City Council - Regular Meeting

order. This is a reminder that this is both a physical and a virtual meeting. The meeting may be viewed on YouTube and on Facebook following the meeting. Public comment is not normally taken at workshop meetings. Although the council may allow or request public participation on action items, we have no action items on our workshop agenda today. U welcome to everyone in attendance. I would like to now open it up to council for their questions or comments or exopicio reports that they have on behalf of the city. Um, Mayor Prom is running a few seconds late and there is council member Marshall walking in the door right now. So, if you have reports that you would like to report out on, now is the time to do so. Yes, Council Member Stucky report and a comment. Uh, the county employee for tourism has been hired. She starts May 4th. And so we've messaged to all the current or should I say former administrative former uh advisory board members to reach out to their government entities to be reappointed to the new board. So looking forward to starting that. And then as a side note, uh I was a little skeptical with the marathon being on the same weekend as Holland happening, but as I was talking to some folks at the starting line, the amount of people who were planning on staying and some people that I am friends with are from Puallup or well over 50 mi did stay for uh the festival. So I think it was wonderful ending there and uh good job to all those who organized it and made that call. Thank you very much. Anybody else for the good of the order? Council member Marshall.

Hi, Mayor. Thank you. Um, not much to report on parks just yet. I do appreciate um all the work that happened. Sabrina there to help us out. Um, but I will kind of piggy back on on council member Stucky's comments. I'm going to I'm going to wear all my hats at this particular time, my council hat, my chamber hat, and just my citizen hat. And I just appreciate all the collaboration from the city um in partic from from your office, the administrative team, parks, streets, storm water, the fire department, the police department, the building department. Um gosh, I hope I'm not forgetting Solid Waste Public Works. Um everybody made this event a huge success. And so I I cannot tell you, mayor, how much of a privilege it is to work with the team that you put together here at the city, the the staff that you have. They are all phenomenal and um just an absolute pleasure to work with and so I appreciate all of their their help with this event and um I think it went very well. So thank you.

Thank you. It was uh it was fun to be there and see all the runners checking in. We had people from Germany um all over the world actually. So it was fun to meet all of them and talk to them. So, it was a great event. So, Council Member Arms, good to know. You're good. Nothing on the marina. We're getting close to getting the fish out. Um, you know, they're they're very active right now, so they're ready to go.

Awesome. All right. Sounds good. All right. Well, we will move on then to development services and community development. We have the joint city council and planning commission meeting, comprehensive plan update, environmental impact statement, alternatives. And today we are welcoming our planning commission to this joint portion of the workshop to hear staff's presentation on the comprehensive plan update and the EIS alternatives. And here to introduce everyone is our community development director Stacy Patchner.

Thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you council members and also a hello to our planning commissioners. Pleasure to speak with you today. Um, I'm happy to be joined by uh our principal planner, Cat Kamak, our senior planner, Ray Lindenburg, our associate planner, Carol Broreck, and of course our comp plan consultant Clay White. And uh today uh we will be having our joint city council and planning commission meeting. So the purpose today in bringing together the city's legislative body, the council, and the city's advisory planning body, the planning commission together to discuss the scope and growth alternatives for the environmental impact statement or EIS for the comp plan is to help ensure that ultimately that both bodies are aligned on the goals of the proposed updates. Uh the purpose of this joint meeting is to help foster communication about the city's future planning for land use, zoning, and housing. And just a reminder uh again before we jump into some of the details of the EIS alternatives, this periodic update, it's about housing. Um jurisdictions must plan to accommodate rather than just encourage the availability of both emergency and affordable housing. Uh staff and our consultant team have worked hard to get to this point to present this array of alternatives along with zoning options, land use options. Your planning commission has worked hard over the past year. The city council has deliberated and worked hard as well to get us to the point of uh the the annexation as well as the ratification of the CPPs. So we're proud to have this joint meeting today present these alternatives to you to facilitate discussion and deliberation and staff and the consultant team will be presenting those options to meet these critical requirements to again not just to encourage but to plan and to accommodate emergency and affordable housing. So, thank you again for allowing me the time to introduce and I will go ahead and turn it over to principal planner Cat Kamak.

Thank you, Stacy. Good afternoon, mayor, members of the council, and planning commission members. Uh, thanks for being here. Uh before I uh jump into the discussion, I do want to recognize uh that we've been in this process for a fairly long time since 2024. We've been um updating the comp plan and in the middle of the comp plan, we had to do a lot of work with the county and the annexation was part of it. So, uh it has taken a lot of people uh you know coming together to put all this work together. So, I want to recognize our planning staff. Stacy mentioned uh Ray, Carol, and Stacy uh and Dennis who's not here have all been part of this discussion for the last two two years. Um and so I want to uh thank them. It's not an individual uh uh kind of a work program. It's a team uh process and I'm happy to be working with uh with the team that we have. As you remember, we've uh hired uh our consultants Kimley Horn. They've been doing our comp plan update. They were also the uh uh uh the consultant chosen for the EIS and so they are here today to present the options. Before I jump in, uh before I hand it over to Clay, who's going to talk about uh the comp plan and the EIS and and generally the process that got us here, uh I want to let uh just kind of share uh uh some information with the city council on this EIS process and what an opportunity it is. So if we were doing just a regular comprehensive plan update and we were not uh uh undertaking this enormous growth and development potential that the that the city has, we would be doing just a sea. We would be looking at a few properties for reszoning just like we had in the land use options memo that we presented uh back in December 2025. And um we'll be looking at that and we'll make a comp plan amendment. We'll make those changes

and we'll go ahead. The EIS provides an opportunity to look at options and that's what we're kind of looking at today. You have different buckets of properties with different characteristics and different development potential and the EIS requires you to look at you know a wide range of options before you choose what you think is uh appropriate for the community. So uh we as staff working with uh with the consultants have come up with multiple options and these are the options like the nine buckets so to speak that we have and you know it's categorized into a no action alternative uh and a preferred or a medium growth alternative and a high growth alternative and these are just the bookends uh for uh for studying the various options. eventually we want to trim it down to a preferred alternative and I think that's the process we go through with the EIS. So this is a great opportunity uh for our comp plan especially in the times of high growth that we get to make choices on where we want to see the development go. The nine buckets that we've uh we've uh compiled are just based on similarities of actions. They don't have to happen exactly the way they do. we can trim it down uh based on what we think is appropriate for the community. But we just wanted to make sure that we present the options uh all the options, study as much options as we possibly can that addresses the housing and the capacity needs for the next 20 years and then we'll dive into the preferred option as we go through the process. So, uh, with that being said, I'll, uh, hand it over to Clay, who's going to walk you through, uh, our comp plan and EIS process, and then staff will come back later on and jump into alternative 2 and alternative three a little more detail. It's a lot of information, so hang tight. We'll be back.

