Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

6 30. good evening i call the meeting of june 4th 2026 of sammamish planning commission into order roll call plays here mike brusco here pseudo is online pseudo here Mazahir Pulwalada? Present. And Ajay is?

Walking in.

Ajay is just joining us. Great. Any change to the meeting agenda? Anybody has any change to the meeting agenda?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I missed, I missed.

Sorry, John Bergman, I apologize. I'm here.

You're so close.

Any change to the meeting agenda? Hearing none. How about the minutes of May 21st of the Commission meeting? Any changes, any notes, any corrections? Hearing none, I assume approved, we consent. Now is the time for the public, we have three minutes to make any comments that you have on non-agenda items. Who goes first?

Hello. I live in Tamarack, and I'm here to speak to the possibility of pushing to unblock the road down there. And I'm assuming some of you know about this issue already. I just wanted to tell you that just today I was driving home with my special needs son. He's 32 years old, big guy, and he... doesn't really understand when they stop us and trying to get home. And it was just a situation where he needed to get home right away. And he knew how long it would take us to get there. And it was just... They stopped me for 10 minutes to try to even turn up of Thompson Road. And unfortunately, you know, they... I got out of my car finally. I said, I got to get him home. I got to get him home. And they were like, so they let me go just a little bit. And then they stopped me again. And then I just told him, I got to go. I got to go. And then, well, he ripped his shirt and was just tearing it to shreds and just really, really upset. And I just told them, I can't get in the car until you tell me I can drive up this hill and to my house. And so I didn't get in until I made sure all the windows were unrolled. And I said, let me know when you're ready to let me go. And they said, well, he can get out of the car. I said, he can't get out of the car. He doesn't understand this at all. So then they finally... let me go and barely made it home. Then he went to his quiet, dark space downstairs just to cool off. But all of that would have been just fine if I could have just got home. And there is another access to get there. And you all know what it is. And it's ridiculous that my family is suffering because of this. And I've spoke to this three times already to the city council. And I'd really appreciate it if you guys I have not heard one single reason why it should be blocked. There's only one person I know of that really is 100% in favor of that, and I feel like it's kind of selfish of them to try to just take away a right-of-way. We all have access to that. We've been driving on that road for a long time. So please... Please please push them. We I even have access to somebody that can take care of it for us, but We don't want to do that until we get the okay, so it's not gonna cost anybody anything just let us know that we can have our right-of-way back and Access the fire hydrant as it should be by law legally and have the right parameters to drive through there, so Please please please do something about that. I mean I've lived here since 1994, and we've never had this problem before, so please address it. I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Who's next? Mary.

I arrived right on time. Hi, Mary Victor Sammamish, 25 years. I also live in Tamarack, but I'm going to ask a little bit wider. I want to strongly bring your attention to safety concerns and for your help to get action, which Issaquah, Redmond, Bellevue, and Kirkland have done for their cities. Emergency response for safety of everything and everyone is number one. fire hydrants anywhere in the city should not be allowed to be blocked no obstructions no obstacles to access hydrants on the roadways to get there also need to be able to access any time access should be unobstructed with no obstacles in the access roads or to the area and without any access restrictions since life safety emergencies might occur at any time on any day of the week throughout the entire year. Quick access means help and services can occur before the problem gets bigger or worsens. It will save lives, there'll be less health impacts, it will reduce damage, and it will stop potentially wider impacts. And there's been two fires in the last three weeks, one by QFC and one on Redmond Falls City Road yesterday. In Washington State, there are rules about don't park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. But in the city of Sammamish, the parking rules do not apply for areas that are private roads, and 20% of the city has private roads. So the bigness of the problem is there's about 2,500 calls per year, but that includes motor vehicle and other category calls. There are 2,300 calls per year for by Eastside Fire and Rescue for emergency medical and with fires whether they include structures or not. Just mathematically if you flatten that it's six to seven calls per 24 hours if you spread out evenly across every night and day of the year. Also typically multiple vehicles will respond like a fire engine, a fire truck, an ambulance, and a police car or other aid vehicle. So you typically need space to work and multiple cars or trucks are necessary. So not parking in those areas is super important. There are also 25 fire hydrants in the city between the Sammamish Plateau and Northeast Sammamish Sewer and Water District. Even if you did one of those or 200 of those, you just can't have them unblocked or not have them in working. And one of the fires that occurred in Redmond was because there was not enough fire flow from a fire hydrant and they needed a lot more trucks. I think four came. And now 149 people also don't have jobs or a place to work. Where I live in Tamarack, the roads are 20 feet wide. There has been new development. Four houses took a really long time to build off and on, and the obstacles have not been removed. In fact, they've actually been added. This makes our roads not drivable. Our through roads don't have turnarounds because they were through roads. They're dead ends now, and there's no way to make a turnaround. 20 foot access wide roads have been allowed to be reduced to just 19 feet or 17 feet, or even as narrow as 10 feet wide. Yikes! While fire department, resources, police, and other people highly qualified do their best, we just can't delay them. Let's open the ropes.

Thank you. Mrs. Jim Bregner, please. Jim?

Agenda item.

Oh, agenda item. Sorry, sorry. Jan Bird?

Also agenda item.

Okay. How about Sue, Mrs. Hill?

Yes, I'm on agenda item.

Agenda item, all the three on agenda item.

Anybody else on agenda?

Okay, because you can sure go first. I don't need to be first or last.

good evening planning commissioners paul stickney sammamish i moved here in 1990 from from the state of montana learned tour for close to 12 years i would spend four to five days a week looking at roughly 25 to 30 houses a day and became really a expert and still am at virtually all single-family and multi-family neighborhoods on the east side. Why I bring that up is I always liked these little connections that were sort of, I'm not going to call them odd in being strange, but just not what you were expecting. And one of the ones in Sammamish is just what they are talking about. When I got here in 1990, I could take that cut through behind and get from Inglewood into, you know, Tamarack. So it's been there all that time. Now, when I was in high school, The high school career fair said, you should be in marketing and you should be an attorney. Well, I never went to work as an attorney. I do some marketing in real estate. But one thing I'll say about attorneys, virtually all cases are based on fact first before law comes. Law comes because of stories. It doesn't come out of... thin air. And what I want to add to that is, in support of their position, the story is it's been open all this time. There's a lot of precedent there. So I don't know who should get involved with this, but I do know that what's going on is not correct and not what has been for a long time. And I had no intent to speak to that, but I've heard this so many times. So now, jumping on to a couple other things. I sent some things in today to you guys that I believe are inspiring and exciting if we understand it a bit, but I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to reach out and see if you'd like to meet, have a cup of coffee and chat. but uh two things one from last week's two weeks ago's meeting i've been thinking it might be interesting to add a supplemental thought on a transmittal to city council as on the 24a docket to suggest that the city council could have the right to add more than a single site land use, only them, with the caveat that all seven have to vote. It might not be used much, but if anybody would need something like that, it could be them. So anyway, I just toss that out there and appreciate the chance to speak. Thank you.

Thank you. Gabriella, anybody online? Oh, I'm sorry. Who? Not on this list.

Oh, I see. Okay, who's next? Sorry about that. Who's going to go next?

This is about non-agenda comments.

Good evening. My name is Karen Walker. I've been on the Sammamish Plateau since 1971. Yeah. I lost my home two years ago in a windstorm. and I'm trying to rebuild it. And I'm here to bring to a light that our home was a little over 1,400 square feet. We're taking it to 23. We're adding 725 hundred square feet. Average home in Sammamish is 28 to 32 since 1990. I'm not a developer. I'm trying to put my life back together. And the affordable housing fee is affecting me financially and hardship. No, my insurance company did not give me the amount of money I deserved. I'm asking the city to reevaluate this. Make me just an average home. I'm not taking up any more density. I'm not adding new units. I'm not building for profit. We're building our home a one One home, not 10, not 20, okay? We are not increasing, like I said, in density. We are not generating a profit. The fee for $34.95 per square feet under the current rules, 1,500 square feet are exempt. Thank you very much. A need for 725 additional feet reaches only a modest 2,300 square foot home. The result is about $25,000. It's not covered by insurance. I didn't plan this for my future. This happened overnight. This is affecting my future for my retirement, my granddaughter. I've been on this plateau since 1971. How many of you guys can stand in this room and say that? I've seen growth. I grew up here. Just not mentioning the temporary housing I had to go through, I've moved four times. The construction inflation is affecting me. permits and regulations and engineer cost is affecting me, these fees become significant, significant hardship on us. Why I would like the city to consider 2,000 square feet to be exempt. 1750 was talked about last time, but I'm still a modest home. I'm still affordable home. I'm not 2,800 square feet or 35,000 square feet. I'm still affordable housing fee home in the city of Sammamish, which to me is still Issaquah. I still remember my phone number. I went to Sunny Hill School. I went to Pine Lake, Issaquah High School. I was the second class in Pine Lake. For you guys that don't know, Pine Lake, the first wing burned down. The first year it was built. Guy?

Well, thank you very much. You're over three minutes.

Oh, thank you. I would like you guys to reconsider it to 2,000 square feet. Thank you very much for your time.

Anybody else that has comments? Non-agenda item. Unfortunately, this one was an agenda item, and we missed it. Anybody else has any public comments that are not related to agenda item? Not related.

We have no hands raised at this time.

Okay, thank you. So we go to agenda item and discussions. We have three different topics to talk about. And first, we're going to be having the staff presentation, and we take it from there.

