Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'm going to call this June 18th, 2026 Sammamish Planning Commission meeting to order. And first we'll do a roll call. Hisham Al-Khawad. Here. John Bachman. Here. Syed Safavian. Here. Mazzy Punwala. Present. And Ajay Chakrapani's got an excuse. And then Sudha Sikara.

Here.

And I'm Mike Bresco. I'm here. And so next would be the agenda for this evening. any adjustments to the agenda. And as a reminder, we will be having a public hearing. There are three topics actually that we're going to be talking about in the public hearing. So properties encumbered by critical areas, being eligible for quasi-judicial zoning, exemptions to affordable housing fee and lieu, and then change or replacement of the designation of sammamish as a regional growth center so any adjustments to the agenda okay so agenda approved by common consent and the minutes from the june 4th meeting any changes to those Okay, seeing none, those are approved by common consent. So first will be non-agenda public comments for three minutes. So these would be anything that's not related to those three topics that we'll be covering during the public hearing.

So.

Okay, so Mary, you have the floor, three minutes.

Hello, I'm Mary Wichter. I've lived in Sammamish 25 years in Tamarack. I have a very important thing to ask you to do tonight. Maybe you read my emails with a few typos or saw the pictures of the fires, but we've had two fires that were pretty big very recently within a three-week period. And there were lethal, could be lethal injuries to people and a lot of people impacted by it. So you should read those if you haven't. But tonight, I really want to speak So the Washington state has a rule that you can't park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. But that doesn't apply in the city of Sammamish if you're on a private road. And the other thing is if you can't get to a fire hydrant, you can't use it. And I think if you read the fires things, you'll see that the delays on the Redmond one, and they had to get water. it really impacts how that they can reduce the amount of damage. So it's really important. So I read from the 2021 code interpretation, which David Pyle had worked on, that was for fire apparatus access roads for new development. But it does imply in places that the new development isn't in those years or before them, or areas that don't have a new development. So the problem is, and I'm going to state it this way, there are 2,500 service calls for Eastside Fire and Rescue. And everybody in the city who's an owner should be allowed to have those. And of those, 93% of those are 2,300 calls. Those are for emergency, fire, and even if it's a non-fire structure. And so that's about, if you just flat math average it, that's about six to seven calls per day. So the fire people are pretty busy. And I learned at the recent city coffee council from the council members there that Eastside Fire and Rescue, their costs are really going up. And it takes about a million dollars or three years to build a new fire engine. So trying to keep the fire people so that they can work and keep their equipment good and to keep it safe, there's no reason there should be a fire hydrant blocked in the city. So that code interpretation and samples that I've sent in from Issaquah, things I mentioned for Bellevue, Kirkland, and Redmond, they've all done something to solve that problem, and we haven't. And I think it's really, really urgent that we do it. So I know you guys only have a few meetings, and you use them very well, but some of your meetings are canceled. And there are people interested in this topic going forward, but I can't have it take another six months or a year because George Davis Creek is building. They're going to close that road. They're just finishing Lewis Thompson. They're closing that. And the traffic light baths up there. And one of the north accesses for Tamarack, there is a fire hydrant block within 10.5 feet by a great big metal post chain link fence and concrete it into the ground. So I would really like motion on this. Your agendas always say that you can talk on topics that aren't necessarily on your agenda. And if you guys could say, yeah, we think not blocking any fire hydrant anywhere in the city is important and no obstructions and no obstacles on the way to get there, that would be great. Thanks. And I yield my six seconds. Okay.

Paul's coming up next. All right. My printer went out, so there's a little bit of imperfection in this.

I'm going to order a new one, but you can still...

Hello Planning Commissioners, Paul Stickney, Sammamish. This is the second half of my comment that I'm going to make on this. And if you get a chance, I'm not going to should on anybody to say that you should, but if you want to, you could go and listen to the city council meeting, because it was a good meeting to hear every word that happened on Tuesday. And there were some public comments, and I spoke to this that I handed out. And I didn't have time to go over everything, so I'm going to infill some of the points I didn't have time to, so ultimately it will round out this non-agenda comment if you go back and hear the first half at the City Council. I'm advocating as a solution to fiscal imbalance, but not because of fiscal imbalance, to round out internal housing needs for stages of life and generational housing based on authentic bottom-up That is under arching. It's more important than fiscal imbalance to have a city that has optimized housing supplies to meet local needs over time. But in this case, because we're so short on market rate type housing, it helps us do affordable housing and helps us solve a fiscal imbalance as well as adds optimal holistic added enrichments across the board. At the council meeting, one thing I'd like to repeat is the horseshoe example. It's impossible to get a ringer on precise, exact needs needed. What we need to do instead is see where the stake is out there for citywide housing imbalance and throw horseshoes and get close. Some will be within four or five shoes. Some will be two or three. Some will be one. We won't get it exact, but we'll be moving in the right direction to quantify housing need and set some internal imbalance and understand its true effects and outcomes based on authentic data to enrich and sustain and stay our city. I didn't have time to discuss the Baskin-Robbins part of my note on Tuesday and had two or three people in the audience come up and say, what were you talking about? Well, here's what I didn't have time to say when you listen to that on Tuesday. Many people get stuck in certain flavors. Not everyone, but most people, when you buy ice cream, you pick two or three flavors, but they sell all 31. My point is there's a heck of a lot of needs and different flavors of housing need, economic, demographic, and workforce that we have to plan for in setting internal numbers that are net positive or low impact.

that's part two part one was Tuesday thank you Paul anybody else for non-agenda public comments nobody online okay all right So next will be old business and Evan, you'll have a presentation. So here's what we'll do. So you'll present on the three different topics. The commissioners can ask clarifying questions but not deliberate. After that, we'll open the public hearing and then deliberate and then we'll have a couple of motions in order to move this along to council.

Perfect. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Planning Commission. Evan Fischer with the Department of Community Development, joined by David Pyle, Director. And tonight we are revisiting and going to go through a public hearing to tackle those three code issues. Chair, you summed up the process very well. We'll do a presentation, public hearing, and then deliberate and vote. As a reminder, the policy issues we're looking at is first reevaluating the codified criteria for the quasi-judicial rezone process, reevaluating the list of exemptions in the city's inclusionary affordable housing program, and then considering if land use policy 10.4 in the comprehensive plan is an appropriate fit for Sammamish and looking to possibly amend that language. So first up is the criteria, the quasi-judicial criteria-based rezone. Again, as a reminder, this program was put in place to allow property owners to change zoning when certain criteria are met within the land use designation, within their land use designation the future land use map in the comprehensive plan. The goal here was to provide opportunities for achieving higher densities to accommodate middle housing, and this is done through a quasi-judicial or court-like proceeding. The highlighted code section in yellow is really the problem that we're looking at, and the question is, Is rezoning a property that is encumbered by critical areas appropriate? And the policy questions the council put forward is, should properties encumbered by critical areas be eligible for this process? And is there an amount of the property that, if encumbered by critical areas and their buffers, would disqualify the property for rezoning? At the last meeting on June 4, the commission had a robust discussion. And these were, I think, the takeaways that we took captured here. So to the first question, yes, these properties should be eligible for the quasi-judicial rezoning process as critical areas are adequately protected by the city's critical areas rules. And then to answer the second question, no, a percentage of the property uh being encumbered by critical areas should not disqualify the the property from this process and in the agenda packet as exhibit one we've included some redline code language that captures that so we would just be striking the first part of criteria c and leaving the second part of the buildable area requirement Topic two are considering the exemptions from the affordable housing fee and lieu requirement from the city's mandatory affordable housing or inclusionary housing program. Again, this is a program that requires 10% of all new housing be affordable, and it provides options for how that requirement can be met, including the fee and lieu. The questions here really were around additions and how additions should be considered for exemptions as part of this process. First, should the exemptions from the affordable housing, excuse me. Sorry, I had a blocking window there. Should the exemptions from the affordable housing fee and lieu requirements be modified to expand the total floor area exemption from 1,500 square feet to 1,750 square feet? Should an exemption be added for additions for aging in place? Should a one-time addition be allowed of 15% of the size or up to 400 square feet? And should there be greater allowance for additions in the case of a rebuild due to an act of nature or fire? And then lastly, should additions be altogether exempt? The commission's feedback was that we should increase the total floor area exemption up to 1,750 square feet. As opposed to creating a specific exemption for additions for aging in place, there should be a one-time exemption that would include the scenarios for aging in place. The one-time addition would be up to 50% of the size of the existing unit, or 1,000 square feet, whichever is less. And the commission felt that, yes, there should be a total exemption for cases of involuntary rebuild, regardless of the size they're rebuilding at. And no, we shouldn't exempt additions altogether. So as exhibit two in the agenda packet, we've included the red line code language, which captures the commission's direction. And then lastly was topic three, changing the land use policy, LU 10.4. Currently, it reads that it directs the city to pursue the PSRC regional growth center designation and includes an informational box about what those are. As we discussed at the last meeting, this was essentially made an error. It was something that was considered early on, but ultimately is inappropriate for the city. And at the last meeting, the commission gave clear direction to remove that regional designation, regional growth center designation and replace it with pursue growth in local centers and sub areas consistent with the future land use map. We did vote on that as a group at the last meeting, but since we're here tonight at a public hearing, I think it'd be appropriate to just take that action more formally. But we did get clear direction at the last meeting. So with that, we'll stop and see if anybody has any clarifying questions.