Great. Thank you, K. uh city council planning commission members. For the record, my name is Klay White. It's great to be in front of this body again uh to talk a little bit about the periodic uh comprehensive plan update and the environmental impact statement. I thought um one of the really important things that KC just mentioned coming out of our uh workshop today that we'll we'll probably mention several times. We're going to be looking at the the range of different alternatives, land use and zoning changes that could be made as part of this comprehensive plan update to accommodate future growth. But you're not making any decisions today. This is really just setting like the bookends uh for growth, the things that we're going to analyze and be able to engage the community about as we develop a draft environmental impact statement. And then there'll be time for us to come back after the draft environmental impact statement and narrow options that you'd like us to form the comprehensive plan around. And then of course you make decisions as part of the legislative body when you actually adopt the comprehensive plan. So this just gives us direction to to initiate the the environmental impact statement and study a range of different land use and zoning options which we'll go through with you today. Oops. Oh, okay. I can do this. two workshops on this issue. You might remember that we were together on February 24th to kind of lay the foundation for this conversation. Um, and planning commissioners at that meeting, we just talked a little bit about where we are in the process for the comprehensive plan, the work that had happened, and kind of laying the foundation for com completing this environmental impact statement. So, this is kind of the second of two workshops to kind of to get us on that path to be

working on the environmental impact statement. got a few goals for today. We want to provide an overview of proposed alternatives to be considered within the environmental impact statement. So, in a little bit, uh Ray and CC will go through those kind of land use and zoning changes that we'd like to be considering uh and then re receive feedback from the city council and planning commission. And this is a launching point for us. So this direction from you enables us to start that process of getting that EIS written which allows us to prepare the draft comprehensive plan and get this project completed. So this is an important uh starting point for us to kind of get those head nods so we know all right let's engage the community in this fashion. So as part of our objectives today that I'll kind of work on up front is just to refresh on the comprehensive plan schedule and objectives to where are we where are we going what are the steps provide information on the environmental impact statement procedures. So kind of what are those kind of steps and how do they relate to the comprehensive plan. Uh we want to discuss a little bit about the importance of alternative selection. So again, you're not making any decisions today, but it's really important that when you select alternatives that um you know where you may the things that you'd like to see studied are included within some some range of the alternatives that we present to you today. So just the importance of that. Um we'll go through the alternatives and maps. So you have some handouts that that we'll go through a little bit later in the presentation. uh and then answer any questions next steps. So just a little bit on the schedule. Um so the the goal uh that we really have is to get to the conclusion of this project uh by this winter. So we're in the process now based upon the conversation that we have today. We'll be refining kind of the project schedule

to create a really granular review schedule with the with the city team after this meeting. But there's a number of things that sequentially have to happen that are analyzed here. So we've completed the environmental impact scoping period where we engage the community on, you know, what are the impacts based upon the growth that we're planning for? What are the alternatives that we should be looking at? We've completed that process. We'll talk about that in a moment. This discussion of just the alternatives, kind of the the range of land use and zoning changes and map changes that we'd be looking as part of the update allows us then to begin drafting the draft EIS. Um this fall we'd like to this summer we'll be issuing the draft EIS. We'll have take public comments. We're planning to have an open house. Um and then we come back to the council to select what is termed a preferred alternative. So when you now you're we're going to go through it today, but there's a no action alternative. We have an alternative one and an alternative two which present different ways of achieving the project goals. We'll kind of refine those alternatives to kind of say, hey, this looks like the right path if you combine these things or maybe you just select one of the alternatives as presented. Um and then we'll utilize that. Once we know, we kind of understand what land use and zoning changes may ultimately be adopted within the comprehensive plan, then we can complete the draft the the comprehensive plan because we need to know what land use and zoning changes can be made so we can finish transportation planning, capital facility and utility planning. So there's this process step um and then then we can issue the draft comprehensive plan any development regulation changes and then go through public meetings and hearings on those as well. So there's not only going to be lots of opportunities, we'll be back in front of both bodies, but there's going to be lots of opportunities for the community to engage as well.

And just as a reminder, um, since we haven't met with the planning commission for a little while, uh, just that the growth management act requires jurisdictions to develop and update their comprehensive plans, uh, every 10 years. We're looking out 20 years, though. And so, the way that I always think about it is that we're planning for the next 20 years of people, jobs, and housing. And you're really, this is a vision of where are we as a community? Like, where do we want to be? and how do we create like an action plan, those steps that create your preferred, you know, future, your preferred vision for the future. But if you're going to have a lot more people, jobs, and housing in the community, then you also have to think about all the infrastructure that surrounds that. So, you want to make sure that you have schools that are anticipating growth and that you're planning for streets and roads, um, and that you have, uh, parks and all of those different things that need to be growing as growth occurs within the city. So this really sets the, you know, I don't think of a comprehensive plan as we finish this project and you're done. This is really the foundation for future actions because it's the expression of where you want to be as a community as you grow. And as Stacy mentioned, the housing element is a huge issue as part of this update because there's been a lot of changes that require um not only to plan for more people, but to be really focused on planning for housing, which aligns with what people make. So what can pe what kind of housing can people afford and then planning for those housing types that requires a lot more planning for higher density housing and multifamily housing um which ultimately has required more housing to be planned within the city of Oak Harbor versus more generally within the city and within the unincorporated county. So more growth is being focused within the city. This isn't just for Island County. This is every community in the state. So these new laws are are really having to put a lot of focus on planning and and housing types. So this you're not alone

