the meeting.

Second. All

in favor? Aye. Aye. And now moment. I would like to I was just gonna put you through the beep. Any follow-up seconds?

Second.

Any discussion? Thank you, everyone. Thanks. Thank you. I I have this discarded, you guys, so you don't have my first email because I just didn't get my account to get cut off and decide.