And so this isn't the deliberation and leading to amendments or motions, but just like if anything you saw, you had a question about just for, like I said, clarification.

Can you go back to the field, Luke? I believe that I brought this issue up as a question, and that was when we say that one-time addition, is that per lot or per ownership?

Remember that?

I recall the commission being more inclined to the more restrictive version of that, so it would be per lot, not ownership.

Should we identify that as an issue and make it as a part of regulations?

got the one missing the button um so we we do have other sections of the code that have very similar um allowances for example there in the city's critical areas rules there is a one-time allowance for an expansion within a wetland or stream buffer up to a thousand square feet of hardscape one time in the life of the property basically that provides flexibility It could get used. It might not get used. It is very easy to track that in the city's permit system. It hasn't proven hard to implement. But you're right that that could use some clarity that it is for the life of the property.

What is the definition of life of property?

Just basically means that if you take advantage of it, you're not eligible again.

No matter who owns it.

No matter who owns it. It runs with the land.

And I'm glad you brought this up. In Exhibit 2, the red line code language does say it shall be granted one time exemption from the requirements of this chapter for the life of the property. So currently, as presented, it is for the life of the property. But you all could choose to change that if you'd like.

Any others? If not, I have one, and actually on this section. So it talks about in the section D towards the end of that new section in the red lines, That the if the property additions exceed the threshold then it's a subject to the payment fee in lieu on the square footage for the total new so is that is it clear the purpose should be anything above that 50% or thousand square feet right and the first time I read through that it seemed like it could be interpreted as the whole addition and And so I may have misread that on screen, but that's something that I think, you know, just from clarification, the intent is that anything above the amount that's exempt, the 50% or 1,000 square feet, right?

So you're saying that if you added 1,050 square feet, you'd just pay on the 50 square feet?

Right. And this says the total, right, the new total square foot beyond the existing floor area. So when I read that, it could be 1,050 square feet, not just 50 square feet, right? So...

right i i see what you're saying and i think what i heard at the meeting um two weeks ago was that it would only be on the 50. okay um so that might be something we want to clarify so you could as part of a motion clarify that for 21 10 100 d that the exemption uh provides for relief up to uh 50 or a thousand whichever is less and that that beyond that you would be required to pay for, you'd be required to pay the inclusionary in lieu fee on a per square foot basis for any square footage that exceeds that amount.

Well, we could debate, deliberate and see if that's a change that we'd want to make. That's not how I read that, so. Okay. Anything else?

And if not, we'll move to public hearing.

And then our deliberation, so. All right, I will open the public hearing. So, who do we have prepared to speak? Okay, and this is up to, I think it's five minutes or three or five or whatever.

I'm not going to need the whole time. Hello, Planning Commissioners. Paul Stickney, Sammamish. On the clarification that the Chair just mentioned, I'd like to offer a friendly amendment that up to the 50% or 1,000 square feet agree for the life of the property, but if somebody doesn't use all of it the first time, it's open to go up to that threshold in increments, but not exceed that over time. So if somebody only adds 200 square feet, but a couple years later wants to come back and add three and then come back and add five, I don't see an issue with that. So as long as cumulatively it doesn't go over, it... just made sense. Then I sent an email in today, and over the last couple of weeks, I haven't spent all the time thinking about this, but occasionally I did. And I thought about what's the right number for the 1750, et cetera. And I sent in an email this afternoon that I suggested that the consideration be for the Section 2110-100A, increasing it from 1,750 to 2,100 feet. And I'd like to give a couple examples and a couple of reasons where that came from. Yes, it is partially arbitrary, but it's partially informed. So I'll just explain that. We in the community here, we have affordable housing needs. But from the research I've done, our internal market needs for market-rate housing are far greater than affordable, and most people are going to want numbers well above, you know, 1750 when they're downsizing. So I just liked 2100 because it felt good, but that's not the only reason. Let's take a look at a few projects here. The Ichijo townhomes that I call them that started by Intercorp and they went to Ichijo, on average, they're about 2,100 feet. The new townhomes being built, over here in Sammamish Parkside by Tureen with STCA. Those units are in the neighborhood of 2,100 feet, except for the end units, there's a couple of them that are close to 3,000. Kestel Ridge, which is behind Saffron, is also 1,900 to 2,300 feet. The Aria four-story white townhomes built by Quadrant a couple blocks east of Safeway on Northeast 8, those really tall things. those range from a low of 1,800 to maybe 2,200 or 2,300 feet. So I was saying that over 2,100, yeah, go ahead and do the fee in lieu, but I was looking at it from a lens of not just the affordable housing but from the market rate and just trying to come up with sort of based on our bottom-up needs as a community what sort of made some sense. And by the way, I just went down to Issaquah last week at an open house, that townhouse project at Maple and 7th in downtown Issaquah that is being built by Blue Fern. And the smaller units there are about 1,600 to 1,700 feet. Then they go to 2,100 and to 2,300. hundred feet most of those units so I was just trying to think of of That little bit the bigger picture and I know what's on the ground here So I just thought I would share that you may or may not agree but I just wanted to explain the Reasoning and the rationale and and that's the comment appreciate the chance to speak Okay.

Thank you, Paul Anybody else? Yes any of the things that we've just presented. Yeah.

Hi, my name is Jim. I purchased a home in Sammamish 10 years ago. It's 73 years old, 1,400 square feet with a basement. I'd hoped to remodel that home. And after talking to engineers and architects and everything, they said, because of all the structural issues, foundation issues, everything, I need to rebuild. And I'd hoped to do that. I fully agree. I attended your last meeting. I listened to your discussion. I've done more research on the issue. I fully agree with the concept of inclusionary housing programs and that they're appropriate for new development programs. The purpose of Ordinance 2110 is aimed at new housing production with a goal to expand affordable housing. It was adopted to increase affordable housing opportunities as Sabamish accommodates growth. The ordinance was designed to impact or capture value from new development activity not to impose affordable housing obligations on individual residents just trying to improve their homes an expansion of an existing home does not contribute to residential growth in the same manner as a new development and applying the fee to upgrades of existing homes extends the ordinance beyond its intended purpose and Cities should actually encourage homeowners to modernize aging homes, improve safety and energy efficiency, accommodate multi-generational families, and accommodate aging in place. However, this large fee will discourage those kinds of investments. Penalizing home improvements undermines the important public policy goals and may reduce investment in existing neighborhoods. Developers are building new houses for sale. They can meet the program requirements when planning and create a new development and not pay any fees. However, a homeowner enlarging a owner-occupying residence has no options. They're not generating new housing inventory, they're not acting as a commercial developer, and they can't avoid the fees. And remember, the homeowner will be paying higher property taxes in perpetuity on that property. This fee discourages reinvestment in existing neighborhoods. Remodels may actually reduce housing pressure. Many home expansions like mine are undertaken to house aging parents, accommodate adult children, and allow multi-generational living. These arrangements can reduce housing demand elsewhere. Remodels can help address housing needs rather than contribute to housing shortages. Treating a remodel or rebuild of an owner-occupied home to a new housing construction ignores the actual effect on the housing supply and demand. Many inclusion housing programs are structured around increased density, but the affordable housing obligation should be linked to new housing production. Applying the requirements to individual remodeling projects places Sammamish outside the mainstream. The fee-in-lieu requirement should not apply to homeowners enlarging an existing residence because a remodel does not create a new dwelling unit, nor does it increase the number of households living in the city. and it does not generate the affordable housing impacts that inclusionary housing programs are designed to address. Imposing an affordable housing fee on existing owner-occupied home improvements discourages reinvestment in existing neighborhoods. It shifts growth management obligation intended for new development on individual homeowners who are simply trying to improve their primary residence. The city's affordable housing program was intended to address the impacts of growth and new housing production. An owner-occupied remodel does not create a new dwelling unit or increase the housing inventory. Therefore, requiring a homeowner to pay an affordable housing fee simply because they enlarge an existing residence is consistent with the program's purpose. I'm asking the City Council to create exemptions that appropriately address these issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. Other comments?

Hi, I'm Mary Gray and I'm a landowner and I will be paying the fee. The builders do not pay it. They take it out of what they pay us. Plain and simple. I'll be paying the fee. Thank you.

Short and sweet. That says a lot. Thank you. Any other comments?