David and Evans.

good evening Commission David Pyle Department of Community Development with me this evening I have Evan Fisher who's one of our senior management analysts in the department this evening we have a continuation of conversations we've had on three top on two topics one is a new one I think the first I don't know how what the order is we here we have the The three topics are the inclusionary affordable housing fee and how it applies to home additions. The second is rezones, quasi-judicial rezones and when they should be permitted when properties are encumbered with critical areas and what percentage might be appropriate. And third is a proposed amendment to the city's comprehensive plan as it relates to

or regional growth centers and wanting to acknowledge that the language in there is misplaced and that we need to correct that thank you david and good evening planning commission i with that introduction i'll just go ahead and we'll move right to the first of the three issues and chair if it makes sense to you i think we could just do one by one we have a few slides about each and then we'll stop for discussion before before we do that yes uh very briefly though we want to just walk through the history of the topic uh right after we or when we were approaching adopting the 2024 comprehensive plan and the development regulations we as the city thought it made sense to submit a docket request to potentially clean up any implementation things we needed to with the code or um comprehensive plan. So this work falls under that docket item. In February of 26, the council was considering a few cleanup code issues under that docket item and brought these items forward to look at. at least two of them. That's correct. One, there was an additional topic of considering adding large mammals to the species of local importance that issue has since been been resolved. And David could maybe provide a little overview of what that is. But that issue is resolved. On April 14. So the council did ask for further Commission feedback on the criteria for the quasi judicial rezone and exemptions for affordable housing program requirements. very briefly we're just to encapsulate what this work is and isn't it is the council is pretty clear they're looking for issue specific focused feedback on these these issues they're not looking for you know any analysis on the validity of the affordable housing program or the quasi-judicial process they reaffirmed their support for those on April 14th and are really hoping hoping for targeted feedback on some of the the specific policy questions So that brings us to the first, which is critical areas in the criteria-based quasi-judicial rezones. This process is meant to allow property owners to change zoning when certain criteria are met, if they're within the same land use category in the future land use map. It provides the city opportunities for potentially achieving higher densities that could support middle housing development. And as an FYI, a quasi-judicial process is a court-like proceeding. And in this case, is meant to determine if the criteria are met. And it's done by the city's hearing examiner. And actually, I'm going to back up just one second. So the question here, really, the focus of the discussion is on the issue of properties that are encumbered by some percentage of critical areas and if those properties should be eligible for utilizing this rezone process. So very briefly, we do have a full set of critical areas regulations, which are updated along with the comprehensive plan. The three that concern us in this scenario would be the landslide hazard, wetlands and streams. Those three critical areas come with their buffers. So landslide hazard, you need a 50 foot buffer from the top or the toe of the slope. Wetlands would be 50 to 250 feet. depending on the wetland type and the habitat type associated with the wetland and then streams would have a 50 to 150 foot buffer depending on the type of stream and then there's a building set back from all those buffers of an additional 15 feet so those are the protections that are already in place under the code And this chart here gives us a sense of how many parcels we're talking about that are, we think, eligible for the criteria-based rezone based on some of our GIS mapping analysis, and to look at how of those parcels, how encumbered they are by critical areas. And in blue, currently, we're saying that parcels encumbered at least 50% or more would not be eligible for the criteria-based rezone, and that's approximately 176 parcels. Thank you.

I'm just trying to understand the data. So 176 parcels fall under the less than 50%, you said, right? And it's less than 75. Is it 176 plus delta getting 204? Or is 204 the unique number and less than 75? I'm trying to understand. Is this a progressive number? It's the total. Yeah. So each bucket has like 176, 204, et cetera, or it's 176? No, they build on each other. Yeah, they build on each other.

Is that an accumulated basis? That's what you're saying? Right, yeah. It's an accumulated basis.

Thank you.

Good question. this gets us to the feedback the council is looking for the issue statement here is ultimately is rezoning a property that is encumbered by critical areas appropriate and the policy questions are should properties encumbered by critical areas be eligible for this process and is there amount of that property that if encumbered by critical areas and their buffers would essentially disqualify disqualify them from the criteria-based rezone currently the code is set at 50 percent uh the council posed the idea of should we reduce this to 20 percent should it be zero percent and let the critical areas rules govern if they should uh be eligible for the criteria-based rezone or is there some other criteria we should consider and with that i will turn it over to the chair and the commission for discussion okay who's going to start john

So, Evan, in your last point, whether it should be zero, I was just trying to imagine sort of different scenarios here that why should we restrict at all considering we already have very strong critical area protections? And there could be a situation where, a rezone allows maybe one or two more units because of lot line adjustments or whatever. So I think just the fact that we can rely on our critical areas ordinances, the downside might be reasonable use exceptions. I'm getting little tiny nods. And maybe you could speak to that. But I think at this point would be, why have any restriction? That would be my sort of open question.

When you say restriction, you're talking about restriction beyond those that would be applicable because of the guidelines that we have for the natural boundaries and things like that, right?

Right. So the last sentence there, should the amount be 50% current, reduced to 20, and I'm saying given our

um critical areas protections why not just make it zero and maybe staff might have some thoughts on that so would you like us to respond yeah um okay um i just want to make sure there were no other comments on that first um well i have a comment on that so i know i'm remote you might not be able to see me but i can't see you guys while i'm on on the video Is it okay to ask my question?

We can see you. Chair, would you? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. I agree with John on that because if it's 100 acres, right, and the 20% would be whatever, like two acres or something, if they want to build something in there, why should we even restrict that? It depends on the size of it. And if I want to put a shed on whatever half acre, I should be able to do that. I should be able to rezone that. We should give the citizens the opportunity to come to the, you know, judicial process. That's my opinion. Because we are already having the critical areas ordinances, you know, we're not just leaving it and asking everybody, okay, you can do whatever you want to. We're still following those rules. So I would agree with John on 0%. That's all. Thank you. Thank you.

Mike? Mike, go ahead.

Thanks. Thanks for saying that my hand was wasn't sure how that was your work. Hey, I think it's also helpful to understand. And David and Evan, correct me if I'm wrong here. But what happens during the quasi judicial process? And my understanding is that the examiner considers things like topography, the critical areas, access and traffic, the infrastructure capacity, compatibility with neighborhood scale and intensity. So there's other criteria that come into play on whether a person who owns the plot of land and is requesting consideration for a rezone will actually be able to be approved for the rezone. And the critical areas and the protections, the buffers that are around the critical areas are one of those. But I think if we only focus on that, we don't consider the full breadth of the criteria that actually would be considered by this quasi-judicial process. so as i think about that there are these additional i'll call them considerations or protections that we don't have development that is inappropriate whether it's because we've got critical areas that are you know part of that property or you know issues around access and traffic or infrastructure so i would agree with what john was saying for those additional reasons

So these are great questions and great points. I would say if you could toggle back, Evan, to the slide that showed the criteria. One of the challenges here is that we do not want to find ourselves in a situation whereby we rezone a property and then are faced with telling someone that they are unable to develop it and have to do a reasonable use exception. So one of the objectives that we had in setting the rules as you currently see it under gc g2c excuse me um is that um the property is not more than 50 encumbered um and 50 of it's buildable if you will and that the lot size that is the minimum lot size or standard lot size for the zone in which you're proposing to rezone to is achievable. Because what we're trying to do is to not rezone to substandard lot sizes. We don't want to rezone something that then results in us having to grant variances or deviations or where it's really difficult to fit normal development into that lot size, if that makes sense, which is why we included this table here. You could eliminate the 50% requirement and just rely on the table that they have to demonstrate buildable area equivalent to the standard lot size listed here, because that would ensure that they have a viable development area on the property. we don't want to be rezoning properties where there is not a viable development area that was the premise behind that so that would be one option we do have new critical areas rules that meet all the new best available science that is that goes along with them and we do do wetland and stream regulation fairly well we're doing much better with geohazards than we have in the past given the new regulations that we have around geohazards um I would say, though, that in responding to Commissioner Brusco's comments, that the criteria are fairly limited. The original criteria that was proposed back in November of 2024 included some additional requirements related to stormwater and those sorts of things. This is the criteria here that's listed that the examiner would evaluate against. So there is no traffic analysis, if you will, and there is no stormwater analysis. And the argument that the community members that commented on the draft code at the time in November and December of 2024, was that this is a non-project action and there is actually not a development proposal in play and therefore there is no analysis to be done about a possible development proposal therefore how could you be evaluating a potential rezone against the development proposal that doesn't exist So that is one way to look at it. You could recommend to the council that there be additional criteria added here. You could require, for example, that there be a demonstrated stormwater connection so that the property could drain we do also not want to be rezoning properties that are landlocked that don't have the ability to drain the site meaning that they don't have an easement or a right-of-way to drain into so you could you could require that the applicant provide information about viable drainage paths where whereby we could connect stormwater to Another one would be is that the subject site has adequate transportation connection, meaning that it, in some cases, our city's public work standards requires that When you get over a certain number of lots, you have to have two access points. You can't rely on a single road to service the site. So that would allow for that high-level analysis to be done, whereby we're making sure that properties that are being rezoned, where additional density could be added, are... on a high level able to meet our public work standards, meaning that fundamentally, if you need to access points, you have to access points, that kind of thing. Obviously, there would be transportation improvements made that would go along with the project. So we can't always analyze a rezone based on a future project because we don't know what traffic or transportation infrastructure improvements might go along with it. But it is generally seen to be very hard to to obtain a new connection later to a different road. So looking at that upfront might be something important. I'm trying to respond to Commissioner Brasco's comments here, and that would give the community and the examiner some additional requirements to look at and to consider when evaluating a property as to if it should be rezoned to the next higher zone.

Let me just maybe a quick follow-up on that. And thanks for the clarifications, David. And this may require a little bit more discussion and debate than the simple question that we're asked to address whether we've got a 50% or 20%. But what you just described, that it's developable according to the lot size requirement. and a couple other criterias like you know the traffic that could be done easily without like a huge cost and time um you know this kind of criteria that feels far more uh defensible and logical to me than simply saying well let's have 20 or 50 percent is the number that we're choosing I don't fully understand all the complexity that would be doing that, that there's some simple elegance and just saying, okay, it'll be 20% or zero, whatever. But the criteria that you mentioned are those things that really do control the development. So if it was possible to get those put in in a way that was easy to implement, you know, not overly time and cost burdensome, you know, I think that's worth considering.

Ajay? Yeah, I have a couple of clarifying questions on this thing. So the first thing is that, let's go back to the numbers over here. If I had an R1, then what you're saying is that has a buildable area of 43,560 square feet and by more than 50, it is not encumbered by more than 50%. of being a critical area, right? So obviously I would have had a bigger lot that is this one, more than critical than it is. Then I have 43,560, which can become an R1 or an R4 when I divide it by four and so on and so forth. Have I got that number? Have I got that correct?

Yes, however, I do want to highlight that this table is misleading. There is a bit of a drafting error here. That first row, or excuse me, row R1 should not be there because in no instance would you ever be rezoning to an R1. Got it. Got it.