in this. This is pretty much what's happened is happening in communities across the state is they're kind of really having to focus in on how they plan for housing. So let's just do a little bit of an environmental impact statement overview. So an environmental impact statement is an environmental disclosure document. uh we're we're not doing an environmental impact statement as an as a standalone project. This is we're conducting environmental review on the environmental impacts which will occur because of the actions that we're considering within the comprehensive plan update. So this isn't a project, it's programmatic. Um but the EIS uh allows us to analyze the environmental impacts uh that could occur through the growth that will happen in the city and then understand how we would mitigate those impacts. While an EIS is a more robust environmental review process than as KC had mentioned just completing a sepha checklist, there's a few things that are really good about this. One is like we're looking at today. It allows you to look at like a range of different ways to achieve your desired goals. So you might look at uh a number of different land use and zoning changes to try to create capacity for future people, jobs and housing. So it allows you to analyze and kind of uh you know underly understand the impacts of different ways to achieve your your community goals. It also presents options to the community too. I mean, an important piece of this is saying we've we've we're outlining different ways, different actions we can take to meet kind of our comprehensive plan goals. What do you think about doing it this way versus this way? We'll talk about that a little bit today. So, we really want to understand what are those significant impacts of growth and how do we mitigate those? As an example, it would be like through transportation of saying if we're going to have uh more people, we're going to have more traffic. Uh that means we have transportation improvements which would

be in the transportation element and obviously in your transportation plan and that's how we might mitigate impacts that would result from transportation from growth. And this is all part of the state environmental policy act which is an important key component of the comprehensive plan. So we're we're a partway through the EIS process. The first step as we've kind of talked about is to scope the EIS. So what are the alternatives that we're going to study? What are the impacts that we're going to be looking at within an environmental within environmental review? So we put that very wide for the community. We had a comment period. Uh we received two comments during that that time period. Again, this comment period that we held is not whether you like things or don't like things. It's not about whether you should adopt the comprehensive plan or I like this map change. It's really about the scope, the depth and breadth of environmental review we're going to be completing. Later comment periods, we can get more focused on actual actions that the community may or may not like. So that ran from February 21st to uh Mar or February 21st to March 23rd. Now, now we've developed kind of like those range of alternatives to be looking at. We're here today and then we'll begin drafting the environmental impact statement. Uh we'll issue a draft EIS. So once we have a draft that will go out to the community for public comment. We'll be coming back to the city council as well to kind of understand what is the kind of preferred range of actions the city council may like to take and then we'll prepare a final imp envir uh final environmental impact statement. So the final environmental impact statement will respond to public comments. So there's a formal response to public comments. Um, it also will identify maybe a uh the preferred action the city council may like to take. So maybe if there's if between the alternatives that we review today, if you like elements of alternative 2 and elements of

alternative three, then we could combine those and then put those into a preferred alternative. Now the important part is again the environmental impact statement and selecting kind of understanding like the what you may want to adopt as part of the comp plan helps us then prepare the the comprehensive plan. So when you make zoning and land use changes, they're going to have different impacts. We then can put that into the draft comprehensive plan. So we can make sure the capital facilities plan's correct, the transportation plan's correct, your parks planning is correct, but but every little thing you do has different ways of impacting the community. So we're going to start narrowing this down and then of course the EIS allows us to engage the community on the on the development regulation changes we're making and the comprehensive plan which will then get adopted. So this is a this is a key component of completing that comprehensive plan. So again, the alternatives provide that range of options to study for potential action. We're going to go through it today, but there's always going to be a no action alternative. And we'll kind of talk about what that means. It's required under SEIPA. And it's really just analyzing the environment as if you made no land use and zoning changes. If everything was just like it was today, uh, and and what would that mean on terms of impacts on the environment? So, we'll have a no action alternative. And then there's action alternatives and those are specified as actions that take place um that which would achieve your project outcome. So they should be in the range of things that would align with what you're required to plan for as part of the EIS. So you typically wouldn't have alternatives selected that would not have a nexus to what you're actually trying to do as part of the comprehensive plan. they they give you achievable ways and they let you compare and contrast uh different ways of achieving kind of what your project goals are.

So now let's switch a little bit to the environmental impact statement alternatives. So as we've talked about with both the planning commission and the city council before, this is not a small challenge that the city has. you've been allocated a significant amount of growth to plan for for the next 20 years. And again, a lot of that housing is planning for uh more dense housing that is is more affordable and aligns more with the incomes people make. So there can be a relationship between how much money I make and what can I can afford and having housing that's available for the community. So, you've got uh the growth allocations within the uh Island County, the countywide planning policies uh have you planning for uh 3,992 new housing units and 1,219 jobs and that's what's anticipated out to uh 2045. Uh so again, kind of the recent housing legislation requires the city to plan for housing types that accommodate different housing types people make. and we've done that analysis and kind of breakdown for you. So, um, a lot of growth. One of the things we'll get to a little bit, but in terms of capacity for jobs, you do have sufficient capacity under all of the alternatives. So, you have existing capacity for jobs. So, there are not land use or zoning changes that are required to be made to increase that capacity for for jobs. So, you have that capacity now for those, 219 new jobs. Quick question. When you say capacity for jobs, that's not taking into effect the income those jobs pay. Correct. It's just a minimum wage fast food worker is considered one job just as much as a career.

Yeah. So, I think one of the things is if you're interested, we had some good discussions really early on about like, you know, especially within your goals and policies, what, you know, from an economics perspective, what jobs are you trying to attract? you know, what is the market to be able to attract them? What tools do you want to pull to be able to do that? So, you can create some action strategies. So, I think that's where that goes is you've got capacity like you have land that could accommodate jobs. Uh, but you on the economic side, you know, what kind of jobs are you trying to attract? What strategies are you doing that? What are the opportunities? What are the constraints of being on the island? So, I mean, there are some of getting pretty direct in terms of strategies that you want to employ to attract those jobs that you want that can align with the housing that you're planning for. So, I think we we already have some draft policies in the plan kind of looking at that because that's come up consistently. Uh, but I' I'd keep a keen key keen eye on that as well. Okay. So, you're going to see this as being uh the same as the no action alternative, but we did a land capacity analysis, and of course, it's been updated as we've worked with the county and kind of looked at um the amount of housing that the city's going to be accommodating. So a land capacity analysis just looks at based upon a methodology that is adopted within the island county countywide planning policies a way to understand how much current zone capacity you have to accommodate growth. Um and then what you can do is if you know how much land you capacity you have to accommodate growth you can look at your new growth target. So your next 20 years of growth and you can take a look at current capacity versus plan for capacity and if there's a delta then that's the capacity we need to create as part of the comprehensive plan update. So if you did a land capacity analysis