Hi, Mary Victorine Sammamish. For the item number two, I'll defer to Jim. I think he spoke very well and is very researched. The only thing I will tell you is sometimes when you have an older home, you have a two-inch foundation, and when you try to do stuff to it, it won't hold it. There's also stormwater rules for existing impervious and new impervious. So you do have to be aware of those, but I think what he stated was right on. for the regional growth center being switched to sub areas and neighborhood communities. I do think that it was an error. When you have an error, it shouldn't take a lot of effort to get rid of it because I've had to get those removed. So please do that. And then on the number one, I want to talk about critical areas a little bit. I don't think you should say nobody can try to rezone if they meet criteria. But the problem is in the iRide rezone, the hearing examiner was not able to look at any of the data on critical areas, just had to go forth with you're in the right location with the right zones around you. And the problem that creates is when people see that, they're like, oh, it's so many acres, and I can build so many houses. And they don't really think about it. So you did make the one change where you said the people have to show how the units could fit, which I think is excellent. But I think any time people are working with those properties, they don't have the right stuff in their head. And when they're missing information, they go down a track too long, spend too much money, and then they're never able to backtrack to what actually has to happen. So I spoke at the last meeting and said, there is a ton of information. You go online, King County Properties. IMAP you click click click click you go through each layer even if you don't know what they are they're pretty understandable they pop up there's even a new septic layer for you and you can get a lot of information then you just do a screen capture which is really easy to do if you don't know how to do that just use your phone you do it That information needs to be put with a file. And it shouldn't be up to David Pyle or any of the wonderful staff that we have that work to do these. The individual people can do them. You don't even have to hire a contractor or a surveyor to do the five-foot lines, the elevation contours, or the two-foot elevation contours. Those are provided free. And when Robin Probstein first talked with me in 2015 at the counter, I just wanted to know what I could do with my house. And she said, King County IMAP is a really good tool online. you should learn how to use it. So I have. In fact, most of the time when people ask me to help with their project, I literally just create the maps for them. And it takes me, I don't know, an hour or two, because I'm pretty good at it. Maybe three hours if it's really complicated. And sometimes there's new layers that I don't know about. So then I learn it. But it is not hard to do. Like originally, I also said, you know, permits should have to take a photo. It's not that hard to take a photo. People have cameras. Well, now it's super easy. So we should have those. So we should use the tools that we have. And if we're not... I think we're really missing the point. The other thing is there are critical areas, not critical areas, there are stormwater rules. I actually don't like that you get a one-time critical area exemption of 1,000 square feet. It really depends on where you are. You might be in the most rickety place in the world with slopes and water and trees and everything. And you just can't do it, whereas there are some that the 1,000 square foot makes sense. So I think when you're ever doing those, it's just so super important to be informed. And if the city has required the people to do this simple stuff and put in the information, and it goes to the hearing examiner, the hearing examiner could at least glance at it and say, yeah, this looks like this will really be a challenge. And if they sell the property, if they do something with it, The information's there so that people don't think, oh, I have 60 acres or 10 acres or 4 1⁄2 acres that I can do anything I want with. Like, any time you have property, there are roads, there are easements, there are things, encroachments, there are past things, and you need to research those. And if the city doesn't ask for them, they don't go with the file, and then later on it causes trouble, and then the communities around that area... feel the trouble because it wasn't shown. It's kind of like doing a hide and seek where you're hiding the stuff that should be brought up. So if the people are going to this rezone, they need to do it with open doors and understand what challenges lie ahead. So I'd like to see that put in. I'm OK with doing stuff for critical areas, but there are some that are pretty impossible. In fact, staff will even tell you those are non-buildable lots. But then when people want to build on them, they get an RV and they build. And it maybe tries to build for 10 years and doesn't. So anyway, those are the experiences I've had, and I hope that you'll consider them tonight. And don't forget, you can put another agenda item on on the fire hydrant.

Thank you, Mary. Anybody else here or online?

There are no...

No, okay. All right, so we'll consider the public hearing closed and move to deliberations. I think what would make the most sense is since there'd been a really robust conversation two weeks ago, that we start with a motion for the first topic, which is the encumbered properties, and then deliberate and see if that motion would pass or if we need to make amendments to that motion. So if that makes sense, we would entertain a motion.

I don't remember who made a motion last time.

Should be this time. So this would be to accept the red line. Exactly.

I'll make a motion to accept the red lines. Second.

Okay, we've got a motion and a second. So now for debate on that. So who would like to start?

I'll start to.

I'll say we accept them.

If I remember correctly, Shyam, last time when we talked about this, I think it was you who brought up that why even have a percentage number, right? You wanted to make it to zero percent or something?

I think that's the red line.

That's the red line. We all agree on that, right? I mean, we don't want to debate it. Okay.

So one just one thing that I wonder about I actually I like the way it's been rooted it followed from the deliberations last two weeks ago The during that time or maybe it was the meeting before that you know because the commissioners are you know comfortable that there's enough and actually sammamish has pretty strict requirements around critical areas and so forth that the property would not be risking those areas so i'm less concerned about that than a property owner who's not fully informed that says oh i you know i've read this I can go for this quasi judicial. And then they find out later that there are additional requirements. And so whether that's clear enough in the code, or I know we talked a little bit about what shows up online versus in the the formal SMC code. So if you could mention that a little bit, just so that nobody's kind of surprised, if you will.

So absolutely agree with that. And we have a fairly robust process to get into a quasi-judicial rezone. You first have to do a project guidance, then you have to do a pre-application conference, then you have to actually submit the rezone application. And part of the rezone application part of the pre-app, if you will, also includes a critical areas affidavit and a requirement about studying critical areas on the site. I respectfully disagree with what one of the commenters said this evening. There was a very thorough analysis of critical areas related to the iRide ReZone. critical areas being those listed here wetland streams and landslide hazard areas included with that file and in fact there are there is a stream segment and a slope identified on that property so that was in the file it was available to the hearing examiner and the public that's a pretty thick file so I don't So I do completely understand if someone missed that and didn't see it. But it is also part of the analysis that was done by staff in support of the rezone where recommendation was made to the hearing examiner. So there have been some other reasons that have gone through. have had critical areas on them there have been some that haven't and even those that haven't we have required that they do a what we call a site reconnaissance by a qualified professional just to verify that there are not critical areas on the property so between the the engagement with staff early the project guidance step in the process the pre-application conference step in the process and finally the application and review and and um staff's review and staff do visit the properties and and walk them to understand more about the properties before making uh recommendations to the hearing examiner that that is addressed in those ways that was a mouthful

And what I take from that is that there really are quite a lot of, I'll call them protections, so that there won't be an approval for an up zone on property that really could not support that.

David, would it make sense to you that since the city council wants us to look at it, Listen to the presentation and give a recommendation. Would it make sense to add a sentence that if we voted yes or no or make a modification, list the justification that why we voted on it this way or that way? Or you're going to be making that part of your presentation?

In the commission's recommendation letter? Absolutely. We should include that. That's a great recommendation.

and making it more strongly in a way that council understand that we didn't simply vote on it. We did it based on the following facts and figures and justifications.

And that's definitely part of the process. I think that we've enhanced a little bit from prior years. It's always been at least a little bit of explanation, but we've added to that and enhanced that for this year, so. So the rationale along with the recommendation of vote would be included in the transmittal letter.

So that was... Just a quick question. The sewer, does that mean someone on septic, they do not qualify?

That means that someone on septic would qualify if within the relevant district sewer plans, comprehensive plan, it shows a future connection being brought to the property. So they could be on septic today, but if there is a plan, albeit in the distant future maybe 10 years down the line to bring sewer to the property they would qualify if there is there are some areas in the city that are not sewerable and what it would take is a property owner would have to work with the district on its next sewer comprehensive plan and try to petition them to include a lift station or some form of sewer facility in order to bring sewer to that property once it's included in the plan then they would become eligible

Can I follow up question and Sean's question what percentage of housing units in the city? They're served by sewer.

I Don't have that in my offhand, although Mary might they they do there is a large percentage of the city that is on septic, although the the sewer districts the two sewer districts are working pretty hard to bring sewer to most areas that can be fed by gravity. Most of the remaining sewer to be deployed is in the Sammamish Plateau water and sewer district areas. They have been designing their system to feed into a new connection to the north to Brightwater up in its King County facility that's ironically located in Snohomish County. But It will plumb to the north. Currently, all of the city flows to the south, all of the same Sam Platt area flows to the south, and that system is over is reaching capacity. So over its reaching capacity. You might have seen some surveyors down along the parkway over the past few weeks. They are collecting information for a future connection that will be a theory installed in the parkway. It's a very large project that the county is undertaking. um we want to try to get more information out to the community because they will be looking at alternatives about how to construct that and when it is constructed it will be very disruptive to use of the parkway although the flip side of that is the city has an opportunity to engage closely with the county to try to get the parkway reconstructed in a manner that improves that facility for the city so i it's a long answer i just wanted to give a plug to the north diversions what it's called and anybody listening go look up that project it's really interesting thank you okay any other comments

Well, if not, we have a motion, and we haven't made any amendments to that motion, so let's take a vote. All in favor of the motion as stated, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. One down. okay the next one uh this is the exemptions to the affordable housing fee in lieu so uh deliberation on that actually nope sorry we'll start with the motion thank you i saw your book so jumping ahead so who wants to make motion i'll make a motion all right you're on a roll the motion to accept it with edits second Okay, so then we'll have some deliberations about the edits and some amendments around those. Okay, so.

Hisham suggested last time to go to 3,000.

I suggested last time to go to 3,000 square feet and I still make that suggestion to go to 3,000 square feet for everyone.

And play out a little bit I did hear that last year right there last time, you know because I was online But how does that compare in your mind to the 50% and then the thousand square feet additions? I

I'll go back to what Jim said earlier today. No one is expanding just because they want to expand. It's because of a need. And construction is expensive nowadays. And if I'm expanding because of a need, it's either I have older parents, older family people, older people I need to take care of, or younger people that I also need to take care of. And 1700 or 1800, yes, I lived in an 1800 and I lived in smaller than 1800 for many, many years. But it's not ideal for a larger family. And I'll go back to what we always talked about, developer versus individual. This was intended so that we can help maximize or increase the number of affordable units by incentivizing or forcing, maybe it's not incentivizing, there's no incentive here, there's a forcing, the developer to provide more affordable units. They built 10, they give us one. individual homeowner they have no way to doing this so we are setting a rule since day one to penalize them And it's unfair to set a rule that's only penalizing the developer. There are ways to incentivize them. And I like to incentivize people more than to penalize people, because you can get a lot done when you incentivize people. And there are many ways, there are many levers, like Dave says, that we can encourage the developers to build these smaller, more affordable. But there's nothing we can do with the private homeowner. We are literally just penalizing them. We are not helping them at all. Live in place, grow their families, improve the conditions of their houses. If I go back to the numbers, the average size home, the 1,750 that we are talking about, let's call it 1,800 to make the math easier. If we're saying we're going to allow them a one time, expansion, you just bumped them to 2,800. If we are giving them a 50%, we are also getting them close to the 3,000 I'm talking about. If I go to the maximum, the 2,000, plus 1,000, that becomes the 3,000, plus 50%, that becomes the 3,000. The numbers, they keep going back to the 3,000. And instead of putting all these different conditions, and like I said from before, age in place, No, none of us can define age in place. A 30-year-old can say, I want to age in place, and I want to expand it. We're not going to say no, because yes, maybe we call age in place is to get, let's say, above 60 years old. I'm 30 years old and I'm planning to stay in this house for the next 30 because anyone who buys a house on a 30-year mortgage, yes, they are planning to stay there for 30 years. That's aging in place. If you're staying in a place for 30 years, that's aging in place. I don't care how old you are today. Let's make it 3,000 for everyone. And I'm talking here, again, about individuals. I'm not talking about developers at all. The developers, we need to come up with a way to encourage them to build more affordable units. Taking a house out of them, they will just spread it on the other line.

let me just for clarification so the there's two portions here really I think one is the for new construction to go to the 1750. is that that's correct right to exemption and that is partly and that's an increase from what is already in the code.

That's correct. And I'm listening, I'm trying to figure out where the commission's going in the conversation between the realm of new construction where you have a subdivision and you're building out lots or you have a middle housing development and there's multiple units versus an individual who has a vacant lot building a single family home or maybe even a couple middle housing units on it because that's becoming a thing and then over here the existing homes that are being renovated or expanded and then we'll go one step further there's another category which is existing homes that need to be renovated where you need to demolish the home in order to renovate it and it makes financial sense to expand it at that time um or there are needs with your family and et cetera that require you to expand it when you reconstruct it. So thinking about it that way, what I'm hearing is if you left the 1750 for the new construction here, the multiplication of units, let's skip the new single family. I own a lot. I want to build a new home. Let's focus over here on the the remodels and the teardown rebuild expansions and if you exempted all units smaller than 3 000 square feet or less um if you so you had a 2500 square foot home and you you wanted to add on to it up to 3 000 square feet exempt you have an existing home and you want to tear it it's 1750 and you want to tear it i don't know why i reused that number 1900 square feet, you want to tear it down and rebuild it to 3000 square feet exempt. But if you want to do your home addition and you end up at 3050, well then you pay the fee on 50. If you want to tear down your house and enlarge it to 3000 and say it's 2000 now and you want to enlarge it to $3,100, then you pay it on $100. And that uniformly gets everyone to that point. And it takes away the need to do 50%, 1,000 square feet. And it really just sets that threshold. And then once the house gets to that size, there are no other exemptions granted. and that's where if your home is 3,000 square feet and you wanna do a 200 square foot addition, you then have to pay on it. Or say your home is currently 3,500 square feet and you wanna do a 200 square foot addition, then you have to pay on that addition. That's really trying to center the housing stock around 3,000 square feet is really a reasonable size for a family in Sammamish, understandably. That does not address The one bucket that I'm curious about, which is I have a vacant lot. I want to build a house for myself and my family. How do you handle that? Because over here you have 1750 for multiplication of units, multiple units. Over here you have 3000 that fits the remodel expansion, tear down expansion. But then this one bucket right here as an individual.

If I go back, David. And I don't want to go truly that back because I'm opposed to the program, period, of the penalties. But I get it. The city council said this is here to stay, work with it. So it's here to stay. I'm saying for it is here to stay, $3,000 is the threshold for everyone. I have an empty lot. I'm building a house for my family, $3,000. $3,001, I pay a penalty on the one. I have an existing house. I'm moving my parents with me, I'm building an extension, it becomes 3,001, I pay the penalty on the one. Anything I do, I don't wanna get into different details because we're gonna get lost into the different types of construction. Anything up to 3,000 square feet is exempt from this penalty. And honestly, what makes it even worse, this money is not going back to Sammamish, this money is going elsewhere.

It goes to Archer.

It's not going back to Sammamish. It goes to Archer, exactly. Let's focus on the 3,000.

I want to accurately say that that is not the case, that the resolution that was passed by the city council in April of 2025 directs that the money be spent in Sammamish on Sammamish projects however in the instance where where money is collected and there are no projects viable at the direction of the city council the money may be used for projects immediately outside the city when we give it to arch today is arch opening an escrow account that can only be spent from to sammamish yes okay thank you for correcting me then

I have a question. I seem to recall that the 1750 is habitable area only. So it doesn't include garages.

basements does not include garages or other uh unconditioned space so the the model that we've worked on with some master builders members is a three bedroom three bathroom house with a flex space and a two-car garage and that is fits within a 1750 model we actually were looking at some today on zillow that are showing for sale and down in the klahani area that are uh 1500 and Within the 1500, there are some that are three bedroom, two bathroom, some that are two bedroom, 2.5 bathroom, two car garage, different configurations. The opportunity there with the 1750 is that the condition space is what it's regulated to. but you can include flex space like an art room or a mud room or a storage area or a workout room that's considered as unconditioned it's not heated that allows for some flex space in that type of structure and we have a few floor plans we've worked on with with builders on that and they have indicated that that is completely viable now of course 3000 they would love to hear that so so you could get pretty close to 3 000 with a three-car garage in in total including that that's right and and the the thing i think that's that's commonly missing from this conversation is the multiple layers in which this works and you know we talked before about the fact that the city is not really after trying to collect money necessarily right that's part of the puzzle right hb 1220 says that the city needs to plan for, accommodate, incentivize, and remove barriers to, and address the funding gap related to the delivery of deep affordable housing in the city. The Housing Accountability Act that was passed in 2025 really puts the cities collectively, we're all in it together, in the hot seat, so to speak, where commerce has the ability to audit us and to direct that reasonable, there's a term, it's the... reasonable changes be made to our housing plan in order to address reasonable measures be implemented in order to address the housing requirements of the region. So we are not coming up with this on our own. This is something that comes from the state. But I think what's really important to understand is the layers in which this is interconnected. So We understand that, and contrary to what I heard from some of the speakers this evening, that when someone does an addition and invests in a home, which is a good thing, I understand that, it also changes the land economics of the city. So over time, as investments occur, homes get bigger and bigger, It reduces the number of units that remain that were considered the older, more affordable housing stock, and those are replaced with renovated and large units that are less available and less accessible to people in different lower economic brackets. There are certain areas like Crossroads and Bellevue that are a good example. Just go drive through there. Crossroads used to be the affordable area, and Bellevue, look at it now. Good luck trying to buy one of those homes. guess that's part of my concern is in my neighborhood we're getting tear downs and then giant homes getting rebuilt so so the challenge that we have is we have heard for years i've been you know i i i listen really closely to council meetings commission meetings read public comments that are part of projects that you know homes like uh like what's the the one we always like to pick on what highcroft are are really not what sammamish wants to be and that that i've heard for years that people want to be able to retire here in the city and downsize but there aren't any units available to meet their needs and the challenge there is that builders are not building units of that size whether it's 1750 or whether it's 2,000, 2,500, because they're chasing square footage in the finished floor area in order to sell it for the price they can sell it for because of the land costs that go into it and all of the other inputs that go into it. So consequently, we are trying to deliberately tip land economics on its head, and we are trying to get builders to be attracted to smaller units. This is all coupled with middle housing. So you're now allowed three units per lot. You can do a much higher density with middle housing typologies. Those are ADUs, cottages, townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, stacked flats, courtyard apartments. And the intent there is that this creates a more attractive environment for a builder to come in and build a unit at 1750, which fills a missing niche in the community. And that is really trying to drive builders that and it's actually starting to work. We have a lot of builders that are very interested and they just tell us that 1500 just won't get them there. 1750 They would love to build that in the city and they'll build triplexes and they will fill that that need in that niche and they will come in and they will market them at a lower trim and it will be market affordable by way of square footage. So when you start to look at the interconnections of this program and what we've put together, it really is. what I call the housing ecosystem. We won an award from FutureWise on our housing program because of the thoughtfulness that went into how these things are all interconnected. I understand that some components of it are less desirable to different perspectives. I'm not trying to diminish that there are impacts to people. I am simply noting that the way in which this program works depends on our ability to attract builders to that smaller unit type in order to deliver the housing that we have heard for years that the community wants.

You are already successfully doing it. And I agree with you 100% because you gave them the incentive, they will do it. And that what will solve our problem for people to age here, for younger people to go and start families. But at the same time, let's not penalize individuals who want to build a single family home for their families. Let's let's add more incentives for the builders to continue doing the good things that we want them to do. But let's not hurt the individuals.

So with what I hear with that is when thinking about the four categories right down over here, you have the demolition rebuild expansion, right? Set that at 3000, anything above that. you pay the fee on that the the existing remodel expansion set it at 3 000 just like the teardown the the new construction single unit new construction not taking advantage of middle housing single unit new construction on a you know vacant lot you want to build a house sell that um at at or sorry excuse me live in it i'm not talking about selling no no i i use the wrong word i apologize Because that's what goes in your mind, that they will build it and sell it. Yeah, we won't get into that. Set that at $3,000. And then for multiplication of units, whether it's a short plat, whether it's middle housing, whatever it is that's resulting in multiplication, it's $1,750. I'm not sure about the last one.

I did not understand it well, the last one. The last one, because it's really, let's think about it as developer-focused, multiple units. That's where we're providing, if you will, an incentive to be building smaller to that 1750.

Oh, by multiple units, you meant like, what do you call them, duplexes? What I mean is anytime it's not just a vacant lot, one home going up, anything more than that. And we could put into the vacant lot one home going up with an ADU, right? Sure. But on this side, it's where you're building a subdivision, a short subdivision, a middle housing unit lot division, a middle housing condominium project. Any of those, you would set it at $1,750.

If you ask me for those, I would go with what Paul said, the 2,100.

I'd asked earlier, way earlier, about clarification. And the reason for about that, the 3,000, is if you could put the wording up for the exemptions, because of the 50% and the 1,000 square feet. um if i have a if somebody has a 2500 square foot home what this is saying is you can go up to you know the 50 or a thousand square it gets you above 3 000 square feet so i wanted to just be clear that that 3 000 is actually in a way more restrictive to homeowners than what this wording is for people who already have a larger than the kind of average size house.

I'm trying to compromise. And I'm saying that the one who has a 2,500 square feet home probably wants to go a little bit more. But the one who has the 1,500 or the 1,700, that's the one who needs to go more than the one who has the 2,500. I mean, if it's up to me, yeah, I'll let the 2,500 go, the sky's the limit. But again, I want to compromise, and if I have to set a threshold for everyone, I'll go by the 3,000 for everyone.

Well, the reason I was asking is I think you and I know I do, I don't want to penalize an individual homeowner with essentially a tax for affordability, right? Now, we're going to do that because it's a requirement. And so what's the right thing to set? So my sense is, if I understand the math, is that your 3000 is actually more restrictive to more homeowner, a homeowner who has a larger home. below $3,000 is going to be paying a fee greater amount with what's written at $3,000 than what's written here, which doesn't feel like the way I think you would want to be moving.

I'll just add, you might remember from the impact fee work we wrapped up a little bit ago, I think the average home size in Sammamish is around 2,150 square feet.

but so a homeowner owns one that's 2700 square feet and wants to bring you know their relatives to live in so could i offer that you create three categories and we're not trying to get super complicated but there are three distinctive things happening here there are remodels and remodel additions tear down additions and you do 50 thousand square feet And then there is a new single lot one up, 3,000 square feet. and then you do 1750 or 2100, wherever you all want to land on that conversation for what I call multiplication of units. That's development. That is, you know, short plat, plat, middle housing project, middle housing condo, middle housing unit lot division. And that then, that there are those three distinct categories. And what that helps do is it helps drive builders who are building production down to 1750 or 2100 or wherever you put it. If you're building a on a vacant lot, you get 3000 square feet to work with anything over that. You need to pay a fee on that. remodeling you want to do 50 or a thousand square feet um would be because of what you're saying right so that would be though if you're doing an addition remodel edition or a teardown edition fifty percent thousand square feet um more generous if you will to the homeowners is more generous right um if you start with some something in the middle two thousands

If you start from the 2,500, if you start with anything more than 2,000, yes, it's more generous. But I'm saying most of the older homes that will need to do these kind of things, they are probably less than the 2,000. But I like your thought, keep going.

So I have a suggestion here. So we've kind of laid things out, and we should be hearing from others in a moment, but why don't we look at, like, um a and so there's some clarification if we're using that david as you've mentioned for the sort of the multiple unit it's just right now it this would uh apply to a developer who's doing a short plat or a property owner who has just enough space and property to build 1750 right

or a triplex it's it's a it's it's a it's a production builder it's not just a it's a new unit oh yeah so i see what you're saying that's not stated in in that it's we we would fix that yeah we would fix that so that it is clearly stated that um projects with multiple units Right, so anything that we could include under the example below, a short plat, plat, middle housing unit lot division, middle housing condominium development, right, that could be pretty easy. One friendly amendment that I could offer you all to consider, this came from a builder, was average of 1750 across the units. And the concept there is that it allows them to build a few bigger units and a few smaller units. And it could result in a project with one 3,000 square foot unit, one 500 square foot unit. And on average, the units are 1,750. It provides for some more diversity and flexibility.

Regardless of number of dwelling units that they build?

Regardless of the number, the average across the total is 1750.

Then they will build two 3000s and one 1000th, and they will say the average. I still like what Paul said, the 2100. Paul knows about these numbers better than all of us. I'm sorry, I'm saying this, but Paul knows very well about these numbers. And if he's saying the average size... If we go by 2100 as the average size is better, more fit for the market needs, I trust his judgment. So for the multiple units, I would go with 2100.

Well, let's go back to what David was suggesting. I think that it makes sense that it can meet you halfway.

They will trick you.

They would.

They will trick you. They will build two large ones and one smaller one.

Then they'll pay about $1,750, right? If they build $3,000.

But I don't want $3,000 from the builder. From the builder, I want the smaller ones. That's why I'm saying the builder gets $2,100.

Yep, I retract that. I've had a lot of conversations with builders about this, and I've been trying to find something that gets this housing built in our city. And I just had to offer that because that's one that's come up more than once. But like you say, it's a slippery slope.

It sounds like it has complexity, frankly.

So can you summarize what we are doing here? Because there's too much conversation. I'm trying to figure it out ahead, too.

We're still confused.

I have some questions, but yeah, I'll defer.

all right so we're talking about what would be an amendment to the motion on some wording change to a above right and um there's two parts to discuss one is whether it's 1750 or 2100 and the second is the clarification which i don't think we need to wordsmith that here but provide direction about clarification that this is for however you state it like for multiple units as opposed to one property owner building one unit right so um can we go around uh and you could comment on both of those elements the 1750 and the clarification about for the multiple units and Ozzie why don't you start and then we'll just we'll swing around wait before getting to that I need I need to get some clarification from Mr chairman is that David basically summarized it we're talking about four different classes four different ones

now we zero in and only on the developer side on the first one i'm talking about remodeling and i'm talking we'll get to that okay so only as far as the developer side right the one that he had on his furthest left side right so we're talking about that his friendly friendly amendment

Well, not even the friendly amendment. So just so that we can move towards getting to resolution, A, in the way I was thinking about it, that would be worded in a way that it's the left-hand side, the developer side with multiple units, right? Multiple units.

Okay, and then we'll get to the others. All right, so. So we are clear that point A is only for developers' new homes, correct? Correct, and that's what A is up above. They all are multiple units, not just one single family. Not just, so one flat, one home, no. It's basically one flat.

It's multiple duplexes. But single families also? It would be a production builder where you're doing a plat, which could include two lots and up, right? So if you have a property and you are dividing it into two, and you're building two new homes on it, then you would qualify for it.

Could be single family, duplex, whatever. When there's multiplication occurs, which is actually an easy threshold to understand otherwise we kind of get yeah, it'd be So I had I'm just trying to throw an idea out here because Hesham mentioned a very good point Well, I think you David quote on that is that the reason builders try to big build home is because the land cost is so high that making a 1,200 square feet or 50 square feet home on a 1 million dollar land we're adding only 200,000 value is not enough. Well, if we make a 3,000 square feet home where they can get 3 million out of it, that is more because of land value. So that is the issue mainly which is causing this affordable housing issue here. The second point you made, Hisham, or Dave, one of you made again, I'm trying to remember, is if we allow existing family homes to expand, then that pool that you had of 1,700 or 1,500 homes that used to be affordable, are now getting into the 3,000 range also, again, they're going to become unaffordable. So I like the point you made that you want to incentivize rather than penalize people, right? So one way to look at it is, and Nisham, I know you are in the construction, you've been in businesses. The reason sometimes this cost of building homes goes high is because of the permitting process is very slow. If we can incentivize some way, saying, hey, if you're building a home which is in the middle affordable range, like 1,800 square feet, we give you quick permitting. That saves them time. So instead of taking two years or three years and going through the process, they can get that done out in six months or something. Hey, you incentivize, you'll do it. Then you get a bill that says, you know what? I got this land. I don't have to sit on this money and all that stuff. I can quickly get capital, move on, and get my money cash out. So I don't know if that can be discussed as part of this amendment or is a separate thing or whatever.

I don't know. There's been a lot of conversation with master builders, the Building Industry Association of Washington, Realtors Associations, regional conversations about exactly that. And from my perspective, at the end of the day, it all boils down to if we're serious about that and we want to do that, then it comes down to tree regulations and stormwater. Those are the two issues that are causing design challenges with projects. It's not that our permit process takes too long. It is that we have multiple go-arounds with builders who don't understand our tree rules, which are pretty onerous, and don't understand our stormwater rules, which are pretty onerous. We're protecting the natural environment. We have a directive on that from our community here. What the cost of that is, is it slows down permitting and makes things much more complicated when we are working through design.

I would challenge you on that, that five years ago, maybe that was the case. But with the advancement in AI and machine learning and things that we have in technology, I think it makes that process much more streamlined. There's some upfront cost required to get that process started for one time. But once you do that and templatize that, I think it is much more easy. Again, I come from a tech world, so I know I'm solving other problems, but this is a problem that can be solved through technology much quicker.