But that's a good baseline for me because then when I make it R4 or R6, I'm able to divide and get to the point. So that was great that it was there. I would say if you're removing it, please just put a note in there to say an R1 would be 43,560 because that's really good. It helped my brain understand this better. That's number one. My question to this is that if why... Let's go back to what Commissioner Bachmann said, which is that why is it that we are saying that it's 20% or 50% and so on when we have already identified this as something that is buildable? Is that because we want to give it a little space? Is there some reason to it?

Right. So there's several reasons for it. The first reason is that although we have critical areas regulations, there's been a lot of study over time by State Department of Ecology about the appropriateness of density adjacent to aquatic resources. So I would say specifically aquatic resources, there is some level of sensitivity where you're generally gonna be discharging water, whether it's through, it's generally treated water that will be discharged to a wetland or a stream, and there is that opportunity for degradation. So by adding that additional layer of protection, you're attempting to move the density just a little further off site from sites that are constrained by wetlands and streams.

But isn't that not the, but part of the quasi-judicial process itself, which is that they're going to help us say that, okay, this is the thing, rather than for us to come up and give a general number of 50% or 20%, which might seem very arbitrary at this point. So I was first of the opposite opinion, but then as Commissioner Bachman said, I started moving towards that to say, hey, the quasi-judicial process is there to tell us this thing, We have an expert to tell us this thing. Why are we giving a general blanket number, which then also encroaches on what the judicial process, quasi-judicial process to do?

So the quasi-judicial process is generally intended to be objective, criteria-based, number-driven, as opposed to subjective and qualitative. So by keeping it in a certain percentage, it is very easy in a binary sense to understand you either meet it or you don't. And that was the intent behind the rules initially. When we start to veer into the land of evaluating things that people might have a different viewpoint on by their own lens, understandably, that that's where disagreement comes into play. So by keeping it very straightforward and number driven, it keeps us away from having the types of debates that tend to lead to more intense disagreement. You either meet it or you don't. And if you wanted us to veer into the more subjective territory, we could do that, and we could try to come up with things like traffic and, you know, but those are all speculative based on a future development that's not even presented yet, which makes it challenging. So what we initially looked at was, first of all, there are, if you go back to the numbers of lots, there are not that many of those in the city that are actually eligible under 50%. If you go up to zero, there are quite a few more lots that are brought into the mix.

But we don't know all the numbers, right? The gentle lady who was speaking was speaking about being here from 1971. I have been here only 13 years and I have seen the city change. I have seen the city change. become very different than the city that I came into. So not too different, but then very different from the city that I came into. So what I'm struggling is that I don't have all the metrics to say that, OK, let's put a really stringent rule, and then let's go ahead and change it, because that seems a little bit backwards. Why don't we start with what, like Commissioner Buckman said, which is to say, okay, let's start with the most lenient one and then figure out if we need to grow this if we have some substantive numbers for it. And that's where I am standing on this one.

And I think that the then council in November and December of 24 heard both sides of that and landed right in the middle. They removed the requirement about stormwater. They changed the requirement around critical areas. We originally said if it has any critical areas on it, it should not be eligible. And they moved that to 50% after some debate. And they had the same conversation you all had, but they found that on balance, we should start with some precautionary principle and that we should try to look for opportunities where these rezones could occur and really try to minimize impact to the community.

Okay. Go ahead.

Dave, I just want to clarify something here. Is the question literally, is it 20 or 50? Or is it open for conversation?

I think whether or not we have the rezone process is not open for conversation. I get that point.

Is the question just 20 or 50 or is it open for a conversation?

From what I understand, it's open to broader conversation about additional criteria.

That's good. This way I can speak because if it's 20 or 50, I'll pick a number and then stop. Because I know that you had a concern that we tend to start getting off what you actually asked us, and it doesn't help you, you said. So I'm trying to just respect that, too. Thank you. The quasi-judicial. It's my understanding is that it's a streamlined process to help people who wants to rezone. Correct? Correct. The alternative is to go through the docket system, which is a lengthy, more time-consuming process. Correct. Okay. I go back to where Commissioner Bachmann started, that we believe that we have solid criterias set in place that if we follow them, we will be safe, we will be in a good position. If I have a process that will streamline and help my fellow neighbors, Sammamish residents, get their homes and their properties rezoned and get their homes built faster, I will definitely support that 100%. One of the reasons I work in construction, I spent the last 35 years working in construction, and we all know how the cost continues to go up. We all come to this, meetings here and we talk about affordability the longer it takes to decide the more expensive it becomes and unfortunately we're living in times when i say it becomes more expensive i'm not saying it goes from one dollar to one and a quarter it goes from one to ten it goes significantly it can kill what you want to do and if we can stream pros streamline it let's follow the criterias that we already have The properties in Sammamish, no two properties are the same. I might have a critical area in mine, and you might have a critical area in yours. And both are 50% of our property. But mine is in that corner, and yours is right in the middle, which makes yours not buildable more than mine. So let's not lock people out. Go with the zero and let the process work its way. I know that you will need to go and change some of your codes, but it will help the public more.

Before I go into my details that I have notes I've written, I just want to understand when you say zero percent, you mean I'm trying to see if there's 100% or 0% in my mind mean the same thing. I'm trying to understand what you mean, because we are going from 50 to 20, which means you're making it less restrictive, right? So you're saying to make it more restrictive. Okay, so you're saying zero is less restrictive, it's the other side. Okay. So here's some comments that I've prepared. And some of them may be repetition of what you guys have just said, but just bear with me. I'm not trying to jump here. So, Continue allowing properties encumbered by critical areas to participate in the quasi-judicial rezone process. I agree with that. And still retain the existing 50% threshold rather than lowering it to 20%. And here's my rationale I have. I believe that a 20% threshold is a little too restrictive for Sammamish, because a significant portion of Sammamish property contains wetlands, streams, steep slopes, buffers, or other environmentally sensitive features. And lowering the disqualification threshold from 50 to 20 would likely eliminate many other viable infill or transition parcels from consideration. So you say, like, the construction would be more expensive. This could reduce flexibility in implementing the comprehensive plan, constrain housing supply, create inequities between similarly situated properties, and push road pressure onto fewer parcels. Existing environmental regulations already provide protections, I believe. Even if a property is eligible for rezoning, development must still comply with critical area protections, buffers, stormwater standards, tree retention, SEPA, etc. So, rezoning does not override environmental protections. Is that correct? So retaining 50% preserves flexibility while recognizing constraint. I think the current 50% standard appears to strike a reasonable balance. Parcels predominantly contained by critical areas remain ineligible. Parcels with developer portions can still be evaluated case by case. As you said, right, different parcels may have different cases. And the city retains discretion to the quasi-judicial process. That's my kind of recommendation and my views on that. Some of it may be repetition of what you guys said, but sorry about that.

So, yeah, I've got follow-up, I guess, after the conversation here. So, Evan, could you go back to the code page? And comments from David, I think, have helped me. No, the one with the actual code language. Okay. So I like the idea. I still like the idea of not restricting anything. No restriction if it has critical areas on it. But David's comment, I thought, made sense in terms of keeping the minimum developmental area requirement because, as you said, the quasi-judicial process is very quantitatively driven and having Okay, I wanna come in with a big parcel. It's got a lake and wetland on it, but it's still got enough that I can go to this, our designation and achieve some housing or whatever. Yeah, this is all residential and meet all of the critical area requirements. That said, then my next question is that Section C seems to imply that the applicant would have to have a critical area study done as part of the rezone process. Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell how much critical area is on the land.

Correct, you would have to have an inventory done that shows boundaries and buffers and whatnot, and it would have to then be surveyed in and you'd have to provide a site plan. A basic inventory site plan, not a project site plan.

Okay, yeah, exactly. But you'd still have to have that critical area study done. So maybe the code language... So if we go towards no restriction Regarding critical areas, but you have to have a certain amount of buildable area and you need to do a critical areas study so we can determine How much buildable area there is Or isn't I guess the thing is to try to avoid one of those reasonable use Nightmares that could come up Is that is that fair?

I think it's fair. There's a bunch of different ways to look at this. And we're really trying to do multiple things here, which is to streamline the process, as was discussed, and to try to cut down on costs, to try to provide for community members who own property here opportunity to develop their property. And most of the applicants that we've had have have been existing property owners for rezones. They might have maybe a developer that's in mind down the line, but they are the property owners that are rezoning. So we're trying to do that, but we're also trying to not end up in a situation where we rezone someone's property or let them go through the rezone process then they end up with a property they can't develop. That's not fair to them either because they've invested a bunch of time and money in the rezone process and now they're faced with the prospect that they can't even develop it. And that's what I'm guarding against is I admittedly selfishly don't want to have to deal with cleaning that up later because we likely will get sued.

can you give me an example of that how can you make such a mistake that you rezone someone's property and then they end up with a property that's not developing at all so the issue there would be is that if we don't have this criteria c here uh

then all you're left with is you're adjacent to the next highest density, right?

But you are not AI. You are a human. You are David who knows all the codes. When you rezone this property, you know the consequences of what you are doing. You could not have done a mistake like this for someone to end up with a property that's not developed.

that's not but if this is criteria based but i still get it you you will still apply this criteria i'll come to you you will apply this criteria but you're going to tell me but if i do all these you will end up with that and this you will have an unintended consequence so and i don't think this is the majority of the cases that you will receive it may not be and i i you know if you wanted to eliminate it completely i i have no heartache over that i am We we see property owners do you know some things that are fairly astonishing?

So, you know, I'm just saying III know and I know we we have talked about this in the past that you see things that I don't see and I keep going back to that. Those are the odds. Those are not the majority of the people those are the maybe one in that's fair yeah i would not disagree with that and you will always have those if you have these rules of you whatever rules you will put you will have one of those people and you know what they say we always remember the worst situations in life i know but but we can't apply those situations to to the general to the overall

Okay, David, I have a series of questions. Question number one, I heard you saying that when rezoning goes through the process, regardless if it goes through the hearing examiner or the, is that the only way?

Or the other way is the docket legislative process, yes.

When you go through the hearing examiner, at least based on my experience, the hearing examiner looks at lots of things, not only the critical areas. You mentioned some of them. You mentioned, for instance, transportation access, land use, easement, stormwater, and so forth. So why can't we quantify those instead of going with what I'm hearing from the rest of the commissioners instead of picking up a number of 20 versus 50? Why can't we put some numbers on those criteria that makes more sense to the public that, hey, if you go through the rezoning, this is the implication of the transportation system. This is the implication as far as the water. This is the implication of the connection and so forth. Why can't we do that?

because most of those items are unit based, based on a development proposal, which there is not one at this point as part of a non-project action.