and you found out that we have the city has sufficient capacity for its 2045 growth target there would you wouldn't have to consider really any land use or zoning changes but that's not the case and you have a significant growth target. So what the land capacity analysis shows is that for housing within that 0 to to 80% AMI bucket, that's area median income. So the the area median income, kind of that average uh area median income at 100% AMI would be about $102,000 per year. So for people making for that 0 to 80% AMI, so those people that that where their family income is between 0 and $80,000, there's a capacity shortfall of about 1,800 units when we look at existing capacity. So we have to create at least that much capacity as part of this update for housing types that would align with people in that 0 to 80% AMI buck bucket. There is Yes sir. Sorry, I don't know if we want to jump in real quick. I just wanted to ask about about the LCA analysis. That's about our capacity, but how does that match with ex existing usage and how when we're projecting out into the future an LCA difference there, what are we projecting actual usage will be? So for instance, if we have an LCA of whatever, you know, 50 uh for the current, you know, city, just made up numbers, are we at 30 um of of the actual LCA that, you know, the capacity analysis says we can have and therefore when we're saying, hey, we're going to need this much growth, are we expecting 100% of that LCA to be filled or are we as part of this anticipating only a certain percentage of that will be filled?

Yeah. So when you're looking at the capac how much capacity a piece of property has to be able to accommodate growth, there are a lot of deductions that are taken off the top to be able to accommodate things like critical areas, setbacks, maximum lot coverage. You also have land landowner intent as well. So not every parcel that would show up as being potentially redeveloped or developed over the next 20 years is going to develop. So that's all anticipated when you get when we do that analysis. Um, so there's a methodology that's within the countywide planning policies for the county and the cities that kind of lays out how you how you do your analysis, but it does kind of look at has a whole bunch of deductions that are taken. Uh, and we know that not every parcel that's identified that's that to develop is going to develop. So that's why uh there's a there's like you know and there's also market factors uh you know so there's like a 50% market factor that's applied. So there's a lot of assumptions that not everything's going to develop to the capacity that's created. We also know for like housing that you may have a property that has a you know 25 dwelling units per acre is permitted, but that doesn't mean a developer is necessarily going to want to develop at 25 dwelling units per acre even if they even if they they can. So the other nice thing is that it's a 20-year comprehensive plan, but it's updated every 10 years. So I look at a land capacity analysis as as a pretty good way of putting a thumb up in the air and saying it's not parcel by parcel. It's looking at on balance as things develop. They will develop within this range. So they're not they're not intended to be perfect because we don't know every parcel is going to be developed how it's going to develop and how's the economy going to change in the next six or seven years. But it gives you a good grounding for how the city may develop over the next 20 years. And then then you can readjust as you see growth happening faster or slower then

you can then you would readjust. Sorry one follow up to that. You mentioned this range but these are exact numbers. Do we have an understanding like a state what we would expect sort of a deviation on these numbers to be not getting into the future options too much but some of them kind of hit exactly on. And so if there's a probability above and a probability below, it's kind of helpful to understand, you know, will this actually service our needs. If it's, you know, LCA is kind of fudgeable and this is our exact need and we're meeting right there, you know, what's our kind of probability of hitting that target.

Yeah. I mean, I think that um I don't know if you can give a probability. I think there's so many extraneous factors that drive growth. I mean, I think the thing is you have to have a like a good amount of information that helps you draw assumptions and then you're monitoring that to to see if you're on track or not. So, if you had a a new business come in and and attracted jobs at a higher level than you ever planned for, then housing started getting builder faster, then you'd have to make some adjustments to your methodology. It would change things. Um, so I think that's kind of that planning exercise is is build a foundation off of good information. know that it's that it's subject to the economy and different changes and then you then you make adjustments from there.

Yes, council member. Uh uh simply a quick quick question with regard to the uncertainty because um I was just going to ask that with regard to the EIS and the comprehensive plan, does the city face uh any uh reasonable or expected uh legal liability if things don't turn out the way the plan has it? Are we just are we clear of all that? Yeah. I mean we do our best effort and we do our and and our due diligence but as you stated the we don't know what the economy is going to do or the migration of populations or anything.

So but I was just trying to find out if we face any legal uh once it's turned over to the state. Do we face a legal liability if it doesn't turn out the way we were planning? You're not you're you're required to plan for the growth that you're required to plan for. be required. There's a checklist of comp plan policy changes, but you're not you're not held to those outcomes. Okay? Um, you know, the city's not building all the housing. You provide the zoning and the tools for others to come in and build it. Same with jobs. So, no, that's not that's not how the framework

and that's not too surprising. It's just we spend a large amount of resources to develop all these various plans and uh I just didn't want it to sink us if it didn't turn out the way we planned. Thank you. I think one of the importance though of of trying to set reasonable changes that align with the growth that you're projecting is that you're basing like your transportation and your capital facility plans based upon that growth that you're expecting. So you're making investments in your infrastructure and in your parks so that you can have those available. So I think it's I think it's important to be looking at kind of reasonable changes that align with kind of the realm of things that could happen and to be reassessing. so that your infrastructure aligns with with all of that. So I think that's probably the important piece of it's more than just planning. There's a lot of things that depend on it, but then you just got to be able to adjust if as your community changes. Okay, so we're going to go through this in a minute. This is going to be similar to that um no action alternative but the based upon just existing capacity uh if you made no other land use changes there's there's sufficient capacity for housing for people that make above 80% of the area median income or as a family about $80,000. There's capacity for growth but there's a significant deficiency for those that would make under that have an area med income below 80%. One of the interesting things about this update is in most communities across the state, this is pretty true when you do your land capacity analysis, there's going to be enough capacity for single family homes, maybe some town homes, but there's not going to be enough capacity for like multifamily, which means in order to meet your growth targets, you're probably going to have to have excess capacity you're planning for because that capacity for single family is still going to exist even if your