And it's a bullet you got to bite one time. Agreed. I would love to discuss this over a beer sometime. Yeah, definitely.

But I'm just saying that we need to... So again, that was my point. But otherwise, I kind of just come back to the point of deliberation we have here. Yes. 2,100, I think, is a better number, Hesham, than the 3,000 that we had because we want to keep the number low because we want to incentivize people to keep homes in small range because otherwise what will happen to some Amish is what you mentioned Crossroads, not even Crossroads, even Clyde Hill and someone's area used to have smaller homes. Now they're building those McMansions, as they call them, the Bellevue McMansions, what they call them. three thousand four thousand five thousand square foot homes where they see ramblers and those areas are not all affordable anymore and sammamish will become same way so for our nurses firefighters teachers who live here or even we when we like i cannot go back and afford my home right now that i want it becomes like that so i i think we need to keep the home smaller homes in place here and that's what i feel here i yield to you

I don't have that much speech in me anymore. End of the day. So point A is if it's the builders doing multiple homes, it doesn't matter, like townhome, single-family home, I would stick with $1,500 because that's where I want to retire, and so is my neighbor Lisa, Paul Stickney knows, more affordable, more manageable, so...

I'll go and then we'll close that. I hear about the 2100, but what Paul was stating was basically what's getting built and sort of the average on the smaller-ish side versus the really large ones. And we want to actually push towards smaller, meaning more affordable. So I do like... the 1750 because i hear what master builders is saying and that that makes projects possible and and the 1500 i get that that would be if i didn't have that information about the buildability and the additional cost between that the fianlu would bring going from 1500 to 1750 that would in fact increase the price of a small somewhat more affordable home if that makes sense So I thought the 1750 was a good compromise for builder developed multi-unit kind of stuff. And going beyond that would provide less nudge, if you will, to keep the units a little bit smaller and more affordable. So, Syed.

I also agree with the 1750 as long as we're talking about developers, but I have a question. What happened in a scenario that a developer has purchased a number of properties, let's say five parcels, and two of those parcels already have some structure on it, and basically they're going to be teared down. So how are you going to calculate? Are they going to be under 1750, or if the 2050 is supported by the votes, then he's going to take advantage of it? How are you going to deal with that?

in that scenario we had an assemblage say five five parcels say three were vacant two had existing homes on them exactly yes and they were going to completely demolish the two homes because they couldn't build their unit lot division of middle housing on it right um then they would be starting anew and they would be having to pay the fee or excuse me if all the homes were less than seven if it was 1750 that was adopted, 1500 or 2100, whatever it was, and all the homes were smaller than that, then they would be exempt and they would not have to pay the fee, right?

I think that- Even though the three parcel is a brand new, because there's no structure on it.

Well, they're vacant. It's multiplication is what it is. But somebody who's coming in with five parcels, and they're going to do five spec homes, and they're going to do one spec home on each of the existing parcels, and they're going to demolish the two homes on the parcels, that's not multiplication. That's one existing lot, one unit being built. So they would fall into the other bucket. And if that was a 3000 square foot bucket, then they would they would if the homes were smaller than 3000 square feet, they would not have to pay the fee. But if the homes were larger, it would be on a lot by lot basis. Right. And we do have those situations where builders do that. They find. you know, Tamarack and Englewood have such, Englewood especially has situations like that where there are multiple vacant lots and a builder will come in and build multiple homes side by side on existing lots, but that would not be treated as multiplication. That would be treated as existing platted lots where there's one vacant lot, one home going up or... One teardown, one going, right.

So let me understand what you just said. In that case of five parcels, three of them vacant lots, the $1,750 would apply. Well, $1,500 or $1,300. And then the two remaining that basically there is existing structure on it, it would fall under potentially under $2,000 or $3,000 limit.

Is that right? Is that what you said? I think it depends. And the reason for that is because of whatever the product is they're building. If the product they're building is single-family spec homes on the vacant lots, and they're only building five single-family spec homes on the five lots, and they're demolishing two of the existing homes in order to do that, and the homes were smaller than 3,000 square feet, they would be exempt. They would not have to pay it. That's that category. But the one we're talking about here is for developers. So if you had those five lots and you wanted to build a middle housing product on those lots, you wanted to do an assemblage and re-divide, you wanted to do a unit lot division you wanted to do a condominium any of those products where there's multiplication occurring um would result in the the 1500 1750 2100 applying across across the land mass that is subject to development okay thank you

So just to give ourselves a little perspective, if I remember right from earlier discussion, somewhere around 80% of our housing stock is in sub-developments. So we're not going to see a lot of changes there because of CCRs and lot constraints. At the same time, we don't have a lot of vacant land. So you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing a lot of our development's going to be either smaller multiple lots or infill on single lots, maybe sometimes combining lots. And there are also more complex sites, steep slopes, critical areas. So the number's shrinking overall.

Absolutely. We see infill middle housing. Typically, you're looking at like six to 12 units at a time. Middle housing, tear down two existing homes or maybe one lot vacant, one existing home, tear down the existing home, build 12 middle housing units, six middle housing units, that kind of thing. That's what the future is.

Yeah, OK, just sort of baseline there. Then going back to my earlier comment, you know we keep throwing around square footage. 1753 thousand 21. Really want to pin that down. To habitable area. So if the 3000 we're talking about is total square footage, it might make more sense to define that as 2100. Of habitable area.

So we use for this code conditioned floor area. Exactly. And so when we talk about 1500, 1750, 2100 for item 2110, 100A, we're talking about conditioned floor area.

And then, you know, the 3000 that's been bantered about is that conditioned floor area.

That's up to you all that I interpreted it to be conditioned floor area. So you could have a 3,000 square foot living area, an unfinished basement, and a three-car garage.

Yeah, so you're up to 4,000 total pretty quick.

So John, just for information of people like me, If I look at Zillow now and I find a property that says 3,000 square feet, is that habitable or is that overall? Because this will allow anyone watching this now to put things in perspective because I'm sure that they have walked houses or they live in houses, but none of them pull the tape and measure it.

So I could go to the one I do know, King County Assessor. If you go to the IMAP page or the Assessor page, you pull a property, you pull the property detail, it does show you the finished floor area and it shows you the total floor area. So you could include, you might have a unfinished basement, a garage, and what they'll do is they'll tell you per floor how much area there is and then they'll add it up at the bottom and tell you finish floor area versus versus total floor area there's different tax rates per based on area i i guess finish area includes the garage uh does not not on the assessor's page but i don't know how zillow does it no again for an average person your house now let's say your house

advertised at 3 000 square feet does that include the garage or does that not include the garage i'd ask paul who's a realtor no okay i think that the word that they use is net net square footage I'm just trying to allow everyone to put it in perspective.

Hisham, they say it was a livable area, they call that, which is what you can live in. So I think garage, basement, porch, all that doesn't count.

Okay, my final comment is I'm still stuck for the multiple developer build outs. I'm at 1750.

If I can just finish that out here.

If the market is doing 2100, there's a reason for the market to do 2100. If we say market, we will only allow you to do 1750, they will still do 2100 because that what the market dictates. What they will do, they will pay the penalty on the extra footage. What will now happen, the cost of the house will just go up. The builder, he has a way to recoup the penalty. The individual does not. So if we make it too hard for the builder, they will do it, but they will pay the penalty. and collect it back from the end user. Again, I go back to we want to provide incentives for them because we don't want them to lose money. They are not going to lose money. They will either stop building or they will build and increase the price. The end user has no option. You and I, we have no option. It's either we go and camp in that park or we pay whatever it takes.

okay so um it's interesting we have different numbers we we vote i guess on the different numbers so we have three numbers fifteen hundred seventeen fifty and twenty one hundred right Well, I could go with the the 20 I had your reasoning about adding cost to the with a homeowner, prospective homeowner will pay does affect the affordability. And we've said that we're not looking to fund affordable housing through the fee in lieu. It's it's a component of this whole thing, but it's not trying to create a big pool of money to be able to build deeply affordable units. So the difference in what the city will collect between 1750 and 2100, it's you know, it's I don't know if it's material or not, but it's not huge.

Can I add a point to this as well? So I wanna make sure to talk about, in my experience, that I, don't disagree but i respectfully disagree with what you said um that it adds cost to the the buyer of the housing instead what typically happens in my experience is that it it is the determinant as to whether a builder will build the project or not because the builder is not going to be able to sell a unit for more than the market will bring um the builder just because the affordable housing fee is added doesn't mean that the builder will then sell the unit for more and it doesn't mean that if we didn't have the affordable housing fee the builder would sell it for less the builder will sell it for what the market will bring based on comps and based on what appraisers will tell them whether they're wearing rose colored glasses or clear colored glasses just depends instead what it does and the real impact that it has is Whether or not a project is viable in Sammamish and whether they will move forward with it or not That is really the implication as I see it and in my experience There have been multiple projects that have attempted to bring be brought forward in Sammamish recently middle housing projects that would have been pretty pretty nice projects for the community to have but the inclusionary affordable housing fee was What ultimately set set them off because they knew what they could sell it for and it and it put them in a zone where there was not enough, the profit margin wasn't enough, if you will.

And that's why I'm trying not to just.

David. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

can go over the the money that city collects from these fees where the money goes you may want to kind of elaborate on this right so there was a resolution that was passed by the city council i think it was april of 2025 and within that resolution um it describes a new program being started and that the city would work with arch to create a um escrow account where the monies would be sent, including interest gains and all that. They go along with that. So what happens is on a monthly basis, we look at our ledgers and see what monies we've collected, and we transmit those monies to ARCH, which is held in an account. The city council then evaluates the... There's another section in that resolution that describes that the city council will excuse me, review the account balance and consider options for how to bring or how to promote affordable housing in the city. An example might be that the Sammamish Presbyterian Church for a period of time, and they're still working on it, albeit a bit slower now, was looking at building an affordable housing development on the side of the church there. Just know around the corner from right behind the boys and girls club over there kind of down the street and they were looking at bringing in um some arch housing trust fund dollars not not the the city's inclusionary affordable housing dollars but separate looking at trying to bring in some housing philanthropy dollars from amazon which there is quite a bit of money available from amazon right now and looking at trying to get some state housing trust fund dollars as well And that in addition to that, that in order to be an attractive recipient of grant dollars, whether it be from the Arch Housing Trust Fund, Housing Philanthropists, or from the State Housing Trust Fund and others, there's a couple other, there's another state program that if you have a local contribution. Matching fund. not necessarily matching, you could call it matching, but even if it's much lower, because the cost to build one of those projects, we're only gonna be providing a very small percentage of that. But when a city or a local jurisdiction makes a contribution towards a project, It sends a message to the housing philanthropy donor that this is a project that will be successful. It has community support. So that is what we are trying to grow here to amplify the dollars that we collect to bring that much more affordable housing to the community.

So let me tell you why I asked that question because there's probably there's a perception that at least part of the money will go to the general fund or could go towards the part of money that city has as part of impact fee. So it is not. All the money that you're collecting from developer or from the individuals that they do remodeling and all that would stay in a separate fund that would be available for affordable housing. Is that right?

Absolutely. And with this, we are going to be proposing wherever you land on this, that it be retroactive back to the beginning of the program, because we would like to make sure that anybody who might have participated in payment is made whole by readjusting back and getting a refund for those dollars. So I have seen basically the balance sheets, if you will, and it is absolutely held in a completely separate account than anything else.

Can you share some numbers with us in the last few years?

$150,000 is currently in the account.

Over how long?

Over, since the program began in, I think is April of 2025.

Since you brought up that Mamish Presbyterian Church example, I just want to ask one question or clarification. These fees, and we talk about if it's new construction, but if the construction is not done by a builder, but done by an NGO or nonprofit like Habitat for Humanity or something, does this still apply in that case also?

It does not apply. There's another exemption in here for affordable housing units. So there's another page to this but um it's it's affordable housing units that are 80 ami and below are not that doesn't apply to them so if you built a project of like eight affordable housing units you don't have to pay the fee in lieu that's right so you don't okay perfect this one makes you yeah thank you but you're already accomplishing the purpose of the theme

Okay, so we should try to wrap this up. We've got, as I had summarized, we have 1,500, 1,750, and 2,100. I think we all agree that this should be for the leftmost with the multiple units, so that's an easy part.

Can I add one more question related to this? Can we talk about number C, garage conversion? We didn't really talk about this. We should come to that.

Let's nail this first one.

The 1750 would include a garage conversion or not?

It wouldn't because it's for multiplication development units.

It is a time to talk about it.

Yeah, I thought it felt separate. Totally separate? Yeah. You wouldn't have anything to convert if you're... You're right.

Unless you just had a garage setting, then you... I guess, yes. I don't think so.

I guess that's possible, but... All right, so... I don't know the best way to try to resolve the you know, the five 600 square foot difference has shown you've made some pretty strong arguments. So you've you're on the 1500 side, make your point about that, and why that's important.

I'm gonna make it as more personal because I agree with Commissioner Hisham about not penalizing individual homeowners definitely but when it comes to like we're encouraging people to build smaller homes and in California 1750 is a big house so it's all a perspective and and Paul knows that he's been talking to my neighbors who are ready to retire. They're like, I don't need a 2,000 square feet. This is what I hear from them. So I'm talking from their perspective, older generation saying, i'm good with 1500 if i can retire and stay in sammamish that helps me with that perspective i'm saying it's 1500 yeah so it would i'm not ready to retire but yeah to motivate builders to build on the smaller side exactly yeah versus i definitely agree with not penalizing individual residents definitely yeah yeah i think we're all pretty firmly in that boat but we'll find out in a few moments um

so let's go one more time around would you you shift to um 1750 2100 1500 and then we'll we'll make i'm okay with 2100 okay with or would that be what you would sorry okay with or was that what you would prefer i would prefer 21 it's that's better if it's a consensus it's a kind of a middle of the ground so it's a win-win i think 2100 well 2100 is on the high side not a middle of the ground

No, we could, between 3,000, what he wanted.

No, 3,000 was for additions, not for this new, yeah, so I think those are very separate.

Okay, so there's a new home, then I'm okay with the 1750.

Okay, yeah, yeah, because 3,000 is a whole separate piece for the, you know, additions, which...

Yeah, thanks for clearing.

Okay, so 1,500, 1,750. I do think the 1,750 is justifiable to try to move towards more of that kind of cottage housing and all. Sayan? 1,750. John? 1,750. Okay. So then we should, and Hisham, you've made great arguments, but we're close. You're going to win in the second round. Well, there's still the $3,000 that's coming up.

And we might be back here in six months changing it to $2,000.

as well and you know really when it comes down to it with inflation and all the fact that they can make it pencil out at 1750 now was not going to be it could be better or worse in the future so we should make an amendment to the motion the motion was for this whole piece an amendment would be for 2110 100 a to do uh one piece because it has 1750 right which was part of the motion And that would be to adjust the wording to whatever your magic wording was, David, about multiples.

Development of multiple units, including short plats, plats, middle housing unit lot divisions, middle housing condominiums, and projects of that nature.

Okay. So that would be our amendment. So we need a... Can I ask a question?

I think that Hisham's motion was amendment to the motion, now it's amendment to the amendment.

It was just, it was like, accept this, but we're gonna make some edits, right? And this is the edit. He didn't use amendment, he used accept. So there's the main motion, and this would be an amendment to the main motion that's adjusting the 2110-100A to include the phrasing, David, that you used about the multiples. So moved. So moved, and? Second. Okay. Any further debate on that? Hopefully not. Did you hear that? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Aye.

Okay. So the amendment carries. One, two, three, four, five to one. Okay. Now.

Deep breath.

So the next part, the next one that I think is relatively easy, not well, I don't know about relatively easy, but it's been defined is where there's an addition. Homeowners are putting in an addition. So this was B, David, I think your third one over, right?

right so there um it would be the the addition so you could re redraft d to include all three of the other categories and it would be um new new constr new construction of single units on existing lots it would be and additions to existing homes where, and tear down an addition to existing homes where the total floor area does not exceed 3,000 square feet.

And above 3,000 square feet, the fee in lieu will kick in.

Which would only be the amount above 3,000. Above 3,000, right. So it'd be construction of new single units on existing lots. additions and expansions to existing residences and tear down enlargements of existing residences where the total floor area does not exceed 3,000 square feet shall be exempt from the requirements of this chapter. where the total floor area exceeds 3,000 square feet, the net square footage above 3,000 shall be subject to payment of an inclusionary affordable housing in lieu fee in accordance with SMC 21-10-065.

A motion to accept what he just said.

OK, for that amendment. That simplifies things. So now let's debate that a little bit. And actually, I'll start. What I like about that is it really helps to simplify this. It pulls it all together. There's not a separate aging in place which we can't define and all of these other things. It simplifies the code. and the 3,000 we've discussed there's some pros and cons for all of these things that should be said at some point so I could get behind that so actually I probably should have said that we if we should have a second to that right But let's have a little debate and then make that motion and move forward. So other comments?

I have a question. I'm sorry. That's OK. So since you thought living area was total, including garage, Commissioner Hisham, do you want to change that from 3,000 to 2,500? Just asking because.

Whatever he used to do, I'm just going with 3,000. If that's how he defines it, I don't want to get into cold versus warm, finished versus unfinished. Right. Whatever the standard is today, if you tell me a 3,000 square foot home, what it looks like, I know what it looks like. Okay. I don't want to get into finished and unfinished and.

So it's just 3,000, okay.

I have a question, David. Is there any physical definition between remodeling and addition?

Yes.

A remodel, or excuse me, an addition by definition is a remodel. so a remodel could be existing and it could be just refinishing the house a remodel could be tearing out walls non-domizing walls could be making structural changes within the existing and a remodel could also be adding on to space to the home let's say somebody's i don't know reconstructing the deck is that remodeling is that i think that would be a remodel

So that would be subject to these numbers?

Not a deck because a deck is not considered a floor area. It's not conditioned. It's not habitable, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

It's really additions, additional square footage that we're talking about, right? Not a net addition.

Not a net addition. It's not a... Total addition, that's just... think that for the if you want to get it technical it has to be basically a covered area roof windows and all that right what is what's the code i'm asking because that question may come up later on that if it is if these regulation applies to the there are other or not there is a definition for condition floor area um that would apply okay

Any further discussion? We've got wording that's been proposed. Anybody want to suggest any changes or further clarifications? So let's read it again. It's on the YouTube. It's on the YouTube. It's on the second. All right. Hisham, why don't you make a proper.

He's got the words.

Which one was it? Oh, he wrote it? China.

new single units on existing lots additions or expansions to existing residences and tear down enlargement of existing residences where the total floor area does not exceed 3 000 square feet total condition floor area um the fee in lieu will be required for any new floor area above 3 000 square feet

Thank you. Do we have a second?

You have to.

Second, okay. So moved, second, John and Syed, yeah. Thank you, and shall we vote? All right, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion carries. Or the amendment carries, yeah. One more. All right.

Okay, and this was even sort of voted on last time so why don't we run who'd like to make a motion?

I move that we illuminate the regional growth center from the comp plan.

I second. Okay.

Take your pick. All right, any further discussion? Nope. We all think it makes a lot of sense, don't we? All right, should we vote? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion carries. Well done. That was like so fast. Why can't they all be done like that? No question, no debate. Well, some things are very clear.

Mr. Chairman, I want to kind of talk about the item that Mary brought up as far as fire hydrant and all that. Is that a time to talk about it and take a, maybe have some discussions and get a staff opinion on how we can proceed with that?

We've got a few minutes. So what would be the, we don't have anything to... Is that a code issue to begin with?

It's not a zoning code issue.

It's not a land use issue. It's not a code issue. It's an interpretation of the code.

That's what it is. Well, it's multi-layered. And, you know... It all depends on signage, enforcement, programs. And basically, if the city was to begin a program whereby we were working with Eastside Fire to go around neighborhood by neighborhood to all of the many private streets and private neighborhoods in the city, and we were to do an inventory of all of the fire hydrants and all of the fire lanes, and if all of them were to be restriped and were to be enforced, it would be a significant parking program that the city would have to start. um because we would then be required when somebody wanted to report a violation of the parking lane restriction whether it's a fire lane or a fire hydrant then they would have to call police the vehicle would have to be ticketed and there depending on how the parking program would work it would result in the vehicle ultimately being towed and the city would have to then have an impound lot it would have to have a a process by which the impound could be appealed. We'd have to have a court where the appeal could be heard. All of those things go along with that type of program. It's inherently complex. And these are, conditions all around the city whether it's the east lake sammamish trail and the shore lanes along the trail down there whether it's in inglewood or tamarack or mostly tamarack in that case where many of the thousands of little plats and short plots around the city where there are private lanes in the case that was called out by mary we did visit the property that exact location with east side fire with the with the fire marshal And the fire marshal indicated for both of the obstructions that it is not a problem for them at all to very quickly get through those. The one where there is a gate and a post next to the fire hydrant, they indicated that they could either open the gate and quickly access the fire hydrant or they could go around the gate there's a path next to it and they could connect the hose without a problem to the fire apparatus that was their finding from fire i'm simply conveying what i heard from them they did highlight that there are many of these situations around the community and they are used to working with these conditions they're trained they train for it they drive around the city they look at these conditions to make sure they are aware of the many scenarios they will encounter and that they have the equipment on the apparatus to handle it when they do come across those and that that this would be a fairly significant change for the city because it would result in our having to start a parking management program which we do not have as a city it would affect law enforcement and it would affect quite a few other components to how the city operates. I'm not trying to argue it either way. I'm simply outlining the downside to it. The pro to it would be that you would have clear fire lanes, you would have striped and clear areas around fire hydrants, and you would have enforcement of those areas. We do have many smaller divisions where, newer divisions where the street has no parking on both sides of the street and people park there. um and that's kind of problematic we have large homes that have teenagers with multiple vehicles and they have nowhere to park so we would then be in a situation where we would be put between neighbors where one neighbor would be complaining about another neighbor and it would turn into neighbor disputes and we would be ultimately adjudicating neighbor disputes through parking enforcement

Okay, a couple of questions. Question number one, we do have quite a number of these fire hydrants along the public streets. Most of these, I shouldn't say most of the streets, some of these streets you have curb and gutter, therefore you can do the striping. But if it is a private street or there is an area that you don't have a curb and gutter, so there is no striping involved. It's just a matter of assigning.

This is a matter of the neighborhood getting together and striping their private street. They could put up the signage on their street. They could take measures on their own to do this. The challenge becomes is how do you then enforce that? So, you know, there's I mean, we don't turn this into a sociology experiment. We know people will react to signage to a certain extent, but when they realize it's not being enforced, they'll just go ahead and do it anyway. I mean, they've already done this down on some of the shoreline drives down on the lake where we have no parking signage. The county put up no parking signage, and the residents still park there. and you know you have 10 foot of drive aisle and a fire truck's not going to get through there that becomes a situation where um how do you enforce that and so ultimately it's about the cost of enforcement and whether or not the city wants to take on that that type of program instead east side fire trains for it they are aware of it and they make sure they're prepared to handle it and have you have you had that discussion with mary and get back to her and kind of share that information with her The conversation I've had with Mary has been a little bit different, more about the ownership of roads in Tamarack and easements and those types of things. I've only been peripherally involved in that conversation. However, we did a bunch of research a while ago about this topic primarily related to the shoreline drives because of the relationship that we have with the county and trying to understand how enforcement would work. And it is not an easy topic to determine how how to enforce this, because like I said, you end up primarily adjudicating neighbor disputes where one calls on the other.

Thank you. I'm sorry.

this feels like it's something that council would need to direct the fire or police to enforce in some way and it's not clear to me how it fits into the bylaws of the planning commission unless there was some direction from council the only reason that I brought it up because

may be sure no absolutely comment that is the only reason i mean i agree i whether this is a forum for discussion or but i would disagree with you david respectfully on the fact that there's a rule and we don't know how to enforce it that's why we should not force through That should not be. Public safety should be number one. And if there is rules saying, hey, and I thought, I've lived in the U.S. for almost 30 years now, and I always see if there's a fire hydrant, I don't park there because in my head it is, I cannot park. I'm going to get towed or I'm going to get ticketed. That's ingrained. When I did my driver's ed, I was told, don't park there. So I think that's kind of the rule that people have. So if there's a fire hydrant and somebody's parking to block it in some way, whatever, 10 feet, 20 feet, whatever that distance is supposed to be, that should be enforced, in my opinion.

And it is enforced on public streets. Oh, so there's only private streets. Private streets, which is far more challenging.

So when you do so,

you mean by private street versus public i mean how to differentiate that i mean i thought all streets like even if it's a subdivision it's a public street right i mean not necessarily there are there are you know i i'm wildly making up numbers here for for the purpose of making a point but about a third of the streets in the city are private streets um all of the streets in tamarack for example

private streets we have many subdivisions in the city that have private streets okay so so if there are private streets that means and there's an HOA or somebody who those owners so then then I think then the owner should be passed to those private ones say hey look As what Mary said, it's a safety issue. If the fire truck cannot get to you, your area, whatever, because it's your private street, you've got to enforce it. Then they need to enforce it, not the public. I mean, I thought it was only about the public.

So Tamarack, for example, doesn't have an HOA. It's a large community, and I think that's where Mary lives, so she has an interest in this. I'm not trying to diminish her concern or her statement. I'm trying to highlight how complex the issue is when dealing with private streets.

So I know this issue came up, sorry, I digress a little bit here, but six months back there was an issue with that whole community around Englewood where they suddenly found out those streets were private and people had a big thing about it. So things like this, so not just with fire hydrants, right? You know, snow removal, something breaking down or whatever, right? So these are private streets. So who owns those streets? Is the city responsible for them or are those owners of those homes around it responsible for private street? Who is responsible? For anything happening to it. The owners of the private streets. So then the fire hydrant owner should fall onto, like for example, if there was something happening in the road and the road broke up for whatever reason, a tree fell down the road, who's going to clear it up?

It would be the homeowners association. So the fire hydrant should be cleared up the same way. However, with a fire hydrant, we're getting down a rabbit hole here, but it depends because there are many instances where the water district owns the fire hydrant.

Okay, so that kind of makes it.

Okay, so we should call our questions on this because we don't have the preparation and such. It is an important matter, but maybe out of our purview.

I'm just trying to find a common sense solution here.

It seems simple, just put a ticket on the car.

I think that we should appreciate the information that David shared with us that I didn't know that there was conversation between the homeowners and the and the fire folks and all that. So that's good information that he shared with us and thank you.

Our upcoming calendar.

I believe it is July 23rd. We will be coming to the commission to have a conversation about the town center, looking at its existing build out, what capacity is left and trying to work towards defining a problem statement so we can move forward with that project. This code topic will be going in front of the council. These three issues will be going in front of the council July 7th for a work session and then hopefully for a public hearing on July 21st so we can get these code changes in place and start working to refund some folks with the affordable fee and loan program.

Question, what is your marching order from the council as far as the town center?

We'll find out after we talk with you and then talk with them. We don't know yet.

So you're going to share something with us, so can you give us a preview of what you're going to be talking about?

Number of housing units? We're going to talk about the existing capacity, the remaining capacity, and then we'll work on defining a problem statement that we can use to move forward with the project.

We are really interested in what the commission has to say about what you think the problem statement is in the town center.

That should be a good meeting. and it'll be starting you know there'll be additional conversations after that i'm sure okay i'm not sure if i'm going to be here then because it might be a long meeting but speaking of long meetings we're at 8 32 so either we're going to extend or we're going to adjourn anybody opposed to adjourning i move we adjourn second second second all in favor aye aye all right we are adjourned drive safely