And for the applicant, what would be the advantage going through the rezoning through the quasi-judicial versus docket? Which one?

Time efficiency. Is that time the only issue? It's also the quasi-judicial process is supposed to be objective, whereas the legislative process can be at times subjective based on political objectives.

And Hisham brought up a good point that you affirmed what his understanding was that 50 versus 20, but there could be your understanding that the council would be possibly by if you go somewhere in between. It's not a matter of black and white, either 50 or 20. It can be basically scaled.

Or it could be eliminated.

Or it could be eliminated. Yes, that's the case.

That's the case. I think the council is looking for feedback on that. They're very eager to hear this conversation.

Do you know where the 50, magic 50 number or 20 number came from?

The 50 number came from trying to balance objectives as part of the November and December of 2024 conversations that the council had on the quasi-judicial rezone criteria.

That was not based on any technical, any...

It was based on, at the time, trying to compromise between different parties who had different viewpoints and identifying that 50% of the property is encumbered. That's a good starting place. We could always turn the dial. So here we are talking about turning the dial.

And when you look at the nearby jurisdictions, how they handle it, the other cities around us?

They all have different processes. Some don't. You must say extreme on both ends. Well, the one that I remember, and I haven't extensively researched all the cities, just for clarity. The one that I remember was, for example, in Bellevue for a period of time, there was a restriction that you were not eligible for this type of rezone if the property was encumbered with any critical areas at all. And part of that is sensitivity of the site. And that's part of the conversation we're having right now is, but I think that Councilmember Stewart, for example, on the 14th made a very valid point that if I had critical areas on my property, I would not be able to rezone. But if I was immediately adjacent to a property that had critical areas by way of a matter of feet on the property line, then I would be able to rezone. So at what point is it really not working for us?

And the other question is that have we had actually a case in the past dealing with this issue?

We do have, I think, nine rezone, six rezone applications underway. And went through the process, no problem? The first one has made it through the process. The hearing examiner did rule on it. It was called the iRide Rezone, and that's actually where this conversation started, was there were community members that have concern about the appropriateness of that property to be rezoned from R1 to R4. and that although the city's regulations do identify wetland stream and landslide hazard areas and associated buffers, and that property does in fact have a stream on it with a buffer, it is not more than 50% encumbered and does have the standard lot size of buildable area. Therefore, it met the criteria. However, the community members that participated in the hearing and provided comment, we're very concerned about the property being composed of an older stand of trees that was fairly diverse, that has a lot of niche opportunity for habitat on the site, and that it might be one of the last remnant land bridges that would connect the upland to the lake across an area that otherwise had been developed on either side, and that the city's standard here was not reflecting the value of that property as habitat, and that we should consider changing these rules to better reflect properties that might be habitat. The challenge is that a property in and of itself that is habitat is not considered as undevelopable. We don't regulate habitat like we regulate wetlands or streams or their regulatory buffers. Instead, we really focus on regulating habitat in a way that is protecting the features on the property that are associated with lifecycle needs of the species that have been identified as using that property. So that's a lot of information. That's where this all comes from.

But at that time, you didn't have the 2050 regulations.

At that time, we had these exact rules in place, the 50% criteria, and we did, yes. However, because habitat is not listed there, we list wetlands, streams, landslide hazards, or their associated buffers, and because habitat is another Category of critical areas which is regulated somewhat the same but differently that that the hearing examiner when reviewing the criteria and making the the objective criteria based decision ruled that the property should be rezoned because it met the criteria and

What do you think about the idea, instead of going with the numerical values, go to maybe back to those specific criteria that we have under current critical ordinance, but add severity, the degree of severity, to those individual items that we have under critical areas? High, medium, low, something like that, you know? So you have some kind of quantitative numbers, but you don't have magic number of 20 versus 50.

Scaled the impact of I think it does again become subjective It is in how you scale it because we don't use scaled. I mean you you could look at habitat rating for wetland The habitat score on a wetland rating form but then how would that be done for a stream because a stream doesn't have a rating form like that and It's really hard to implement. What we were trying to do here is create something that was streamlined and that wouldn't get hung up in an endless cycle of debate about the qualitative components that were subjective and were subject to different perspectives and different lenses that people had when looking at it.

Let me give you an example so we know where I'm coming from. Pick up a steep slope. The degree of a slope could be looked at and measured as far as the

impact as far as the severity and we do 40 slope is considered as regulated there's a number right there there and there's a number with a stream when a stream is um you know a certain type f then there's a 150 foot buffer right but those are all applied through the critical areas regulations and one of the comments i heard here is that why don't we let the critical areas rules do their thing um and that when a development proposal comes forward maybe increase it

Make it more quantitative use that I agree with John that kind of put some numbers into it into the criteria here If there was a way to do that that you all agreed on and we had a majority direction You did give us a numeric way to do that and that's what develop a whole lot size so if you took out the minimum maximum critical areas and required a critical areas study inventory and a minimum buildable lot size you'd have quantifiable data which is what the intent of the table there is right but it would take out the 50%.

But it does address degrees of severity as you, so it is written into the standard lot size.

But maybe expand on this to make it a little bit more palatable to the city council. So we're kind of moving away from the idea of 20 versus 50, but we basically, what is the word that I'm looking for, make the existing guidelines more, not applicable, more, measurable.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking. But yeah, I don't know how that would would look like. I mean, we could we could explore that if directed by a majority.

I want to hear from you.

So I have somewhere in between. Yeah. So I have one small clarification on this thing again. I'll go back to the table and I know you don't like that first line of our one and you want to take that out. But just let's keep that for a second. Right. Are you thinking in terms of, because we kept talking about the quantitative, that is what we want to give to, or the defined one, which is what we want to give to the quasi-judicial process, versus the qualitative part of it. Is there a qualitative part of it if it becomes an R4 versus an R8? and so on is there a component to it which which makes us think that okay i need to now define zero percent or twenty percent or fifty percent because it changes if it were an r1 versus an r4 versus an r8 because there is usage that changes there is a common area that gets used some things like that

so the the primary differences between r1 and r4 and r6 r4 and r6 are really very similar um is that you go is a different level of tree retention requirement so there is more flexibility to develop the property. When a development proposal comes in later, the ReZone's non-project and that enables a development proposal later to be filed for review at the city. When you move from R1 to R4, there's three primary things that you're doing. The first is you are changing the zoning requirements, which include tree retention, hardscape coverage, and density, right? Those are really the big ones, right? So you can cut down more trees in R4, you can have more hardscape in R4, and you get more units. Those all line up because in order to get more units, you need more hardscape and you need to be able to remove more trees.

But we don't tell people, have at it, right? Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah, there is, when you're going out for, I'm not going to let you do something more. We do not. Yeah. So we are already defining over there. So I think we have regulations when we are rezoning between.

well well the this is where what i say is that the qualitative part the the review of severity the real analysis comes when a development proposal is brought forward where there is a high level of scrutiny the question about whether you should be able to rezone from r1 to r4 or r4 to r6 really is about the high level premise of density. Like, should you be allowed to go from R4, which allows 12 units of middle housing, to R6, which allows 18 units of middle housing? Right. So so there's an increase in density occurring, but you can only achieve that increase in density if you can show that you have adequate stormwater, you're retaining the trees, you're limiting your hardscape to what's allowed your four to area ratio and building envelope is limited. You're meeting all the city's traffic concurrency requirements and and building required traffic improvements. All these things come with a development proposal and it is from my experience not likely that they will ever achieve the maximum density granted under middle housing there we go isn't it because we've already defined all of those things so they're not going to do that they're already defined that's what i'm saying is this this is really about a criteria that opens the door for you to jump from r4 to r6 and and whether or not the the property that you're doing it on is at a real high level appropriate to do so

you have water and sewer is a property encumber with critical areas do you have a standard lot size to be built on so i somehow feel that we are we are trying to regulate for the exception rather than the rule and that's what the sean was saying oh my god there we go i think that's the discussion then Because I came to his point from somewhere else.

Well, the buzzword that I saw in a staff report is that I think, correct me if I'm wrong, David, is that the council is looking for measurable, measurable. Now, measurable to some people means quantitative numbers. But you can also... Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. So... Or just removing the measurement altogether.

Well, I'm trying to meet you somewhere in between.

I said that severity kind of, you can measure severity of the- So I just want to be clear that there are varying perspectives on this in the community. There are some members of the community that really like the quasi-judicial rezone. There are some that, it's fine, they don't really see an issue with it. And there are some that have a lot of concern about rezoning and change in the community that might come from it. um and i'm trying to be really careful here not to try to drive this conversation because i want i don't want it to be perceived that staff have an agenda we're really here trying to understand that our comprehensive plan allows this tool that this tool would allow for some additional middle housing to be built in the city. And any development that would happen would have to meet the full range of development regulations that apply to it when a development proposal is brought forward. And that that would ultimately end up with a project that meets our zoning requirements, just like any other project in the city. And there's, again, varying perspectives on how effective those are. It depends who you are and what your experience is.

So David, I'm going to put you on the spot and saying that based on the conversation that we have had so far, what is your taking as far as official position of the planning commission?

I'm sorry. I was going to ask, but no, you can go ahead.

What is your understanding? If I'm reading the room, I'm hearing that we should remove the criteria C altogether, but retain the standard lot size box because that is really the best measure of intensity. You know, that's what I'm hearing.

I just want again before I kind of make my mind up I'm just going to ask a couple questions here as follow-up. So you just say that this Cause I judicial system is in place right now. And I think you mentioned there are six Or seven of them in process right now six five in process one that's been yeah, that's right. So one has been done. Okay Again my the way I think about it is You know the highcroft project some people really hate and I am one of those I I don't want any rules in place which allow something like that to happen that will never happen again in the city I know I know so my again I I kind of I kind of gravitated back to that saying hey would would this quasi judicial process allow something like that to seep through that is my biggest safeguard I'm looking for because you know

We because we did such a good job with our zoning controls when we built out our middle housing regulations, we have a wide range of restrictions that go along with it, whether it's Florida area ratio, whether it's hardscape, whether it's building footprint whether it's um trying to think of some of the others tree retention whether it's our storm water rules that go along with it that these all work together that ultimately drive the the the form of development and when when highcroft was built we had none of those in place we had a five foot perimeter setback and we had a 35 foot building height and you could basically build anything you wanted within that envelope

And by the way, on the record, I'm not blaming, you know, the people who live there or I'm not against it. I'm just saying that's something that is a small project that shows up in people's mind all of them.

So, yeah, it's also a highly sought after community to live in because of the size of the buildings, as I understand it. So there's that, too.

I wanted to apologize to Suda and Mike. Mike, what's your position? And then Suda.

Mike? Well, I thought David summarized it pretty well.

Yeah, same here.

I was I was I would have said that same sort of thing. So he was as best as he could read the room remotely. He did a great job.

So just so that I understand, you're saying we can lose G to C. G to C. And just have the table.

Just have the table. We would retain the table. We would retain the second part. Has a buildable area equal to the standard minimum lot size in the zone, which is requested as provided in the table below. We would keep the R1 row. Thank you. Thank you. I think you made that J very happy.

I would just also jump in. You know, the conversation just now about Highcroft and what has changed in the code since Highcroft was planned is really significant. And I think, you know, as I think through all this stuff, it mitigates or reduces or maybe eliminates concerns I would have about what I would call really inappropriate or stupid development. We've got We've got good codes in place that, you know, meet the needs of Sammamish. And those have been refined over the years. So, you know, when we look more holistically, I feel pretty comfortable about, I think, where we're getting to, at least in terms of what to suggest over to council. And I know we're going to have some continued debate and public hearing on this in the in the future. So we're not quite finished yet.

So do you have all the information that you need?

Yeah, I did want to follow up on that though, because I really appreciate that comment. And I also want to point out that in the, you know, the first 10 years of the city, there were virtually no changes made to the zoning regulations. In the subsequent 15 years, starting out slowly, there were a few, but most recently in the last 10 years in my time here, and I'm not attributing to me at all, I'm attributing it to the community being involved and engaged with the local politics, with the planning commission, with the council, that we have been much more nimble in responding to some of these issues that have come up. And I advocate that community members that have concern about development keep coming to these meetings in order to help inform us of these issues so that we can be nimble and be responsive and make changes.

Can we move on to the second item? Sure. Sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no. So we go into the second item.

Yep. So topic two is exemptions from the affordable housing fee and lieu requirements. And as a reminder, the city in the end of 2024 as part of the comprehensive plans adoption also adopted the mandatory affordable housing program which requires 10% of all new housing to be affordable but does provide options about how that requirement is met including a fee and lieu program. The fee in lieu is required for fractional units, including new development that adds square footage to existing structures over 1,500 square feet. And this was conceptualized as a tool within the city's toolkit to help realize affordable housing and shift land economics. This slide just gives a little context on the projects impacted by the requirements so far and some of the revenues secured from the program. and now we get to the topic slide so the issue statement is are there scenarios in which home additions should be exempt from paying the affordable housing fee in lieu as required and the policy questions the council really honed in on kind of cover two scenarios the first is you could think of as a new build scenario so should exemptions from the affordable housing fee and lieu requirements be expanded from which it is at currently 1500 square feet to 1750 square feet The next would be more around additions. Should exemptions be added for additions for aging in place to provide reasonable accommodations? Should a one-time addition be allowed that is no more than 15% the size of an existing dwelling unit or up to 400 square feet? This was that particular line was provided by Councilmember Stewart to help give a point of conversation. Should there be a greater allowance for additions in the case of a rebuild due to an act of nature or a fire? Or I think it's fair to just ask the question, should additions altogether be exempt from the fee-in-lieu program? And with that, Chair, I'll turn it back to you for conversation. Okay.

Who wants to start? I can go ahead.

Before I go ahead, I just want to know, we had public comment earlier in regarding to this item. But are we having public comment right now? I mean, what is the process? I want to understand.

At the end of the meeting, we'll have. At the end of all the, we're not doing one by one. We're going to go to all three.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Before I start off, first of all, I want to say I really empathize with the lady who talked about earlier from 1970 when she lived here about what happened with the winter storm. I really feel for you, and I think others in the room, too. I'm really sorry for your loss, and I hope you get out of it soon. So my recommendation is support targeted exemptions for modest home additions and aging-in-place improvements while ensuring the exemptions are narrowly tailored to prevent abuse. Number one, on the increased exemption threshold from 1,500 to 1,750 square feet, I would support the recommendation. The rationale behind that is that the existing 1,500 square foot threshold may no longer reflect current construction costs, modern household needs, and inflation in family living patterns. A modest increase of 750 square feet does recognize multi-generational living, functional family space needs, and the reality of home sizes in Sammamish. This adjustment is unlikely to materially undermine affordable housing free revenue. Second point about aging in place exemption. Again, here my recommendation would be to strongly support. This is one of the strongest policy arguments in the proposal, allowing reasonable accommodation for seniors and residents with disabilities. It helps residents remain in their homes longer, reduces displacement measures, pressure, sorry, supports accessibility and public health goals, and aligns with compassionate community planning. Examples may include a first floor bedroom, or a wheelchair accessible bathroom, elevators or lifts, or expanded living area for caregivers. I would, however, suggest some guardrails. For example, require medical or accessibility justification, owner occupancy, and reasonable size limits. Number three, the one-time 15% addition up to 400 square feet. Again, here I would recommend support with safeguards. The rationale being a modest addition allowance is reasonable for growing families, home offices, caregiver accommodations, or basic modernization. The 400 square feet cap is important because it prevents large luxury expansions from escaping fees while keeping the exemption focused on modest additions. Suggested safeguards here could be that it's only a one-time use, owner-occupied homes only, and not applicable to speculative redevelopment projects. Finally, on the greater allowance after fire or natural disaster. Again, here I would strongly support the rationale being residents rebuilding after catastrophe should not face additional affordability fee burdens simply to restore their homes. This is especially important as climate-related risks increase. which is what we saw with the winter storm that we had a couple years ago. Again, here I would suggest some conditions. Replacement structures substantially similar in scale, time-limited rebuilding window, and applies only to involuntary loss events. These are my suggestions.

Thank you.

Okay, who else is going? Ajay.

What was the last, like, phrase that you used only applied to what?

My suggested conditions were one, replacement structure substantially similar in scale. Second, time limited rebuilding window. And third, applies only to involuntary loss events. Thank you. Like the storm, for example.

OK.

Yeah, so I have a couple of points. I agree with most of what Commissioner Panawalla said. I have some things. Suddenly in situations, people reach situations where you might have to make your house more accessible, you might have to do something in the house. which is different from this, or like the gentle lady mentioned, the natural event which caused us to do this thing. Having to go back to where it was prior to this is not a reasonable expectation. We could have had a house which was 1994, looking at a house that is getting rebuilt in 2026. That's more than 30 years apart. I changed my mind in 30 years. The market definitely changes its mind in 30 years, right? So we cannot put that restriction on the homeowner to say that this is the thing. So I would suggest that we probably don't do that The second part of it is that if there is a need to make my house more accessible and to make changes to my house to be more accessible, that should be taken into consideration. At this point, with the general stipulated rule, I find it even less likely that that's the thing, and it comes up with a burden. Like, for example, if I were to say, I'm going to increase the space of my house just because I want to have some space for a wheelchair, because I'm having an elder family member come into my house, my mother or somebody else come into my house, there is already a burden on me. as part of a familial unit which is what a bedroom community like sammamish is known for and on top of which if the city says oh no we have this restriction to do it that becomes another problem um i would rather not like the community to have to face through that situation where it goes through that requirement. So I would say we should get rid of that. And the third thing that I was going to say is that I don't understand what the reasonable accommodations is for aging in place, especially because what is reasonable to me is not reasonable to even my wife. So I really doubt if we'll find a good measure of reasonable accommodation, and we'll be back here saying, oh, whom do we go to? Is it a quasi-judicial process? Is it not a quasi-judicial process? So I would say that if we were going to do it as to aging in place, let's define it as aging in place, or to say that we're making it accessible and leave it at that, and not make it reasonable or unreasonable and so on and so forth.

So I do want to highlight just because the term came up that reasonable accommodation is a specific legally defined term in our code and it is generally subject to medical providers note as to the need. So what happens is somebody provides a letter from a medical provider and they are granted the exception based on that need. And there's some federal law around that as well. So we are obligated to allow for that flexibility. They're not required to get a rezone. It's a fairly simple process. They are required to provide some... personal information that is always not the most pleasant to provide. And generally, as you said, in those instances, they're not really, they're not really doing it for a happy reason. They're doing it out of necessity. Um, the aging in place one, I heard the term, um, not a senior. That was, I think, John, you, you offered that, um, that if maybe it's offered for seniors, um, And if we defined that, if there was an aging in place for someone that qualified, that we would then allow that to occur. That could be the guardrail. So that's one option. So I'll stop because we haven't heard from everybody, but I wanted to identify that reasonable accommodation is a legally defined term, and we do have a process in our code already for that.

I can jump in.

Go ahead. I'm going to ask the same question I asked from before because I attended the City Council meeting and I know you asked the City Council to be very specific to the question to us because we can go off track. Is the question 15 versus 17 50 or can I talk? talk definitely talk is that what what what we're what we're not tasked with doing is is question going back to the policy premises program going back to but even the 15 versus 17 I remember you asked city council to be very specific to the commission otherwise they will keep debating among themselves I attended that I I logged off I think after 11 p.m. so So let's go back to this. Whatever we end up deciding, it needs to be the same across the board. Like he said, reasonable accommodation, I know it's a legal term, I know you have to use it, but we need to define it. Should there be a greater allowance for additions in the case of a rebuild due to an act of nature or fire? If I look across there, this is open for debate and this is open for legal issues. 1750 and 1550 are not reasonable and are not realistic in today's terms. If we're gonna lock it, my recommendation, 3,000. That's the reasonable minimum, in my opinion. You can tell me, nope, that's okay. But in my opinion, 3,000. Again, let's not design these codes to protect us against the very few that they abuse them because they will still figure out a way to abuse them. But let's help our fellow residents, the people that I keep going, that they made Sammamish, Sammamish that we live in today. Like she said, she has been living here since 1971. She earned a lot of credit for Sammamish. For what we are enjoying now, she did that. She's one of those that did that. Like the people that we talked to that they live down the street here. We live here, we enjoy this because of them, because of how they protected it during the last 50 years. The least we can do to them is, Allow them to rebuild their lives and to keep their lives in the best way. Not limit them to 15 and 1700. That's World War II area sizes. When people are coming back from the war and we were trying to build homes for people to start their lives, but not in today terms.

So I don't know that those two are... directly connected so what i'm going to explain that is the the the in i like the term involuntary reconstruction thank you for that so when when when a homeowner is faced with involuntary reconstruction they are allowed to under today's rules they Rebuild with the the current size home that they have and they are not required to pay an inclusionary affordable housing in Luffy Right if they are enlarging it above 1,500 square feet Then they are required to pay per square foot above 1,500 square feet That what one option would be under the involuntary construction component to not require any fee at all There are so few of those in the city and not set a threshold and say that if your home is destroyed and you are going through involuntary reconstruction, you're given a pass. And that was where I think council member O'Farrell landed in her guidance was that she felt like really this is a totally different topic. When someone's home is destroyed and they're reconstructing it, they should not be. And we have so few of these that it's not something that really impacts the program. It's a completely different topic. That was her perspective on it.

Can I ask you a question on that? Let's say that my house was burned down and it was 3,200. Are you saying under the current guidelines, I can reconstruct it up to the square footage that I had before. You're not allowing any additional because I'm exceeding the 1750?

No, you can build more, but you are then, so if you built, if your home was 3,200 square feet, under today's rules, you would be able to reconstruct the home at 3,200 square feet.

But then pay extra for the extra square feet?

But if you wanted to go to 400 square feet, 4,000. Sorry, another zero. If you wanted to go to 4,000 square feet, you would be paying $34.45 per square foot on 800 square feet.

Okay. What is the policy right now?

That's the policy right now. That's the policy. You won't pay the fee right now.

Right now.

You won't pay the fee if you're building back.

In that example, I paid the difference for that 400 square feet.

Again, I'll make it real easy so I get the numbers right. If your home was 3,000 square feet, and your home was destroyed and you were doing involuntary reconstruction and you were rebuilding it back as 3 000 square feet today then you would not have to pay any you would not have to participate in the city's inclusionary affordable housing program if you were enlarging the home beyond 3,000 square feet, whatever size, we could say you're making it 4,000, then you would be required to pay per square foot on the difference above 3,000 square feet at a rate of $34.45 per square foot. So in the case of smaller homes, now we have many smaller older homes in the city that if they were destroyed and they were going through involuntary reconstruction and the same thing i told the council is that i've also come to understand that it doesn't make financial sense to reconstruct at that same smaller size your needs are different than they were then you're you you you would lot you would not Voluntarily reconstructed exactly how it was unless maybe you were completely enamored with the building mom But it's unlikely and in which case you are plus it's not financially responsible to do so with a small home in today's housing market you would build it back as an asset as an investment into Your life and you would put it back in a way that matches more community trends and what's being built in the community so On the one hand, you could exempt it altogether, and those are so few and far between, they would happen maybe once a year, maybe once every two years, you get one of them. Very low number. Not an impact to the housing program. from my perspective that is the cleanest way to do it it at someone who is in a most stressful part of their life going through something that is horrendous that i that i would never want to go through they're not it's just one less thing for them to worry about they can come in and go straight through permitting rebuild their house you know voluntarily reconstruct their involuntarily reconstruct their house

By the way, Evan, you had the chart showing that the $34 that we have in Sammamish, do you have that chart showing what is comparable rate in the other cities? I asked you to bring it in.

Yeah, I do have it. I will just remind us that it's really not relevant to the conversation, but as a point of information, I can go to that slide because we're not talking about the fee amount. That's not what the council asked us to focus on. It doesn't apply to any of these? well the fee amount is set and we're not we weren't asked to debate the fee amount but as an fyi here is the slide with other jurisdictions affordable housing fee dollar amounts

And just to be sure, this really varies because of inputs, land economics, other costs that go along with that. And it's going to vary location by location based on housing markets, based on land values, based on other factors that go along with development. And there is a model that was... used to generate this fee and was used to generate other cities' fees. I think Kirkland's missing. Newcastle's about to adopt one. So there are other fees missing from this table.

And how often do you update this?

We just adopted this in February of 2025, so just about a year ago. So we're not due for revisiting this for a bit of time, although we would like to reconsider this probably on a five-year cycle, somewhere around that time frame.

Thank you. So just in that table that Evan was just showing, or this one that Evan was just showing, it said 3445 for new units of 1,500 square feet and additions. So if I had a home, just to keep our example, I had a home of 3,000 square feet and that got burned down or something happened with it, and if I brought it back to 3,000 square feet, I'll pay $0 because I've added zero. but if i make it 4 000 square feet i'll pay for the thousand square feet at 34.45 correct

that's correct and and this is this is where you know when when the sham was talking about the if you go back to the the list of questions these are all they're all related but they're not directly related but the one for example the the involuntary reconstruction one is one that i think you all could talk about and come up with something pretty quickly on The one up above about whether or not the exemption threshold should be raised from $1,500 to $1,750 or even $2,000 as was recommended, and we've heard others say $2,500 and Hisham raised $3,000. There's a wide range of options there, and those really drive housing outcomes in the city. And I will say that the purpose of this program, the affordable... inclusionary affordable housing program and specifically the in luffy component of that is not to collect money that is part of it but the purpose of the program is to serve as an incentive as a carrot and a stick and and another tool that we have to really work on getting smaller units being built in the city that the challenge we have as a community is that by and large we've seen i've seen a shift in my time here where we've gone from 3,000 square foot homes to 4,000. Now we're, you know, in the 5,000 to 6,000 square foot homes. We've got some 10,000 and 15,000 square foot homes in the permit process right now. And the sizes just keep going up and up and up.

There will always be those that will build the 10,000 and the 20,000, okay? There are people smarter than me who can afford those. The majority were the 3,000, 3,000, 2,800, 3,200. There will always be the mix, and it's good to have the mix. We don't want them all to be the same. But at the same time, I heard council saying that this is a way to preserve those older houses. With all due respect, I disagree. This will not preserve them. This will just make someone angry, and they will pay the fee, and it will make it very hard for them, but they will do it. The way to have an inventory of smaller houses, let's encourage the middle housing. Let's encourage more of those. Let's build smaller, newer houses. But let's not restrict people with penalties.

So I think that's what the 1750 is intended to work on. So we've been working with master builders and with the building community. And we have heard from them that it is a very viable product to build a three-bedroom, three-bathroom home in a 1750 space. We don't charge a fee on... unconditioned space. So you could have a flex space like an art studio or a workout room or something that's considered as unconditioned space. We don't charge the fee on garages. So you could end up with a duplex that has a four-car garage, two and two, with two 1750 conditioned space units with a flex space. And that is a product that they think that the community here, that the market here would sell.

which is completely okay, and we want to see more of them. But those that they want to build the 3,000s, let's not penalize them. Because at the end of the day, this program was supposed to be towards developers, so that when they build 10 units, they give you the 10th one and they keep nine. And it's shifted to individuals, that there's no way that they can give you an affordable unit. They're building a house for themselves. Let's not make it that hard for them. Let's give them the 3,000. If they go with the mansion, if I'm building a 10,000 square foot, I'll pay you the penalty, I won't care. Because at that level, It's pennies for me.

So I'd like to jump in and go through the list. And we've still got Mike and Suda to go to. I'll try to be brief. I'm fine with the 1750. And in fact, I live in a house that's smaller than that since 1990. Lifting the... Any limit on the involuntary rebuild, I think, is a wise choice going forward. And then some of the last ones, the aging in place, you didn't tie in implications of an ADU. So if you came in and did an ADU for aging in place, you could add, what is it, 1,500? 1,000. 1,000. And that would be exempt. So there's some subtleties in here that haven't been played out too well. Not that I don't have any solution to that, but I think the ADU aging in place thing and accommodation, the reasonable accommodations obviously you've got a defined process and ADA kind of implications there. I'm good with 1750 elimination of any sort of rebuild fee for involuntary stuff and maybe sussing out the aging in place and... Reasonable accommodation.

So John are you saying if my house burn I can rebuild it to 3,000 without any fee Exactly, but if he if his house is in a very bad shape and he wants to tear it down He cannot build to the 3,000 square foot That's not fair I get it that if mine burned, it's, I don't want to call it unfair, but it's my bad luck. But if his house is in a very bad shape and he's rebuilding it, he and I, we are neighbors. Why I don't pay and he pays? He's rebuilding it because it's in a bad shape. It's not because he just likes a fancier house. And that's why I'm saying increase it for all the disability. If you become disabled and you need to accommodate a disabled person, 400 square foot will not do you anything. Between storing the wheelchair to the bigger room, to the bigger hallways, to the bigger bathroom, to the bigger everything, to the bigger ramp, 400 square feet will not do you anything. That's why I'm saying, take it to 3,000. Allow everyone to go there. At the end of the day, how many smaller houses are in Sammamish? The people that they build 3,000 are the people way younger than me. Those are the people that they want to start families. And those are the people that they don't have that much money. They will probably build it themselves. Like the guy who came here last year, and he said he's building it himself. Those are the people who need the 3,000 so they can raise their kids. And let's make it easier for them. Our schools are running out of kids. Let's make it easier for them to come back, to start families here. You told us here that the peak we are seeing now in the schools, it's three years and it will be gone. Why will it be gone? Because there are no younger people. Because why? Because they cannot afford it. Let's make it affordable for them.

because the community is aging out. So one option, again, I'm just trying to add some options here based on what I'm hearing is you could, per the last question, choose to exempt additions altogether. An example of that is, after all the great work you did on impact fees, city council recently adopted the new impact fee code and the new impact fee schedule and one of the things that's included in there is additions are exempt from paying impact fees so in line with that you could be consistent with that and say that additions in the city regardless of origin are are exempt from paying an inclusionary, from participation in the inclusionary affordable housing program. But again, I go back to my construction background.

Many times it's cheaper to demolish and rebuild than try to fix.

So, so add another one that's, that's all new starts are, only new starts are required to participate in the inclusionary affordable housing program. No, no, I'm saying they do not. What I'm saying is new starts, meaning not a tear-down rebuild. New start, vacant lot, construction, multiplication, new units, all those would be subject to it.

But then you are only limiting it to someone going and buying an existing house. But if you gave me a piece of land and you told me to go and build on it, you're telling me I have to. That's why I'm saying 3,000, one that fits all, and we move on. Otherwise, we're going to split hers. It's just going to, we're going to get into a lot of different scenarios that we won't be able to cover.

But Hisham, the problem with doing that is, if you understand the spirit of why this was put in place, was to encourage, like, as David's pointed out, right? If a builder is building a home, he's building 10 homes, we get nine homes he sells at market value, and that one affordable home, we're trying to get out of it, right? So there's a number that the council wants to achieve, and there's a financial burden behind that number that we need to achieve. So somewhere that money has to come from. This is one way to get that money. If you take it from $750,000 to $3,000, that amount of revenue now you can get through that , whatever. now goes down because you've increased the number to 3,000, right?

I really struggle to understand how keeping it at 15 to 17.50 versus changing it to 3,000 is suddenly going to cause that revenue gap that you're talking about. I think that comes only if there is a new construction. That kind of spawning comes with the new construction, and that's where we should look for that.

No, but he's saying not just for new construction. He's saying for every home that gets built, new, redone, if it's up to 3,000, you don't have a fee.

Yeah, because after 3,000, sorry to say this, but after 3,000, if I'm building something over 3,000, I'm building it for vanity. That's a different concept, right? So to keep it at 3,000 is fine. 1,500 to 1,750, today, in many cases, that may not... be a feasible one. That's number one. Number two is that this is not going to have... I really struggle to understand how many houses, how many such things will come which will help us fill that gap of the revenue that you're talking about.

So, Ajay, if you look at the new town center, townhomes or whatever is being built, they are under the 3,000 square feet. Now, we would not get any revenue out of that in all those new homes that are just being built right behind the street here, right? Remember, he said the goal is not to collect money.

Yeah. That's where we started. The goal is not to collect money. It's not the only goal. Oh. It is. But he also said that it's... Again, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make you... But he also said... You also said that for the ground up new, I think you used a term for that, right? Ground up new construction and all those things. And it's understood. You want to build it at that and that's fine. But if I have a house and I'm trying to make it to 3,000, keeping it at 3,000 is a much more reasonable one to work with.

I'm okay with it, Ajay. I'm not okay with Hisham saying it applies to all, even new construction. That's where I am. If I have an existing home, like Syed said, if I have a 1,500-square-foot home, and now I find it's very small, I want to make it 3,000 to meet the today's standards or whatever, okay to get an exception. But if I've got a lot of 10 acres lying around out there, I'm building 30, 40 homes or whatever, and they are 3,000-square-foot home, and you just give me an exception. No, no.

If you are building 40 homes, then every 10, you are doing the 10%. That's different. I'm talking about if I'm building a house for my family. Oh, single home, okay. All my conversations about an individual. Because you said blanket, okay. So you're saying only for single. I'm not talking about developers at all.

Okay, then that's fair. Single, the blanket for single. Sorry, I missed that point. I thought you said for any new construction, sorry.

I want to give a chance to Mike and Sudha. Mike, do you have any comment or question?

And I thought you were going to call on Suda first. Suda, Suda, Suda.

Because her screen went black. No, because her screen went black. That's why. She's back.

I've been here, Chair. um so for the developer building in sammamish so this is new construction which is what i think the first bullet is referring to uh i like that 1750 and you know the master builder supports that and it um it supports making it a little bit more affordable to build a somewhat smaller unit or smaller home. And so it moves things in a direction that we want. And so that's new construction, developer-led. The others, where I've been at in the past, I think, you know, probably not too different from where Hisham is. I'm a homeowner. It's my property. I should be able to do what I want. um and you know without paying those fee in lieu however um there is that concern that david you know we met and did a prep meeting um i guess yesterday uh and um What we don't want is people just really expanding beyond all belief, even if it's their property and all of those kinds of things. So, Mazzi, you had some wording when you went through each of the bullets that provided some... I guess, constraint against the rampant, I'm going to make this huge mansion to add on to the house I have. So anyways, where I'm at, definitely we should... Eliminate the requirement if there's a rebuild due to an active nature. I struggle a little bit with the exact wording we should have if I'm doing an addition, whether it's to accommodate aging in place or other reasons for wanting to do an addition. um but i would like to see us enable that without the fee in lieu up to some point and maybe it's 3 000 square feet or mozzie if you had some language that helped to put some guidelines on that i think that would be helpful okay

Thank you. And the first one, is that for the only developers, not for, you know, individual people building houses?

that would be considered a developer so you know from our perspective and the way rules are applied is it's really hard to differentiate between someone's um you know standing as whether they're an individual or whether they're you know we can't control that so we really try not to get into the business of judging whether someone is putting on the hat of a developer putting on a hat of building their family house because we've seen those hats change in the middle of the process.

Gotcha. Okay.

I'd say that's more the norm.

The developer is more the norm? Okay. Well, I do understand Hisham's concern about, you know, if it's an individual resident doing that, you know, we are going to charge, especially after Karen Walker talked in our public comments, I was calculating that was exactly coming around $23,000 for her. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. So I'm okay to change that to $1,750 to $2,000. And I'm even okay with $1,750 on the first one. And the second one with the aging people in place, I'm good with that because we should support our seniors. And the third, I'm okay with $1,500. I'm not even sure about the 400 square feet. You could get barely an office, maybe one single bedroom with that. Should there be a greater allowance for additions in case of a rebuild due to an act of nature or fire? Yes, definitely. In that case, Karen Walker, who came to the public comment this evening, I don't think she needs to pay anything extra or does she need to pay because she was at 1700 square feet and she's trying to change it to 2200. David.

Yes, that's the current situation. And she has a building permit and she did pay all the building permit fees as well, as well as hiring an engineer to redesign or design stormwater and all the other things that go along with designing a home. So there are quite a few costs that they have had to account for in the redesign and reconstruction, involuntary reconstruction of the home.

I think I already gave my summary.

Okay, I have a number of questions. Question number one. First of all, I'm comfortable with the first bullet, and I kind of take the same position that somewhat close to what Hisham was talking about. Probably we should be increasing the cap from $1,750 to $2,000, possibly not necessarily to $3,000. And the second one, exemption for addition for aging. There is no reference to addition in square footage. Do we want to leave some numbers there or just any size? When you say addition, what is addition?

So that's the question posed to the Commission. What does it mean aging?

What does it mean aging? I'm 30 years old and I want to age in this place. Aren't we all aging? I'm aging. How do you define aging? You don't have to be 70 years old to call to be called aging I'm telling you what you are putting yourself for legal issues That's why I'm saying make it one size that you apply to everyone. Otherwise, you're gonna get into lawsuits People are gonna say I'm 30 years old and I'm aging I want to age here Writing it currently is one size.

It's 1500 and

So anyway, that's the question. The third, one-time addition allowed. One-time addition allowed per parcel or per applicant? Which one? Per parcel, which means that once somebody get it, no matter how many owners come and buy that property, they cannot come and- I guess it depends on how restrictive the commissioner would like to be. What is the policy right now?

do we have this we don't have I mean this is a new potential addition that doesn't exist yeah we we do have this in many other areas in the code for example with relationship to critical areas buffers and an increase in impervious surface in a critical area buffer a property is allowed a one-time thousand square foot expansion into a critical area buffer, there's an allowance for that for existing development. So that's an example of how this currently is applied in our code and other categories.

So how are we going to leave that? Just leave it the way it is?

Hisham's proposal was across the board if you raise it to 3 000 square feet this would no longer be it would become moot because you've now raised it to 3 000 and simplifies it yeah yeah I bet you many people they won't even go to 3 000. probably most of them they will end up about the 2500 themselves what would be potential implication if that is a position that we're taking

And I realize, and Hisham is absolutely right, there are always, no matter what the rules and regulations are, people find to go around it. But don't plan it for exceptions. So what would be potential ramification if you go with the one

Right. The implication would be, well, I could start with the effect that that has on land economics. Now, it is somewhat diminished by keeping it at 3,000, far better than 4,000, because one of the challenges with land smaller units being built is that according to builders that i've talked to and i actually met with a broker this morning that was telling me the same thing is that as long as the larger units are predominantly what the market is bringing land economics do not support land values do not support construction of smaller units and that as long as the city is is not trying to pull back on the size of the units being built Builders are always going to chase square footage because that is what can get them the maximum return and when more and more square footage is built then the land values go up along with it and that is really the biggest driver in whether or not market affordable housing can be built.

Is that our motivation here?

that is one of the things that this is trying to achieve. So one other thing to keep in mind, and this is a bit complicated, and usually when I talk to people about it and have the time to explain it and talk through it, not in this type of setting, they usually walk away understanding it. But from our perspective, The way our rules work together, whether it's our middle housing rules, whether it's the inclusionary affordable housing requirement, whether it's our other zoning controls, whether it's our allowance for the rezoning that we were just talking about, is we have what I call the housing ecosystem. And the intent there is for us through a series of rules and sticks and carrots for us to try to push builders into building more smaller middle housing types that are seen as market affordable. Market affordable middle housing, from what I understand, is really in the three bedroom range. And that is what we've been working with master builders and some of the builders in the building community to try and understand what is the square footage requirement for building a three-bedroom townhouse unit, duplex, triplex, whatever it might be unit, is how much square footage do you need to do that? um that's where the 1500 originally came from we're hearing now after we've we've worked through some possible projects that 1750 is really the place to be and what that does is it is it promotes the builders building smaller units. So if you were faced with, as a builder, and this is what exact conversation I had with the broker, is if you were looking at building a 5,000 square foot new home as a custom home builder, or you were presented with building the same 5,000 square feet in a triplex, which you're allowed to do in Sammamish, but you didn't have to pay the in lieu fee, that might tip you over the finish line in favor of building the triplex with the three units. Whereas if the in lieu fee was not there, you would be tipped in favor of building the large 5,000 square foot home. So this really is a deciding factor when when they're modeling these costs and looking at the bottom line Builders are taking note of these fees and they are a determinant about how they proceed to move forward with different housing product types So in the other words if you go along with what I'm saying that go to the 3,000 Do you agree that that would actually?

uh reduces the time and makes it much easier for the applicant to go through the process

No, I wouldn't say that. I would say that what it does is it changes the whole dynamics of land economics in a way that would probably land us more in the duplex category. 2,500 square foot duplex would become the product that they might look at as compared to a 5,000 square foot single family home because they still would be subject to paying the fee at the 5,000 square foot level. It really depends on the product. And the challenge there is that 2,500 square foot duplex unit is probably not as market affordable as a 1750 triplex unit. So what happens there is we're not pushing down into the level that we understand There is really more of a community need for entry-level housing, whether someone wants to downsize, whether someone's kids want to move back and buy their first starter home. That's really what we've heard about over the years that we're trying to achieve.

But David... Hey, Sean, can I interrupt for a second since it's 8.30? I move that we extend our meeting. I'm going to draw a line in the sand to 9.15. I second.

All in favor? Aye. Seconded. So if I go back to my thought, David, developers will pay the fee. We can pretend that they won't. They will because they have an avenue to pass it to somewhere else. The individuals will get burdened with the fee because they don't have anyone else other than themselves to pay it. So, $2,500, $1,750, $3,000, the developer is not eating that cost. He's passing it.

Not going to disagree. I'll go back to what Commissioner Hisham used as an example in this thing. If I'm trying to build a house where I'm not 30 years old, and I'm trying to age, and I want to have much more accessible... This one, I'm not thinking of a duplex. I'd like to have a bathroom or a room in the... same floor that I'm in, wider doors so that I can have a wheelchair go through and all of those things, that's the individual. And that's the construction that is happening for the individual. And you are ending up charging for that individual a lot of money which is intended to discourage a builder from building obnoxiously large homes. So what I would say is that 3,000 then is a good number to go with to say that even then it doesn't look like you need it if you're trying to build something for yourself. But at the same time, it gives you that much of grace. And yet, if you're a builder, your hunger is not going to be satiated with 3,000 anywhere.

So you will end up paying for it more on that.

So that's how I walked back into what Hisham was saying.

I have been here for 10 years, and I've seen how market prices go. Developers, whatever they put, people are going to pay for it, because they don't have an option. So they will pass it. You will take the tenth one. The remaining nine, they will take the value of the tenth one. They will spread it, and they will sell it. People will still buy it, because they don't have another option. Let's not make it harder for the individuals, because we are trying to stop the developers from doing what they were doing.

So Mike, Sudha, do you have any comments on what we're hearing? It looks like there seems to be support at least on the subject as far as going from 1750 cap to 3000 cap.

Well, in my mind, $3,000 is actually luxury. It's a huge house. $1,750 is for the starting small family. That's where I started with my two boys. So $1,750 to $2,000 is more reasonable than $3,000 from my perspective.

Mike?

yeah i think um from what i understand in terms of the motivations uh and hearing from master builders as well that that 1715 makes sense uh for that new construction that's right yeah 1750 is fine

Well, I tend to agree with the 1752. So at this point, it looks like that if we vote, it would be three to, no, five to two. Five to two.

You guys should have sat on this side of the room.

Not tonight. Do you have enough information and direction?

I think the first one and the second to last one Yeah, we we have information on and I think we can move forward with that. And again, that's a dial right that could be turned but I think his Shams proposal as I understood it was is if you went to 3000 then the second and and third bullets would be moot because you have already achieved that but in but if we're if we're sticking with 1750 which for the purpose of the program that i am tasked with implementing and as i understand it what our obligations are under state law under hb 1110 um 1220 sorry um we we we do it's this is really challenging and i you know i'm not gonna i'm try and pretend that this is not an easy task to just solve. I understand all sides of this, and I agree with largely everything that's being said here. But I think that if we're going forward with 1750, We also need to understand whether or not there should be some form of exemption for additions. So, you know, for example, you could say that you just focus on the third bullet that that there be, you know, a one time addition be allowed no more than you could set that as you see fit 15 percent of the size of the existing dwelling or up to 400 feet.

i think there were some good good comments that were initially raised um as part of this conversation also also remind you of my question that is that one time or parcel one time for the life of the parcel it doesn't say that one time what that's a good recommendation well we could add that So which one would you like to see? No, one time per parcel, one time per owner.

Oh, one time per parcel or one time per owner. Yep, got it.

Well, I can argue on both sides.

It should be per parcel, right? It should be per parcel. I think that's what the recommendation is. It should be.

Right, and we do have other rules in the code that already mimic that, or operate under the same lines. Let's be more explicit, right?

Okay, how about the bullet number two that Hisham McCain was very passionate about, his definition of age?

Sorry, if I may, I know you guys had a different view on the first bullet. If we want to reach a compromise, if we look at bullet number three, if that number were to be increased for the one time to kind of meet to somewhere closer to 3,000, because right now it's at 400. So if you're going from 1,500 to whatever with 400 square foot exception, you're only reaching about 2,000. If you made that number, instead of 400, say 1,400 or 1,500, then you would kind of reach to the 3,000 level, wouldn't you, for the one time?

And that's a great point that you mentioned. Sorry, Shyam.

I don't know if you wanted to... And that would achieve what you guys were trying to achieve here, basically. Yes, I understand. I thought of that.

But then I thought that would mean a 100% increase. If I have a 1,500 square feet house, I'm actually doubling my house to 3,000. And I didn't know if that's a good message to pass, where we're saying that we're increasing for this thing.

I'm just trying to reach a compromise here to get to his 3,000 number.

It's good, Mazi, that you are thinking about the compromise. But again, remember what I was saying to Dave. You are opening yourself for legal challenges in court. Because now I can go and double my house, I won't pay the fee. His house burned, he won't pay the fee. His house, the aunts ate it, he needs to rebuild it, he's paying the fee. my lawyer will go and sue you, will go and sue the city. So why can't he use the point number three and build it? Because he's demolishing his house. He's demolishing the house and rebuilding it.

Oh, it's not an addition, that's right. Okay.

Yeah. That's why I'm saying make it one for everyone. Make it the same number for everyone. You're going to say, okay, we will make it 1,500. I'm going to say, I disagree, but there's nothing I can do.

on a slightly different topic on the second bullet um my thought would be to remove any wording about aging in place and just leave reasonable accommodation because there could be interpretation well not no no but he said that there is a code there's code around reasonable

Yeah, there is, we already have a whole chapter in the code, a whole section on the code on reasonable accommodation. But remember, now my lawyer is already involved.

The moment we start wanting to interpret these legal terms, my lawyer is already involved. Do you think he will walk away with just one meeting with you? He won't.

Yes, Sean, I'm trying to make the second bullet more flexible.

I know, but I'm telling you, we are putting the city at risk, in my opinion, and I'm not legal. The city has legal who can advise on this.

But the city already has that in the code. What the code exactly says?

I haven't memorized it, but I tried. It's somewhere along the lines of that someone who has a reason for themself or their family to modify their home in a way that would accommodate their needs shall be allowed to do that. And I think it comes from federal law and ADA. It's based on ADA. It's based on ADA, but we are far more flexible in that regard. We've had multiple cases in the time I've been here, whether it's a dock on the shoreline, whether it's a home next to a wetland, whether it's a four area limit that needed to be expanded. How about my four dogs and two cats?

Those are my companions, and you need to be reasonable to accommodate them.

All the family members are defined under federal law, and there is a reference to federal law, and there is a lot of case law on this as well, as I understand it from our legal counsel. So this is not one that really makes me worried about liability. It's pretty tested water for us.

So another compromise, John, on the word for aging in place, if you were to just say seniors, and I'm assuming that there's a legal definition of what senior, what are ages. So Ajay, at 30 years old, you're not aging in place, as you mentioned earlier. But it's like, what, 60 or 65, whatever that is. Then it becomes more quantitative versus the same aging in place. Is that something that, John, you think would be a compromise?

Well, I think you'd almost have to separate bullet two into two parts, one for the senior and the other for the reasonable accommodation. Because they could be entirely different.

I

I was going to ask, David, your legal counsel has reviewed what these reasonable accommodations are, right? So we should be clear on that. We should be good to go.

Right. We usually route a reasonable accommodation request to legal counsel, and then they review the documentation and then basically say, yeah, this meets the legal test of a reasonable accommodation.

So, I don't know, is it not codified to say that this is Section 3 or something like that?

We could just list the section, you know, reasonable accommodations as allowed under 21 and so forth.

No matter what the city in here does, it doesn't meet those requirements. Those requirements, one is density, the other one, full access to the comprehensive transportation, public transportation. We don't have any of them. So no matter if it is under the system or not, we don't qualify for it. The idea, correct? Mike, Sudha, any comment about the regional center?

No, it's right to strike it. It was a mistake to have it in.

And I think formally, Chair, we'll have to take this action at the public hearing with a chance, you know, so we appreciate the eagerness to check one off the box.

Hi, my name is Jim Wagner, and I'm an example of your discussion on exemptions tonight. I used to live in some Amish back in the 90s. I got transferred away and moved back to be near my grandkids. Ten years ago, I bought a house down at the base of Inglewood Hill. It was built in 1953. When I bought the house, I thought it could be remodeled. Builders come in and they say, you got to start over. So I'm going through the process right now. I want to build, I'm 72 years old. I want to build an age in place house. I want to take the 1400 square foot, put a second level on it. to do that?

I've been in my home for 27 years. It's a tri-level. It's 2,350 square feet. And I've got toilet and laundry seven steps down, bedrooms and the other bathroom seven steps up. So my thought was, why not build on a bedroom as well as a bathroom that also is big enough to have a laundry facility? Do that on the first floor. And I don't know whether I need 400 square feet or 500 square feet, but it just seems like there should be some flexibility there, and that should be exempt. And I won't take any more of your time, because it's been running long.

Sue Hale?

You work hard at this, and I thank you, David. I really, really appreciate your advice and wisdom on all of this. So I live right next to, excuse me, right next to the I-Ride parcel. So we went through the first instance of the quasi-judicial review. was a very turnkey process and it sort of completely removed the quantitative criteria that incorporates that bigger picture and it seems like a life and our environmental aspects so by streamlining for developers this do a hey this if this is what my current zoning is and I want to use it this way and then they should be able to draw it and they need to go oh we'd have to take down that whole row