target says that It's not what you need to plan for. So, expect that when you see your your growth targets. This doesn't mean you're not building single family new homes. Doesn't mean you're not building an accessory dwelling unit or a town home. We just have to provide capacity for other housing types. So, again, we're focused, this is pretty standard of having three alternatives that we'll be looking at. the no action alternative which is we're not going to make any land use or zoning rely on the existing capacity the city has. That's a requirement under state law. Alternative growth is a focused growth. It's a medium growth option. It aligns as closely as possible to the growth targets, the housing and and uh uh employment and population uh allocations through your countywide planning policies. And then we have some options that build off. So it's it's alternative to plus some additional options which could result in a higher growth option. And as I frame this before, you're not asked today to select that you have to select alternative one or select alternative two or three. And when when we complete the draft environmental impact statement, you won't be asked to do that either. You may say we'd we we think that we're pretty close to like we're comfortable with alternative two changes. But you might say, I like alternative 2 except for two of these changes and I like a couple of things in alternative three. So I'd like the preferred alternative to to be around that option is I just like to think of them as sea bookend. So you can ultimately adopt anything between the bookends that we're studying in SEPA. If you go in the end, you went outside the bookends, you said we want to look at zoning changes or land use changes that we haven't studied yet, then we'd have to go and and redo the draft environmental impact statement because they weren't evaluated. So, think about it. You just you have bookends. You can ultimately adopt anything within those bookends.

And again, we've already shown this to you, but alternative one and what it's going to show you is just that we it does not create enough capacity for our housing. Uh it does for population, but it does not and it does for jobs. Um so, but this will be just kind of analysis and this is kind of looking at a lower growth option. Okay. So, now I'm going to turn it over to Rey and we're going to go through alternative two. And we've cotting up maps and some exhibits for you so we can walk through what's proposed in an alternative to one by one. And I'll be available later for any questions.

Thank you for that introduction, Clay. Um, thank you to the members of the city council, our planning commission, mayor, and uh, it's been a while, I feel like, since I've been up here. So, hi, I'm Ray Lindenberg, uh, senior planner, and, uh, Clay brought up the, uh, kind of the introductory, uh, paragraph, if you will, for the different alternatives, and I'm here to present alternative 2, which is the focused growth, uh, alternative. And just to kind of give you an idea, we've been working on this for a really long time. CAC mentioned uh, since 2024. and you know just kind of the the concept of you know thoughtful surgical type uh improvements to our code to allow for growth to happen in a way that makes sense that's rational that isn't going to uh you know undermine the character of the community things like that that that people are going to be concerned with and so the number one thing and I'm working off of this page here that you all have um that's option number two or alternative number two um there are a couple of different prongs essentially of uh changes to the code that could take place uh in this situation. The number one uh category being the changes to the zoning code and then number two being the potential land use changes, resonings, overlays, etc. So, just to kind of talk about those uh zone changes or those zoning ordinance uh amendments changes, uh one of the key things I think I really want to point out is yes, we do have some numbers that are changing there, but the ones in the R1 zone district are not changing. And I think that that's going to be a concern for folks who assume that um you know somebody's going to come in and start bulldozing single family homes and building skyscrapers or you know multif family projects in their their existing single family neighborhood which is not the case and that's not what we want. Like I said we want to focus and keep

things very um gradual, very sensible u and thoughtful growth for the community um because we don't want to ruin what we've got here, right? So, we want to make it better. Um, so going on to the R2, R3, R4, those are our um other zone districts that aren't the single family. And there are increases there in the maximum density. And there's also increases to height limits. And those are to allow for greater density in areas that are already zoned, these districts, to have those be closer to transit and shopping and jobs and all those sorts of things. Because when we talk about making these changes, some of the changes that that we make will cause more traffic and to try and mitigate that, we have uh zones or residential areas that are close to jobs, close to shopping so that people can walk if they choose to or ride a bike. You know, you have your alternative transportation options. And so talking about um maximum building heights and we go through into the some of the uh commercial zone districts as well. Uh we have had interest in doing multifamily construction uh in places that you might not expect. We have somebody who's interested in building a multif family uh residential building behind the SARS uh in the corner where the uh long-term parking is for the wouldbe CATAC shuttle. Um, so one of their concerns is, you know, if we're going to construct this building, we need to be able to provide parking on site without just having a huge surface parking lot. So, one of the things you need to do in that situation is to allow for a height limit that makes it feasible to include structured parking. And so, those are some of the things that we've looked at. Like I said, been very methodical in our thought process. How tall does it need to be? How tall does it have to be? rather than just saying, you know, leave it up to kind of good luck or what have

you. So, we've gone through that process and looked at changing some of those height limits going up to potentially 65 ft in the C5 and C3 zone districts. We feel it makes sense in those locations, whereas it would not make sense in your R1 or R2 neighborhoods. So, we've gone through that process. Um, some of the lot coverages have changed. Not huge significant changes, but just enough to to move us incrementally towards the idea of being able to have some of these denser projects. You're missing middle housing is important as well. We're not just talking about five over one, you know, Lynwood style things. We've heard people don't want to look like Lynwood. That's great. What do we need to do to avoid that or contradict that? Wherever we need to be with that. So looking at those then we go into the kind of reszones and land use changes to affect those changes and we have five different areas. Um our number one uh reszone area number one is kind of that area around uh Home Depot along Elie Street along 8th Avenue um to allow greater density there. We've had people uh property owners express interest in uh upzoning so that they can do greater density in those areas. There's uh potential redevelopment in some of those lots. Um and it makes sense to

Right. Could you get as you're talking I know we have Could you get the maps on the screen as well? Tim, do we have the maps on here? Perfect. That's the one.

Yep. Thank you. Thanks for that. Um, so we're looking at the idea of providing again sensible locations for redevelopment. Um, areas that are close to transit, areas that are close to jobs and shopping, and then being able to increase that density in a thoughtful and meaningful sort of way. Um, number two, uh, reszone area number two, uh, is changing or at least providing an R4 type overlay, which would increase the density, uh, to an R4 level while still maintaining that ability to do some commercial uses there. Thinking about mixeduse buildings, uh, having, you know, ground floor commercial with residential above. Um, that is in that South Midway Boulevard area around the bowling alley. And what we have there is kind of a existing commercial node. You have the bowling alley. You have some redevelopable parcels. You have the uh wouldbe uh moving warehouse there. You have some of those kind of underutilized parcels that could be converted to more impactful, more thoughtful design uh and and getting the ability to have some of those affordable housing options in those areas. Um when we increase the density, that will increase the affordability hopefully as well. So, number three, uh the central business district. Um, essentially, and we've talked about this, I think in the past, is Main Street and, uh, our downtown businesses have been trying to attract people uh, into the downtown and and my thought is bring downtown to the highway rather than bringing the highway to downtown. And so, by extending that zoning, that CBD zoning, you extend that same development pattern right down to the highway. You have the buildings right up to the sidewalk. you can do the landscaping and the street trees and the parking and all that and bring people straight off of the highway to to explore a new portion of downtown and therefore explore the rest of the existing downtown as well. And that's

also a place where we can do mixed use. We can do the ground floor commercial upstairs residential hotels, conference centers, all those great things that we've been looking for for many years. Um, moving on to area number four uh in the area of Northeast 16th Avenue. That's just a recently uh annexed area. They're just looking for a little bit greater density up there. There's already R4 zoning in that area, so we felt like it made sense uh to do that. And then uh area number five is a correction of a um I don't know if it's a mistake, but a misunderstanding of zoning versus the land use there. uh the property owner wants to look at getting into an RO zone district so that they can do uh a residential type project at a little bit higher density, but nothing huge in that in that location there. Um but currently it's got the uh the preschool daycare on that property. So that's kind of an outline, a brief outline of alternative number two, and I'm available if you have any questions or want to talk about maps and things like that. Um, I have a question. Uh, sure.

I I think this is actually more for the city council, but also to you. Um, you mentioned kind of a starting point of all this was the the basic assumption about what people want as far as the character of the city. Um, and that's a huge thing that goes into the planning um, premises behind this. Like for instance, you were saying we're not going to touch R1 because we want to keep that character in there. I'm just wondering how's that been validated and and then also to the city council what their view of the the pulse of the city is on on people's views on on the character of the city and how that would fall into a plan like this.

Yeah, if you don't mind, I'll I'll just kind of lead off. We're talking about, you know, almost 4,000 new housing units. And if you're going to spread that over the entire community and say that every parcel has to absorb some of that, that is going to bring about significant changes. Imagine putting um you know an ADU or a second unit on many of the existing housing uh stock you know existing single family homes in the community. Um I think about my my neighborhood where I used to live on Enson Drive up by the high school. Um I had a onef flooror house. It's smack in the middle of the lot. The only place that I could do an ADU was to convert my garage into something or build a second floor. Uh because of the way that those houses were plopped. Like I said, smack in the middle of the lot, it makes it difficult. And so, if I lose my garage, then where do I park my cars? And where do the cars for the ADU go? So, you immediately get a pretty significant physical change if we start to kind of spread it out like butter on a piece of toast, right? And so we were looking at more of the idea of being strategic and thinking about number one affordability because affordability is going to be much better if you can provide um thoughtfully designed multif family rather than just having more single family homes. Um and then number two being able to provide that in an area that doesn't increase traffic significantly, doesn't increase, you know, the kind of livabil or decrease the livability of a community. Um, but being more thoughtful about how that works.

Council member Peterson.

Are you ready, Council Member Peterson? Your mic is muted

there. I had to figure out what the code was to unmute it. Sorry. Um you were talking about in number two the mixed juice near the bowling alley and you called out several different um um businesses including like the storage place that sort of thing. Uh where do you expect that those current businesses would go then if we move them out of there for um multif family housing or is that a mistake? Am I understanding I'm wrong? Yeah, we're not we won't be moving anybody out. This gives that property owner or that business owner the ability to consider other options. Maybe the you know maybe a a warehouse space opens up on Goldie Street and they have the ability to move their business to that location and then sell uh their existing location um at a profit. That's a win-win for everybody, right? So you don't have trucks rumbling through residential neighborhoods. you have the ability to construct more uh housing that's potentially affordable and you know this business has a nice shiny new place to to operate out of. Um we aren't going to be moving anybody. We are going to give people the opportunity to improve or change.

So developer driven or property owner driven. Correct. Thank you council member Maro.

Thank you mayor. Um, alternative number two is carefully thought out and a moderate response. So, I think that that is to its credit because dealing with public opinion with regard to doing anything with reszoning is like dealing with wildfire almost sometimes anyway. So uh so I think the key for any success is going to be managing the expectations and how it's presented to the public because I mean I know from firsthand experience I have a calling in fact a constituent came to me and there was going to be a development and there was going to block her view and she said where are my rights and I said well everybody has rights with property even the other people who are going to develop and they can do it within code and within the law and it's but uh So, that was just one uh anecdotal example of what they're going to be widespread with regard to existing property owners and dealing with the changes, but if it's managed right, I think it's doable. Thank you,

Council Member Marshall. Thank you, Mayor.

Um, we're talking about uh proposed changes to maximum density requirements. What about minimum density requirements? Are we not changing that at all? And then are we going to keep the minimum requirements where they're at currently? I think that one is still kind of a work in progress. We don't have it listed on here. Um the the issue that we face right now to be perfectly honest as the person who's reviewed a lot of projects over the past 10 years is we many of the projects that we've had tend towards the lower half of the density standards. The only one that I can recall that was at the upper end is the one that's just now started down the street here at Bington and Elely. um they are close to maximum density which is unusual because even you know even when we went through and made the the change to the R1 district to allow down to 3200 square foot lots even when you go through and have a 3200 foot lot once you add in your storm water facility and your streets and all of those things the density ends up about halfway between that three and nine uh in the R1 zone district. So that's that's still work right now. We're still working on that uh concept. I don't know if there's support from you all to to move that up and that's something that we can certainly have a discussion about as well.

Okay. And can you explain to me the parentheses like on the proposed in the CBD we have the current is none. Yeah. The proposed is none. And then in parenthesis there's 42.

Right. And that's um that's kind of and it says right there it says the maximum assumed buildout density. And really what that is in practical terms is once you build all the things like I just mentioned with your single family once you build the parking and you have the landscaping and the storm water and all those things that's kind of the assumed maximum density at the height that we would allow for you know having a requirement and some of those to have commercial on the first floor having a requirement for parking etc. etc. It's all of the practicalities that add up to kind of max things out. And that's not written in stone or anything. If say for instance, somebody wanted to come in and build, you know, 300 foot efficiency units, something along those lines, that might move the numbers around a little bit differently than if you had two and threebedroom units. So, it's it's kind of an assumed number um put in there to kind of give everybody an idea of where we would be heading. And looking at these numbers, what are we requiring in terms of parking for some are we how many parking units per

We have not addressed that yet. And not address that. Yeah. And that it that is um Mr. Mero brought up kind of the wildfire concept is that is going to be one of those things that you know some cities have determined Port Townson did it. Let the market decide, right? Take us out of that decision- making and I'm okay with that. if we have a parking management plan to say that people need to be mindful of how they're parking their vehicles and and things along those lines. Um it's it's a multifaceted question that we have not yet answered. Okay. All right. Thank you, Council Member Stuggy.

Jeff, you had a question I don't feel like it was answered. Could you Did you get your question answered or can you repeat the question? Um my my question was basically how did we validate the assumption that um you know this is the type of density spread that the city wants and and that was you know the validation was um you know is one aspect of it and the second one is what does the city council feel the the you know the city wants from a Disney perspective you know so to give a little color to that what I see here is we're this plan is saying every all the density is sort of built in built into the core and the core is going to accept the majority of growth and pay for essentially that growth for the whole city. So if we're talking about a you know how do people like this and we but we've only discussed how the R1 people like this so to speak. We haven't talked about how the people at the core like this. It seems like it was a an unbalanced decision making. Um at least I didn't hear the balance of that that decision- making in there taking account all residents. Right. So that's sort of where I'm going from here. It's like how is this validated? How did we balance the different people that live in the city and and how they would like to see the city growth? Um was there a validation process and follow up on that? Does the city council sort of have a plan or understanding of how they would they think the city wants to grow?

Ray or KC, I I think I understand the question. Wasn't some of this addressed in the waterfront redevelopment plan? I mean, that's when there was these pictures that came out with, you know, beautiful facads of these multi-story buildings. We did some community engagement through that. You kind of get where I'm going with this?

Yeah. I I I think the community engagement, at least from staff level, how do we how do we determine what a city wants? How do we determine what the city likes? I think is an ongoing process. It's not a a a written statement sometimes that we get at a given time. uh we get it through public input through various uh planning projects. When we do projects like this, we get community feedback. We hear things. We may not be able to accommodate all the changes in one particular action, but some of these comments are uh are in the parking lot, so to speak, as we uh kind of go through a lot of plan changes. So, the sentiment of what the city wants, we hear from community meetings, from public meetings. um it it lingers even though it may not relate directly to an action that the city council is taking on a given night. We collect those comments collectively and and as we work through solutions, we incorporate all of those comments because we hear them and we uh we've heard them through the council whatever concerns they are. So it's not encapsulated just in this process but it is encapsulated over time that we take into account u the changes that the community wants or desires and we try to interject them at the time that we think the action is appropriate.

Yeah. Maybe to add on to that and this is a little more my opinion because commissioner Ward asked I you know I feel like our job through all this of course is to add the guard rails. None of this means that anything is going to get built. We're not the ones building anything. We're setting up where things can kind of go. A lot of people are averse to change. I mean, you put something, especially on social media, people are going to say, "This is ridiculous. Why are you doing it?" People are averse people are averse to change a lot of times. But then at the same time, a lot of people go, "Yeah, we do need more affordable housing." Okay, well, you got to change a little bit to have the affordable h I mean, you don't want it to change, but you want affordable housing. Um, so I I suppose at least in my opinion, it kind of makes sense to have it down there as well. If you're thinking that these are kind of on a lower AMI, there's a lot more within walking distance, a lot more within biking distance from like even a travel perspective as opposed to being like way on the outskirts. You also got to look at where parcels are there available to build. I mean, you don't want to take some place that's already got a bunch of single family homes, change the zoning on that because what's the odds of a developer going buying all those single family homes, flattening the single family homes, and then putting multif family in on that spot? It just doesn't make economic sense from a development standpoint. So, this is targeting areas where there's parcels it looks like, available or more easily available. Um, so quantifiable, I guess, conversations, waterfront redevelopment plan, but no matter what, you're not going to make everybody happy. But at least that's kind of my mentality behind it.

You know, you can try, but can you make 51% happy? You know, so I don't know if any of my peers have any other opinions, but I didn't want your question to go at least not someone addressed.

Yeah. And I apologize for not addressing that directly. If you don't mind a little delving into planning nery, um it's kind of, you know, what is accepted as good planning, you know, like making sure that you don't have situations where you're inducing sprawl or you're causing problems that that could easily be resolved. And like you said, um, as far as, you know, placing things close to services is a really important thing, um, because not only does it allow for the folks who might be in that lower income bracket, but it allows for everybody to participate in walking to places. You know, um, I would be happy to live in a neighborhood where I could walk everywhere instead of having to drive. That would be great. Uh but unfortunately there's not a lot of places that you can do that. Um so we're trying to get some of those places and get a good variety of different building types, different housing types to allow for people choices as well. Um so yeah, we're and the the waterfront redevelopment thing kind of introduced some of those visual ideas. Um, I encourage people to look at uh there's a book out called Visualizing Density that is really good showing aerial photos and street photos of places at x number of units per acre to give a good idea of yeah, you can have really dense neighborhoods that are beautiful and amazing. And uh just because it says, you know, 42 units per acre doesn't mean we have to be afraid of looking like Lynwood.

It would take a real interesting person to dive into a book like that. as you're you're right now that some people may be interested for that plot. Like I said, planning nery straight into the weeds. Anybody else? I I have a follow-up question. Just uh sure, go ahead.

What's uh there was a mention of cost um for resoning. What is the actual cost of reszoning say R1 to R2? um you know because that was one of your one of the mentions for why we wouldn't touch R1. Is there an actual cost to the city from a a dollars and cents point of view and kind of the the reason why I say this is because we've we've talked a lot about like if you just reszone something that doesn't mean it gets built. So and and we talked about giving people the option to build. So potentially changing density in some of those R1 areas may give options without actually incurring costs or I'd like to understand the cost.

Yeah, the the cost would not be borne by the the property owner. Um any reasonzoning that we're proposing as far as part as part of this process is something that the city would own and uh not require anything from the property owner. Um, if you, for instance, owned an R1 parcel and you wanted to change zones to R2 or R3, you can do that now as a simple reasonzoning process without having to go through a comp plan amendment or anything like that. It's when you move up into that greater density R4 or if you wanted to go from residential to commercial, then the property owner has to foot that bill and show, you know, how it meets the the comprehensive plan and and all those things that go along. It's a, you know, year-long process. What we're doing right now is um that it's city sponsored. So we are handling that cost. Um for the for the property owner, if you go from R1 to R3, for instance, um the potential for, you know, increased property values is there because of the potential of your property. Um but it doesn't say that if you have an R1, if you have a house that's currently R1 and we reszone at R3, that doesn't mean you have to do anything. you can continue to live there and peace and harmony for as long as you want to.

So essentially there's there's not really a cost involved if we did um adjust beyond this in R1 in in the R1 areas. There there wouldn't necessarily be a cost or a challenge there. No one living there would be c have anything. The city wouldn't have anything. It's just potentially makes a little easier, one less step for someone to to have a different option for how to build there. Correct. Council Romero.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, with regard to the parking piece, you mentioned structured parking, and I was uh just as a thought. I was wondering if in zoning it could be u certain sections could be required, say, to have a buildover. What's the proper term technically where you have a where you park your vehicle under your home? I'm not sure what Yeah. What I'm stating is uh is is there is that something that could be put into a code for certain blocks of property or is that off the charts? You could I I think honestly in this situation letting the market decide is probably the way to go.

Um if for instance a developer over at the SARS Shopping Center determines that they want to put 200 new units of residential in, the only way that they can do that is by building a parking garage and then putting those units on top of it. Then within our code, we have a way that you can do that. It doesn't say you have to do that because say for instance, they only want to do 20 units and a parking garage doesn't make any sense financially, then that would never get built. Right. Right. I understand. I was just reflecting on compact housing that has that's up in the air a bit where they can park two vehicles underneath it, but uh what I'm understanding is that you really can't mandate it by code.

Yeah, we we can't. And in the missing middle, you know, those those kind of row houses or town houses that you might see, the the new project that's at uh Whidby and Heler or excuse me, um Crosby and Heler, uh very tall, right? Still under the 35 ft height limit uh of the R2 zone district. Um but very tall. So they have a onecar garage and a onecar driveway and that's their parking requirement. And then their actual unit is 22 feet wide or something like that by 30 fight 30 feet tall. And it works. it works within the density standards of that zone district and that is a potential that if somebody wanted to do that at SARS they could do that. So there's flexibility there and that's really the important thing.

Okay. And as a follow-up question uh with respect to firstf flooror commercial uh I've visited with developers and they were describing at least in the local scenario the difficulty in keeping first of all the commercial spaces are more expensive to build originally and keeping them um occupied is I think well just to use an incidental example would be banks. I mean banking is going online and you have these large parking spaces by banks. So conceptually I would view that uh that same effect could be across the commercial piece but they were planning 20 years in advance but if every all the business is being done online you I mean just an exaggeration then you'd have this commercial space that would be underutilized or not utilized at all. And I think just to to get a little bit into that, um, a lot of these zone districts will not require that, at least from the standpoint of not having the entire floor plate be commercial. Um, even on Pioneer Way, we don't have a strict, you know, like your commercial space has to be x number of square feet. It just says that you have to have a facade that is active. So if you're building that space, it might be 20 ft deep and that works. Um the thing is too that we have to consider it's a fine balancing act. Uh especially when we're talking about filling up commercial zones or putting residential in commercial zones is not overbuilding that residential to the point where we don't have enough commercial 20 years down the road when we have 6,000 more people or 9,000 more people. So it's it's tricky.

Council member Arms. Uh, if you want to see um a town that did that, it's Arlington. Arlington changed and put downtown shops and then put housing above and they mixed they blended it with what they already had. So, it really didn't change the dynamics of that. It just changed that they could get more business and more people could be there. And so if you want to see a change, uh, that would be Arlington from the way it was till now. Yeah. Council member Marshall.

Thank you, Mayor. And Ray, just so I'm clear, even at this alternative, we're still going to be it looks like four units short in the 0 to 80% AMI. Is that right? I don't have that number in front of me, but that sounds Clay, is that right? Plausible. Does that look good? Okay. Yes. And then is that a number that is is insignificant enough that the Department of Commerce is going to come after us or do we actually have to meet that number? And then if so, where do we find those additional four units? I will leave that to our expert. I feel like that's within the range of acceptability. Okay.

I mean, I think we'll study a little bit more and depending on the other bulk standard changes with like if we decided to put some minimum density standards that would actually change the it would actually change those numbers a little bit. So, we might end up we'll end up where we're on the positive side. You also might end up selecting something from alternative three and then that would also increase that. So, we will want to make sure we provide the capacity for for all three. But that's I think we're at the dimmin dimminimous amount there. All right. Thank you, Council Member Stucky.

When we're we're doing this, are we keeping in mind I think it was last year the House bill or the Senate bill that kind of reduced the parking requirements? I know it affects cities of only 30,000 or more, but as we're talking about this growth, we would get there within this comp plan. Are we keeping that in mind as we're going through all this? Absolutely. Um, yeah, we've been talking about parking for a while now. Um, we're not uh Port Townsend advanced, but we are, you know, we're definitely discussing it. I don't know that there's a specific number that I have in mind right now, but it will get resolved.

I know I've heard our uh uh our director of public works comment on parking on more than one occasion. Yes.

So, thank you. Um just want to understand the methodology a little bit more. This is a code and land use changes only. Can you talk a little bit more about um I guess what was considered in the code changes and what's not considered in there and I'll give you a little color on that specifically programs like for instance you know uh developer outreach programs and stuff like that aren't really code changes. Um, can you just talk about kind of the the boundary there that you you you thought of for the code changes that were brought into this?

To be perfectly honest, from my standpoint, I've been looking at numbers and things like that. Um, we can talk about uh uh like economic development type strategies and things along those lines that will go as part of the comp plan itself. But as far as this is concerned, we're we're strictly looking at at numbers and and kind of alternatives and and things like that at this point. But uh the the comp plan does address some of those things and that's certainly something we can discuss.

Yeah. So just to be clear like there's no like you know synergy with other programs to increase or decrease these numbers. