City Council - workshop

myself and the other coaches to see how they react when game time comes. I mean, we have a group of what are called gamers, and it's exciting to watch and be a part of it.

Our goals are to show up every day, work hard. We all have the same goal, and it's winning state.

Obviously, the goal is to win state. We know what that looks like. We know what the competition is out in state. We knew it last year. We knew where we had to be. We just fell a little short. But those games at state, they come down to the one player. They're always close games. So that's our goal. To get there, though, there's little wins along the way, and there's a game within the game that we talk about all the time. So that means we're not... Thinking of really, you know, tomorrow, we're thinking of today, right? So today we're preparing as we need to for our games tomorrow. But the focus is on today.

Kids have been pretty excited for a while now. Had a pretty good season last year and returned most to everybody. A lot of them have been working throughout the whole entire year with their travel ball teams or just workouts and things like that and they're just pumped and ready to get it going.

I feel like our strength is like how we're so close to each other and how we like no matter what we always overcome and we're always like having fun together like it's never anything bad like I feel like we always play good and like whenever we are just having fun together basically.

The strength of this team is definitely like our friendship. Just us like using our personalities and just like mixing them together really works well.

We've got two amazing pitchers. Both play at a pretty good travel ball level and for it pretty solid all around for the most part. I just got to get out of their way and let them play.

We have a lot of good power hitter and contact hitters combined. Really just having those mixtures really makes sure we get on and start scoring more.

Really, we just kind of want to work hard on playing together. You know, we've been fortunate enough to get to state every year the last four years. A couple years ago, we won a game at state against a really good Redmond team. So realistically, I think, you know, the kids are really aiming on winning one or two or more games. Obviously, you want to win the whole thing. And we have the talent and ability and mindset to get it done. We just got to, you know, make things happen.

I've Hope we can win districts this year and have like an undefeated season. That's what I'm hoping we can do, which would be really nice and stuff. And obviously go to state and compete like two days there the whole time.

With the returning kids that we've got coming back, it's just they understand the desire to compete day in and day out and the desire to be better.

I just love the friendship part because I feel like softball is really good, but this is just like, I'm not going to remember if we won or lost in 20 years. I'm going to remember the friendships and the bonds that I've made throughout the season.

One, two, three.

I don't need to tell anybody here how important the Richland Public Library is to the city of Richland. It's a gem in our crown. I'm sure everybody saw the news recently that we got voted the best run route in the Ironman triathlon, and I suspect that part of the reason we win stuff like this.

Clock isn't right at 6 o'clock, but my phone is right at 6 o'clock, so let's get rolling. Welcome, everyone, to the workshop meeting Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I always love these meetings because they're a little bit more casual, and we can visit with one another and chat and catch up. So thank you, staff, for being first agenda of the 505 SWIFT property discussion with Mike and Amanda. Yeah, okay.

Well, I have the pleasure. Thank well, thank you mayor members of council I have the pleasure of bringing an update on the 505 Swift property, which is the former City Hall site across the street we have prepared a little bit of an update and kind of a where we've been and what some potential kind of next steps would be and So we started advertising the property shortly after we remediated the former facilities in February of 2019. We went through an RFQ. We did an RFP. We received several proposals over the years up to at least COVID time. So in 2019, 2020, and we received several calls and inquiries, at least two project presentations. We had probably six to nine proposals. They were reviewed by committee at different points in that process and nothing really met what the desire of council was at the time or kind of the intended vision for the property. And then it was a little bit Then when COVID hit, the conversation around potential city facility came up, and so it was taken off the market to kind of ready the site and also determine what the best use for that property would be long term, whether it was police station or some other use. And so during that time, we had done some outreach and kind of studies trying to get some input from the community, which I'll talk about in a second. But one of the key features is understanding that there's two properties here and the property is actually divided up and so the main 505 property and the annex building were on the yellow parcel and so that kind of identifies the area which most of us are covered in grass and that's what we think of as that site and then just south of that on the blue is where the current police station sits. And so the conversation probably needs to be had as to whether or not when this does go out to proposal or for proposal in the future, if we want to do that as the one site, which is 2.8 acres, or if we want to also include the other site south of that and kind of make it one contiguous development and what that vision would look like. So this is intended to kind of start that conversation, get the vision juices flowing and kind of get everybody thinking about what you'd like to see there and what the potential for the property altogether or divided would be. And then of course, south further of that is gonna be where John Dan Plaza sits. So you'll kind of see that connectedness there and probably some complimentary uses would come to light. So this is where we got some community feedback. We went out to social media. We've done a national night out. I've used several different media to try to collect some ideas. And of course, there's the usual options of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and the things that we would all love to see. And then there's also something fun to do, mix of uses, obviously some sort of density residential, kind of activate that corner and get people out walking around. Other things like a zoo and a small modular reactor were proposed for that site, which are probably a bit of a reach, but interesting conversation nonetheless. So also peaceful outdoor space was mentioned several times in many different options is what that looks like. Kind of gets you thinking about what could be seen there by our community, which gives us the gamut for the most part. Like, anything goes is, I think, the messaging there, but probably most realistic, some sort of a mix of uses. Commercial development likely on the ground floor when we say mix of uses, some sort of residential units up above. multiple floors to take advantage of the new zoning amendment we did for building height, likely structured parking is probably a part of that mix, and then, you know, some sort of outdoor connectedness with our new loop project and all of those main street amenities. So just to give you an idea, the process for an RFP, we typically go out to market with a three week to a month opportunity for developers. We would propose in this case to market it pretty widely as far as at least the major cities, journals of business, probably leave it open four to six weeks just to give people time to prepare a really thoughtful presentation. and then get those proposals in, review them to make sure that they kind of meet what we believe to be the minimums that are required and hit the goals for the site, meet the zoning and land use type things that we want for design, and then also market it on the open market so that we can get those proposals in. The benefit to doing it this way is you get several proposals for a project to review and compare against each other, whereas if we were to advertise it on an open market setting with like a real estate sign out on the property, you typically are more susceptible to local buyer and you're going to get one project in at a time. And I think we've always had that, well, but what if there's something better? And then, but what if there isn't? And so when you look at them one at a time, that kind of bears a different decision. So that would be something to consider but this would be the process we would at least propose the onset and then should we not receive any proposals that are liked by the committee or council then we could move to marketing it for some time like we've done in the past. So we did have real estate signs up out there for some time and again the proposals that were submitted weren't really what we were looking for at the time. So the vision that was presented, and these are just images from all over different cities, but kind of creates that urban walkable feel with kind of that mix of uses. Some are two-story buildings that typically has the commercial in it. Sometimes they're up to six stories. So of course that's going to be based on whatever proposal that we get, but definitely leaning into that mixed use, the density, creating that walkable, livable, vibrant downtown that we've talked about in our strategic plan and many other places. Connectivity and making sure that there's a flow between the pedestrian uses and the multimodal access that we'll have with the loop, connectedness to the park, those types of things. And then making sure that our design standards are met for are building codes and things that, you know, are making sure that your HVAC units are hidden and that you have back of sidewalk development. So a lot of those walk up stoop type of frontages so that you really feel connected to that main street. So this was the vision that we've used previously. So we would propose something similar but would be interested in kind of entertaining what council sees as a vision or has as desires. We would propose probably timing it with the completion of the loop project only because a lot of businesses that are going to want to locate within the commercial portion of a mixed-use development are going to choose their location based on traffic counts and access points and those types of things. And so doing that ahead of a really big construction project is probably a little bit risky as far as value and interest. And so I think that once the project is done and you've seen those outcomes or is at least close to being completed and they can start filling those tenancies, I think that's where you're going to get the best outcome for the project, but of course open to suggestions as well. And so real short presentation from me this evening because I think the feedback and questions from you is where we'll gain the most but also Open to whatever I can add Thank You Mandy councilmember Holton When is the loop scheduled to be completed? It'll be 18. It's scheduled to be an 18 month project from the start date. So depending on when that is It should be 18 months after that

Councilmember Meyer.

So I would prefer that we wait until the police station is removed and then do this as one big project with both properties. Because I think if we do it one at a time, you have less cohesion between that and I really like the idea of a more of a walkable parkway type mixed use area because we have the federal building parking lot and city hall parking lot right across the street here and I think that could get a lot of use out of that and Because at the parkway, the three margaritas gets a lot of use. Their parking lot gets all you use during the farmer's market. And I think that we could do the same thing over here. Use a lot more of this parking lot that doesn't get, that usually is very vacant during the day. And also encourage more walking and biking because with the one-way couplet project being completed, hopefully we're going to encourage more walking and more biking. And so I think that that kind of a development could not only encourage that but attract more of it. So that's kind of where I'm standing on it. I do want something to happen here because this property being vacant in the center of town has been kind of an eyesore for a while. But I would rather wait and do something right than do something right now.

Thank you. Now, Council Member Meyer.

I completely agree. I don't want to unless there's a specific sense of urgency for a particular reason, I don't want to rush into developing half of this property when the southern half has John Dan Plaza right on the other end of it. And so if we've got them both, we've got the parkway into John Dan Plaza into this area as one nice And I'd also, can you go back to the one where it had the yellow and blue? Yeah, that one right there. I would respectfully submit that we do not need additional parking. Structured or not. I mean, that's a lot of asphalt. There are nine buildings total on this picture. Not counting the part of the hotel down there in the corner. But I just think that there's so much parking all the way around this. combined with the fact that there's lots of in-angle parking at the parkway and the fact that the downtown loop is going to have on-street parking, if I'm not mistaken, as a feature. So we're already going to be enhancing the parking on top of what's in this aerial image. And it would be great if you could park there or further south and walk both through the parkway and whatever this development becomes. So I think we've got a lot of infrastructure in place here that could make the sort of thing Councilmember Whitten was talking about work really well for us.

And I was thinking the whole thing as a parking lot would be ideal. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just saying that for your benefit.

No building height limit. High rise.

I do appreciate that the city has invested to put in grass in the meantime. It looks a lot better than it could have been. So thank you for that. And I agree that having one large site would give a potential developer more options. Just curious if staff has discussed at all an expansion of John Dam Plaza. Does that seem like the right size? Is everybody happy with where it's at and the space there? Or is there any desire to see it

Expand for some reason well, I would defer to Chris, but I have We did get some feedback that you know additional open space and outdoor amenities were preferred But no one really said anything specifically about extending the park to their defense though The police station being removed wasn't an option at that time. So it's probably not something we've really vetted to the public and Could be definitely on the table Okay.

Councilmember Van Dyke.

I agree. Let's be strategic about how we want to do this. I'm not sure that it's an assumption right now that we'd take the police station down. But the other part I want to bring up is at some point, Station 7-1 might come into play. And that's a whole other chunk of property that's kitty corner, adjacent, whatever you want to call it. I mean, it's right there that if we're looking to do kind of a master plan, if you will, I'm happy to leave a beautiful lawn over there for a little bit if we can have something that really adds to this idea of a destination for our downtown. Now, that being said, Mandy, I think you know this city pretty darn well and probably have a pretty interesting vision. What's your dream?

Well, I suppose if we have a Dreamer hat on, we talked about it briefly today. I would love to approach somebody like a McMinimins to do a combined development on at least the fire station and perhaps connected to the 505 site. And exactly what that looks like could be different. But a campus feel or even a hotel restaurant amenities, they often have movie theaters and, you know, not only hotel, but they've had some residential incorporated into them. So I think there's a lot of options to pursue there if that's a thing. We've also had a lot of developers from out of town interested. So I think the definitely a mixed-use campus, perhaps some sort of an amenity on the fire or on the police station site to utilize the park. And so I think something of that nature, but if we were to remediate the building, I think you're going to get that anyways. And so whether it's, you know, used to accommodate some residential adjacent or do another kind of extension of the parkway, I think would also be really neat, but with residential above it.

It almost feels like we could book in Trax D&E, the park, you know, if we're doing something there, can there be a similar vein on this side?

Yeah, I totally agree. I would really want to see whatever gets proposed for any configuration of these parcels to have residential. We're missing out on a huge opportunity if we leave that off. That close to the parkway, the John Dan Plaza, the river, I think it would be a big draw. And I really do think that while we're still moving forward with police station replacement that I think that it would the longer we can wait before moving on this north parcel until we have some clarity about the disposition of the southern parcel the more options we're going to have which means the more options potential developers will have I'm not in a massive hurry because that particular parcel is going to be prime and in demand right and that's not going to change whether we put it on the market the day the loop is built or we wait six months or a year to get the southern parcel in line or even wait until station 71 is ready for redevelopment as well so I think that there's never going to be any harm and with this specific parcel into delaying things now having said that I'm interested in mixed-use development in this sector sooner rather than later. So it is something I want to pursue. But I definitely think that... You mentioned RFQ and RFP. In my sector of this contracting world, we also have RFIs. where you put out information, I'm sure you already know, but for those who might not, you put out a request for information, whereas would you prefer to develop this parcel, or would you prefer to develop this parcel with this other one, or, you know, and it really helps you gather feedback from potential bidders to decide how to dispose of things like this, how to handle one of these going forward. And I think there might be some value in that as we get closer to market because I definitely don't want to leave cards on the table like you mentioned with the maybe there's something better. I think we can take our time and do that legwork, find out what the better is. and then then make that decision but without a super compelling proposal that's in a big honking hurry I would rather see this whole stretch this whole block developed on Moss as as an extension that flows into John Dan Plaza and also the parkway that's all yes city manager Robinson

Thank you. I just wanted to speak to a couple of the items that have been brought up by council. And to the point on no urgency, I think that a number of council members have mentioned we agree with that. We just wanted to make sure that council knew that in our strategic plan and as we look at the opportunities in downtown that it is not something we're asleep on, but we believe playing the long game will be the best option for the redevelopment of that. We also agree that not only the development of the loop or the completion of the loop, as well as having a conclusion, if you will, on what the police station location is and having that will be more attractive to developers and the feedback we've received since we put it out for the first time is, gee, it would be sure nice to do something that flowed right into the park. And so they saw the station as a barrier between something that could integrate really well for the entire block. And so that's something that we think will be more attractive once the police relocate Councilmember Whitten mentioned the Three Margaritas lot. And I just get a little defensive not of what he said. But oftentimes, for those that don't know, the Three Margaritas lot is owned by the city of Richland, what's commonly referred to as the Three Margaritas lot. That's a parking spot that we have. that's often seen as parking for three margaritas in front of their restaurant. And so it does get used quite well and is a benefit for the parkway development and so forth. And then the only other comment I wanted to make was with Councilmember Meyer. Appreciate the aerial of the amount of parking that surrounds it. However, one thing that we have seen in the RFP process, when we've gotten too prescriptive, say, if one of the requirements were no parking allowed, that that has limited the number of proposals received. And so what I would suggest we do, and again, we can revisit it when it's more time appropriate, We let the market dictate based off of the type of development that they're proposing. And then we look at the overall quality of what's proposed, whether it includes parking or not. But agree, there's definitely parking well represented. The challenge is a lot of it is under private ownership that we can't, or the potential developer can't say, well, you can park here because it's not under their ownership. It's just a comment to consider.

Thank you. How many acres are we talking about?

I was in the process of doing that math for you, and then I didn't get it done. But I do know that it's 2.8 acres for the yellow site. It's probably close to five, John said. So if you combined both sites together, and then I'd have to look to do the math on the fire station site. But it's a lot larger than you think.

OK. Thank you. It feels like we've got a lot of agreement here.

Yes. It's nice. What about the other parcel where the old hotel used to be? Is that city property? That is now city property. Is that part of the plan too?

That would be part of a different plan, but yes. So we do have that in our inventory of properties that would eventually go to market kind of as the conversation for facilities within the city evolves. And so that's another candidate parcel. They're using a portion of that for the loop. So again, kind of an important step to take and make sure that we reserve all the right-of-way needed for that project out of that parcel, see what we have left, and then we can take that to market as well. And the one next to the theater, is that private property or is that city? That is private property. There's a group of five gentlemen that own that property, or at least when I last checked. And they have had a couple of different iterations of development. They've struggled to get themselves organized. Parking was a restriction at one point that's no longer a barrier. So I would expect we'll see something from them in hopefully the near term. Thank you.

Thank you. Good discussion. Do you feel like you got the information you needed? I certainly do. Thank you. Oh, one more.

One other comment that I had just to float it out there is if we're talking about waiting until possibly Station 71 becomes available as well, that could also be used as parking. if this off-site that would be concentrated and centralized you could put a parking garage in there or something like that that a lot of other businesses could benefit from the one thing that i do not want is to see more of these single building businesses surrounded by parking and concrete that it's always been ugly to me and i absolutely want to do anything we can to discourage or limit that

Councilmember Meyer.

Yeah, I also have strong opinions about what we put on our riverfront. And it should be something that is accessible from the riverfront, which has not been the case in other developments along that stretch of Richland. You walk down the river and you look to your right and you see the bunch of loading docks and HVAC units. We've got a unique stretch of city here where we've got a kind of a downtown and we've got kind of a central business district and we've got kind of a riverfront and there should be a lot more integration of those in my opinion. I also cannot imagine a world where we need a parking garage with what appears to be three acres of asphalt just one block to the left. So I know we have to share it with the feds, but they'll understand surely.

Okay, now I don't see anyone else's green light on. So Mandy, thank you for your presentation. And I think you have some clear direction. Yeah, thank you. So next, we have the Transportation Improvement Program presentation with Carlo.

Good evening. Good evening. So this is a very similar presentation as you get on an annual basis. There's a reason for that. We have a requirement by state law to update our transportation improvement program on an annual basis. And we look six years ahead every year. And the purpose of this workshop is to prepare council for the public hearing and the item that will be before council at the next council meeting that will be a recommendation of approving the transportation improvement program. So like I said, state law requires that a legislative body in each city shall prepare and adopt a comprehensive transportation program for the ensuing six calendar years. And the purpose is to have a coordinated statewide financial planning document for transportation, specifically as it relates to grant funds that we get from federal and state agencies. so that when we move forward to one, planning for grants or for requesting obligation of funds for rewarded grants, that it is on our tip and that it is on the state tip so that they know from a financial perspective what we will be asking them to reimburse us for, essentially. That is the more prescriptive requirement of the TIP. From the other perspective, the city's perspective, it is a good document for being transparent about transportation projects that we have coming up in the city, regardless of if they're going to be projects that receive grant funds. So they provide the opportunity for us to show what our higher priority projects are to the public, to indicate whether or not they're partially fully funded or not funded, and indicating what projects we will be looking at in the future. So as far as funded projects go, we've done really well, especially from a grant award standpoint. So this is the 27 tip. So there's lots of other projects we have funded that are happening in 2026 that wouldn't show up on this tip. Well, I'll go through those in a minute, but SR 240 air and interchange, that is a partially funded project because design is fully funded, but construction is not. It's a pretty large burden to... get that funded because it's an over $30 million construction project, so there are very few funding sources in the state that allow us to get that funded at that level, so it requires An additional level of us searching for funds, either from granting agencies that have more authorization to grant funds, like larger federal programs, or through legislative action. So what's included in that project is a roundabout where the intersection currently is signalized and a bridge that great separates the southbound movement of SR 240 from that intersection. So it removes a lot of the traffic that would normally go through that intersection today. And it includes an active transportation connection. So bike pad connection between such a well as the in way and the jam the trail along the Yakima River a really great project and Hopefully Going to do well in getting that funded. That's a 240 Pedestrian crossing. It's the ped bike bridge over s or 240 between Steptoe and Columbia Center Boulevard This is a project that came out of the Island View to Vista Field Active Transportation Study. It is partially funded from the state legislature with $5 million, but it is about a $12 million project, so still continuing on looking for funding opportunities there. Center Parkway South Extension. It's funded. It actually fell off the tip in previous years because we thought we would be able to build it by now. But this particular extension has been there's a pretty major burden in dealing with bonneville power and land that the center parkway would be going through and we're just dealing with the sort of federal requirements and bpa's requirements in getting that land exchanged So it's taking a long time. But it is funded. We're ready to build it. It's at like 99% done from a design standpoint. And all the environmental stuff is done. It's just getting the rights to build on BPA's property. systemic pedestrian crossing safety improvements phase two, which is a mouthful, but that's those rapid flashing beacons, signs and markings at several pedestrian crossings around the city. It's four different locations. It is at some interfaces between pedestrians and vehicles that have a higher risk of crashes with pedestrians. So we want to get those projects in. That's Van Giesen and Birch and Thayer, Lawless, Torbett, and George Washington Way. And then there's another location I can't recall off the top of my head. Systemic stop-controlled intersection safety improvements. There's many roundabouts. You've seen them. A good example of one is at Swift and Wright. This is more of sort of the same, and we've received city safety funds to do this, and these new locations are at Thayer and Simons and Belle Reve and Canyon streets. And we have $3 million for Safe Routes to School. We're moving toward getting design started this year, and it looks like maybe 27, late 27 or 28 to build those improvements. at elementary schools, all the elementary schools in the city, yes.

Oh, I was going to just clarify that, all the elementary schools? Yes. And I assume you're working with the school districts on this?

Yeah, so the Safe Routes to School Plan that was developed with the school district that they helped fund as well, we, they have adopted that plan, but we received all the funding ourselves to get the work done. So there's not a whole lot of work we need to do with the school district itself to do the actual implementation other than coordinating with them on some design elements. ESSER 240 Airport Way Pedestrian Crossing. This has been on our list for a while, but it is a WSDOT project. It is the connection to the shelter belt. It has to break through a barrier and a sound wall to make that connection possible. There is some funding that Washtenaw has, but when they did some detailed design, there's a million dollars essentially that they don't have to do that work. And it gets really expensive when you have to start tearing down sound wall. So they're still looking for funding there, but it is on their list as well to get funded. And Gage and Leslie intersection improvements, we did receive funding from the COG on that project. That's capacity improvements and signal upgrades at Gage and Leslie. So it adds some turn lanes and bike improvements too. So actually creating a better connection for the actual bike lanes through that intersection than we have today. as well. It includes also some changes to how vehicles access the property at that wake-up call as well, which they knew about when they developed that site that this would be coming. So those are all the funded projects. I did leave on all the, these are the three projects that are part of the Dupertale Corridor project. The two roundabouts at the Dupertale-Vintner Square driveway and the Dupertale-Kennedy intersection, as well as some additional lane, turn lane work that we're doing at the Queensgate-Dupertale intersection. signal upgrades there I am almost certain now that we're not going to be able to get to construction in 26 so keeping this on our tip in 27 for construction application is where it's going to be so that's why it's staying on the list we had originally planned to get started in 26 but right of way like property acquisition is taking time, more time than we'll have to get the project started in 26.

A lot of traffic going in through there.

Yes.

Yes.

We have definitely noticed the increased traffic with the Costco having gone in. So unfunded priorities, and this has been on the list for a while, is Gage Boulevard improvements. This is upgrading to a city street section because we've had a hodgepodge of different street sections between essentially Penny Royal and Morenci. So getting that upgraded so there's better street lighting, sidewalks, bike lanes, and a true city street section. Yeah. Central Richland active transportation improvements. We did complete a study for that, and it came up with some discrete projects. But I'm holding off this year on actually creating all those discrete projects in the 27 TIP because it was submitted for some grant applications in probably last month, I think we submitted for them. Those projects that are happening essentially between Lewis and Clark and Marcus Whitman schools, this active transportation sort of connecting those schools together. The reason I'm holding it off is because... I'm really just waiting to see what discrete projects will get funded because there's about three or four of them, and I didn't think it would be a productive use of time to start adding them to the TIP until we knew what we could actually get funded through the state. But it stays on our list for now, and if we need to do an amendment to the TIP, we can do that. So there's a couple of new projects that have been added to the TIP, Snively Road, And SR 240 Snively Road intersection, these are two projects way out in the northwest corner of the city. These are projects that will need to happen in conjunction with the Veterans Cemetery work. So getting that city street built adjacent to the Veterans Cemetery and their access off of SR 240 built. And that analysis of what type of intersection it needs to be and how much of the road needs to get built, all those things still need to get figured out. Central Richmond active transportation improvements that may break up into discrete projects, as I mentioned. So there's certain things that don't show up on the TIP. And those are the annual pavement preservation program and our citywide transportation system plan items. So because we won't have, so the annual pavement preservation program is a maintenance program. We happen to do a lot of other things as part of that program, like installing bike lanes, improving some sidewalk, sometimes putting in some street lighting, things like that. But the main focus of the program is just pavement preservation. And because we generally don't really know how much we will have in terms of budget to perform that project, Let's say right now for a 2027 pavement preservation program, there's not really a lot of information I can even put into that item in a TIP because we don't know what streets we're doing. We don't know what sort of funding level we'll have at this time in the year. And the citywide transportation system plan will have a ton more projects to put into the TIP in the future once we adopt that plan. So in 2027, there will be a lot of active transportation projects, new ones, and a bunch more you know, intersection projects related to keeping up with our level of service requirements for capacity at intersections. So there'll be a lot of those projects coming up. So those will come in next year's version of the TIP. That's that. So all the removed projects, all the stuff that you would have saw in the 2026 tip, here's where they all are. Downtown connectivity improvements, 2026 construction start. South George pavement preservation project, 2026 start. Systemic pedestrian crossing safety improvements phase one, 2026 start. George Washington Way sidewalk improvements from Comstock to Bradley starting in 2026 for construction. I put the potential for Dupertail Corridor, but I don't see that as likely now. And the other changes you'll see in this year's TIP from the previous one is that a bunch of work in Badger Mountain South, as the developer is building out the area, they're building onto the streets, Trowbridge, Dallas, and Gage. So all those projects are getting completed. So the limits will change in the TIP. So here's the big project list. Hard to read from here, but there's a lot there. Not all the numbers in here are sequential because there's projects that have been pulled out because they're getting in 26 construction. And there's just, so they've just been removed from, those project numbers have been removed. And I didn't go through the effort of, you know, turning project number four into project number three and then doing that with every single project because it's cumbersome in their TIP program online to do that. But it will be updated in the next year. So path forward, the... The draft TIP and the TIP map are on the website shown there. We already had a planning commission workshop. We already had our work with the Parks and Rec Commission for the active transportation components of the plan completed. Parks and Rec Commission recommended approval of the TIP. The same thing tomorrow night, Planning Commission will have their public meeting where we'll expect them to recommend approval of the TIP to Council. And then the actual public hearing we need to have will happen at City Council's meeting on June 2nd with a resolution for adopting the 2027 TIP. All this so we can get done by June 30th and then have the COG, our MPO, do their public process with the regional TIP so that Washington can do their whole state TIP assembly and approval with the Transportation Commission there and then have it be a statewide document that we can actually use in 2027. for releasing grant funds. So that is the path. Any questions about?

Thank you for all your work. Council, questions?

Council Member Hilton. Did you say that the sidewalk improvement between CONSTAC and Bradley was removed or just pushed back or something?

It's not on the 2027 tip because in 2026, this year, we will be constructing it.

Okay, so it's coming.

Yes.

That's exciting.

Yeah.

Council Member Samuels.

Carla, thanks for this presentation. Really well done. In several of the surveys that I've seen, citizens often comment about the need for pavement preservation to be a bigger priority, that there are far too many roads in Richland that seem to be in disrepair. How does the Transportation Improvement Plan balance the priority of pavement improvement with a new project or, yeah?

Well, I'll just say the majority of our actual true pavement preservation happens through our pavement preservation program. And I'll just say if any pure pavement preservation program, pavement preservation projects, if we're searching for grant funding sources, they don't score well. not because there's not a lot of just money there for pavement preservation from a state or federal level, unless it's on a national highway system route, which we have received funding for it for George Washington Way, South George, between Columbia Point and Bradley will get paved this year. because of federal grant funds. So those are the things we're looking for to prioritize grant funding for pavement preservation is if it's on a national highway system. And we really have very few routes. George and Stevens and Columbia Center Boulevard and Keene and Gage. Those are the ones in the city that are on the national highway system. And so all the rest of our streets are up to us to sort of fund, which we've done a good job of, honestly. And Especially with the changes to the transportation benefit district, we'll have a more consistent, I think, more consistent funding source in the future to fund pavement preservation. So that is a great message to send to the public related to our priority for pavement preservation. And I would say the city has done a very good job in funding pavement preservation, especially as we compare it to our other cities around us. West Richland doesn't have a transportation benefit district, Pasco doesn't, and Kennewick just started one through sales tax. having heard the transportation, the pavement preservation program, sort of descriptions from those other entities around us, We are funded at a higher level than they are, generally, per mile of street. So we do a really, really good job of prioritizing it. And we have a very good program with our different types of pavement. preservation technologies that we use. We have a good spread over both local streets and our classified arterials and collector streets for pavement preservation. So we do, I think, a better job, too, of even prioritizing local streets to get pavement preservation work done over our other cities around us.

Just a follow-up question. So, Carlo, I appreciate your answer very much. Does the city, do you have like a prioritized list within the city right now that, hey, if money was available, these are the streets in the city of Richland that we would go after preserving or maintaining or doing maintenance on?

Carlo, forgive me. That's all right. I love that. Before we get to that, maybe a quick synopsis, Carlo or John, about what our pavement preservation program is, the cadence and how it's funded. There's been changes to that, and I think it's an interesting division in three years. And then, yes, to that follow-up, but I think that foundation is important to understand that second part. Great.

Yeah. So... We have several funding sources for pavement preservation program, the transportation benefit district being one. We have used REIT as well and general fund dollars for the pavement preservation program. There's been a higher strain, I guess, on the general fund to help meet our goals for our pavement condition. into the future, which these changes to the transportation benefit district will hopefully make up for lowering that strain on the general fund. So that's from a funding standpoint, that's sort of like the mix of funds for pavement preservation as well as gas tax. The way we produce the program is near the, what we'll do is we'll hit, we've split the streets into three sections of the city, North Richland, Central Richland, South Richland. We will progressively, every year, we'll just alternate between those parts of the city. So this year is South Richland. Next year will be Central Richland. The year after that will be North Richland. And what we do is once we know what our funding level will be, we have a program that we use called Street Saber that has an algorithm that will select the streets for us based off of pavement condition. and budget capacity and we'll select streets based off of where we can get the greatest amount of remaining service life out of those streets. So we are getting the best use of the funds we have available.

Does feedback from citizens also get factored into that or no?

Well, not to the results of the pavement preservation program itself, where Where it helps to have the pavement preservation, like the street saver thing helping us make decisions is that there are so many streets in the same condition and only so much money to spread around. And we'll get this common comment about why did my neighbor's street get something done and not mine? And the reason is because we've allowed, we've had a program help us make those decisions to get the best use of the funds that we have available. And it sort of pulls out the subjective nature of selecting streets for pavement preservation and produces a consistent object objective. Yeah, consistent, objective, and just gets us sort of this, our goals of getting the same work done on every street. in the city we do try I would say we do look at what results we get and if there's been a a street that has already received a treatment in the last six years and the program saying hey you should do the street again we will we will try to sort of push through a an alternative, like pull this street out of your analysis and do some other and get all the other streets analyzed again. And that is a little bit of the iterative nature of the program so that we're not inordinately doing a bunch of pavement preservation on the same street over and over and over again. And then never hitting some of the other streets with that. So that's where we'll sort of like insert ourselves into the process. But ultimately we're using the program to help us make decisions. And it's been a really good way of just having that consistent message to the public about how we select streets for pavement preservation.

I'd like to follow up with you on Councilmember Samuel's questions. Our purpose in the meeting tonight was to explore the TIP, but there is comment people have to take the roads to work, and so a pothole there is noticeable, and they want to know what the city is going to do about it. So clarify for me or just spend a moment here in talking about if there's this big pothole in my road and I know that there's a lot of roads in Richland and you can't see everything that's going on, if a citizen called and said, I think we got a problem here, what do you do?

We put it on our schedule to get fixed.

So you don't just ignore it until the next circle, the next cadence comes around. No, you deal with it. So that's what I'm thinking that you wanted to get to.

Yeah, if you do notice a pothole, report it to us. And we'll have crews out there within a reasonable time frame to go get it repaired.

OK, thank you. Any other questions or comments? I don't see anything, so thank you. It's amazing to me that we extend our city now from Snively Road out to Trowbridge. There's a lot to track and all that, so thank you for your work. Next, we have Mr. Rizzatello with historic preservation ordinance discussion to follow on a forum. Did I miss something? No, okay. Okay. To follow from August 26, 2025 council meeting regarding strategic plan 3.111.

Okay, good evening, mayor, council, nice to be here. So the presentation this evening is about one of the programs I somewhat foreshadowed during the attainable housing presentation a couple months back, trying to get to lowest hanging fruit first. So this one is historic preservation, or in this state it's called certified local government program. So in this presentation, go over a little bit of background, what is certified local government, the benefits, how to establish it, final takeaways, and then questions. One of the key things with historic preservation in the state, a lot of folks think it's stuff like before the 1950s. Per the state definition, it's actually anything 50 years of age or older, building-wise, can qualify into these various incentives and programs uh should we enact something like this i'll uh start that off in that sense uh so policy uh tiebacks to this concept is where 2024 2026 strategic plan under focus development the increased housing availability of vibrant downtown subsections and then in the 2017 Richland Comprehensive Plan Community Goal 4 around the identification, preservation, and enhancement of historic elements. Community Goal 6 as well, implement programs for the built environment and assist the quality to maintain a clean, safe, and attractive infrastructure. And then HP Goal 1, preserve historic structures, districts, and cultural resources unique to Richland. Goal 4, providing a range of all housing density, sizes, and types. And then Housing Goal 4, encourage maintenance and preservation of existing housing, stock, and residential neighborhoods. So again, this came from the earlier presentation last August. So getting into what is the certified local government, so it was created in 1980 by National Historic Preservation Act. It's a partnership between the federal government, state, and localities that encourage preservation of historic assets. Responsibilities maintain a historic preservation commission, that's volunteer commission, They only have to meet that much. In fact, statutorily, they only have to meet once a year, but a lot of folks that get into it get really interested because there's a lot of resources to follow, and they tend to meet more. Enforce and follow federal, state, and local preservation laws, which through our SEPA, NEPA process, we need to anyhow. This just opens us up to incentives and other resources. Administer incentives. Review local nominations for local or national register. public participation, and inventory of historical sites. And that's done via grant programs. State administrators actually have an interactive portal called Wizard. Nearby cities, they have such a program as Kennewick and Pasco, Walla Walla College Place, Pullman, Colfax State, and I have hyperlinks to everything throughout this presentation. Now going into benefits. So the map you see in front of you, which is why it's important because, again, it's an untapped resource, This map here, everything in yellow in the wizard program is everything that, according to them, is like over 50 years of age. So it could qualify for potential grants, incentives, valuation, things of that sort. Green are ones that definitely qualify, and then reds would not. But as you can see, quite a few properties here. So benefits, if this was enacted, the state has what's called special tax valuation. I'll drill down into each of these in greater depth a little later here. Federal government actually has historic tax. That's income tax credit. They basically handle that when you file your income taxes. Also, there's special grants that come from National Park Service and State Historic Preservation Officer. Also, with this program, you can actually do direct earmarks into the Nassau National Park Service account. They actually have a sub fund on the Senate side that's just for historic preservation projects. Also partnership in the National Register. Participation in statewide preservation programs. They open up every year. Technical assistance. You're recognized by state and federal agencies. And a lot of times when you're processing cultural resources or SEPA, it's a smoother ride because they realize you have that skill setting house. then also certified local governments there's this extension to building code that allows some workarounds as you're repurposing historic structures it's a historic building code and you can actually opt into that so if any of you have ever visited Colfax a lot of those older structures which go back to like 1870s if you were to follow the current building code it's really quite a challenge to repurpose that and that was one of the methods we utilize to get investment going back in Colfax. So this is an option. Also, other state agencies, they use this as a litmus test occasionally, a screen for other grant programs. So for instance, State Transportation Improvement Board They have a grant program that they created a couple years back called Complete Street Grants where you'd have to get nominated by an agency. A lot of folks would always go to State Department of Transportation because that's who you think of for transportation. So in College Place, We actually went to Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation. And while everyone else was getting beat up at the pass to get the WASDOT nomination, no one went to DAP. And then we got nominated and then got a half million dollars several times for road projects. So really out of the box way, but it works. So something to consider. So now going into special tax valuation. So state legislature created this in 1985. So I put the enabling RCWs and WACs on this. And preservation of historic resources is an important goal. So that's why they created it. And basically, if whatever the update you're doing in the structure is within the historical ethos of what the structure looked like, and it gets over 25% of the existing assessed value, you can get a special valuation where that improvement essentially wouldn't count for 10 years. And then that goes through the county. Benton County is already doing this because, again, Kennewick has such a program. They're doing this. Structure must be 50 years of age and put on a local register. The Historic Preservation Commission would supervise essentially that. And then it has to be visible from a public road or a right-of-the-way. And then recommendation from the Historic Preservation Commission, action by council, and then Benton County Assessor and Hyperlink. That program is in the power program. federal historic tax credit this has been utilized some for private residential structures have been turned in a multifamily in Colfax I saw one such case a lot of this is used for like commercial and industrial types of investment projects so since this was created nationwide there's been over 50,000 projects a hundred billion in private investments so programs at 20% income tax credit on the qualified amount of the investment spent to rehab, and it would need to be on a National Register historic building or it could be a contributing property. So for instance, like the Gold Coast Historic District here in the community, let's say a house was adjacent to it but not in it, per their definition, that actually counts as contributing. So again, something that could be taken advantage of. So project qualification tests, again, property must be income produced or commercially depreciable for at least five years. And this one goes more into hotel, retail, office, rental, residential, industrial, or ag. Project must be substantial, so must be greater than the adjusted basis value. I've seen these projects done even in smaller agricultural communities such as Colfax. Right now over there, they're working on actually rehabbing the old hospital that right now is up on the hill, St. Ignatius, into a mixed-use development utilizing this. This is administered by State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation in partnership with National Park Service. Another opportunity is they also have quite a few grant programs that come up from time to time through State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. Their main one is what's called a CLG grant, so Certified Local Government Grant. And what that can do is it can essentially pay a consultant to do reconnaissance surveys or intensive surveys. And those are tools that are needed to opt in to that state special valuation or federal tax credit program. This grant can pay for that. Also renewal, historical signage. That can essentially be covered. Historical walking tour materials and signage. Historic district development. And then it can even be utilized for some out-of-the-box stuff. So, for instance, in College Place, we actually had a former county poor farm cemetery that the city had ownership of, and we actually used ground penetrating radar to figure out where all the graves were at, and they paid for it. This is a really strong tool as well. And then you can qualify for other grants tied to barns, cemeteries, even historical theaters. And then also have used this to pursue direct state earmarks and then again federal earmarks on the Senate level. So how to establish the CLG program? You adapt Historic Preservation Ordinance. There's a litany of them all over the place. Several of these, as I alluded to earlier, nearby have this. The state has a basic model ordinance that you can tweak and adapt. It can go through city council. Common sections are the purpose, creation of the commission, a local register, which is a list that ends up going in that wizard map I showed earlier, and then the special valuation language. And then some municipal code examples I hyperlink to kind of like College Boys, Colfax, Piasco. But if you go on a website, there's a lot of them all over the state. Number two, Create and Fill Historic Preservation Commission. So per the state WACC's and RCW's, you can't really meld the intent of this, like with a planning commission or economic development commission. Tried to do that in Colfax and both college places, and they were intent on not doing that. So needs to be a standalone commission, but they only have to meet once a year. Members have to have demonstrated interest or knowledge in historic preservation. Two of the five members They need to be a professional in discipline of architecture, history, conservation, landscape architecture, curation, anthropology, or something to that effect. We were able to find folks to fit that qualification, even in Colfax or College Place, and it's much smaller in here, so I'm sure that would not be an issue. The next thing is once they would meet, you basically pass bylaws. Really, this is almost like a glorified Roberts Rules of Order, and you go on the app website, they have it, but still, you need to do that as a separate item anyhow, just because the state and the federal rules around this qualify that. So again, common content, I listed this last stuff very similar to other codes and such. Then what you do is you submit the evidence to State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. So two copies of the ordinance, two copies of bylaws, list of members, qualifications. And then basically, if you went on like ArcGIS online, some of the overlay they have with USGS and Wizard. If approved, you get an agreement back that just says you'll be the one administering the program in the city. Not hard to do. I mean, we were able to keep this going in Colfax and 2846 people had a good day. So final takeaways with this relatively straightforward program implement, new tool in the toolbox, again, Looking for additional ways to bring resources, other types of incentives into the community. Per the state and the feds, anything over 50 years of age can qualify. Another pathway, get grants. And as I explained earlier, you can go very out of box with some of the TIB programs and then even at the state and federal earmark level. You do have to create a citizen commission, which I mean, I know some argue that, and there is, there's overlap with planning commissions, so forth, but it's not that time intensive. You only have to meet once a year. Some of them need more because they get into the other grants and so forth, but that's like on their purview if they so choose. And then here is a hyperlink of the various resources that go deeper into what we discussed this evening. And that is it. Questions?

Thank you.

Council Member Holt, and I bet you're excited about this. I think so. I think my house would qualify, not that we'd apply. We just remodeled. But so Richland doesn't, just to clarify, Richland does not have this program, correct?

No.

And so you would want city council to approve the program?

And ordinance. If this all sounds good to you all, I'll work on drafting ordinance, run it through city attorney's office and everyone else, and then bring it to you all. There's a lot of copies to choose from and tweak because, in fact, my previous two jurisdictions had this, and many others have it as well.

But this would benefit basically all the alphabet houses in Richland?

Yeah.

That would be massive. And it's mainly tax credits?

Some of them are some of them are special valuation the property taxes based on the improvements and then that would go through a process with historic preservation commission you all if commercial or multifamily if they choose the federal Tax credits, that's just on your income taxes. That doesn't really have much to do with us at all. And then the grants, that's essentially through the state SHPO or direct fed and state earmarks or other programs to that nature.

They could get grants from the state?

You can.

Okay. Interesting. Is there a downside?

I mean, the downside that I alluded to earlier is the whole fact that you have to create that historic preservation commission, because like in Colfax, for example, it was like a real struggle to find volunteers, and there is overlap with planning commissions. I was trying to argue, if you have like 28, 46 people in the Same, like, seven people are on a lot of the other commissions. Like, why make a whole other one try to merge? But that fell on deaf ears at the state after many a year, so I stopped arguing at that point. So there's a time and cost commitment, like staff time and stuff on that, but we were able to keep it going in Colfax and College Place and other communities have it, so... That's the only downside that I really see. You just write it where, like, getting on the local register and stuff is, like, optional. There are some cities that, in my opinion, went a little too far with it, where, like, for instance, City of Dayton, they have it where... where like the public could essentially nominate to local register like someone else's house. And then at that point, that's almost like a borderline, in my opinion, at least like a borderline taken, like if you want the incentives, and you want to essentially restore it to the cultural historical relevance of your property. That's great, but I think that should, you know, be on the individual property owner's purview. So Dayton, they end up like reversing that to go in line with what some of a lot of the other jurisdictions have done. So that's the only cautionary tales.

Thank you. And you meet once a year. That's not too bad. Council Member Meyer.

I'm strongly in support of this.

I'm curious. Many of the houses in our area were built for temporary housing, and they have existed now for 70 years, so not so temporary. But is that a restriction at all if you tried to go in and apply for some funding? No.

No, it's literally anything over half 50 years of age. And then you can choose the special or the federal. The special valuation, that's easier. The federal stuff, because it's dealing with Department of Interior, for the property owner, that can get a little bit of a pain going after it. But a lot of people successfully do, and it's a significant credit. So the juice is worth the squeeze. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it could really help our affordable housing question with these opportunities. So thank you for that. Yes, excuse me, I didn't see you.

I was just going to second Council Member Meyer's comment that I also support this. I think there's lots of places in this city that would benefit from that, just thinking specifically of a theater. That's her.

Yeah, I think we're unanimously positive.

Thank you.

Thank you. Whoa, that's the end of the agenda, and it's only 7.15. Do you have anything further for us? Any updates or comments?

No, Mayor.

No? Okay. Well, at this time, then...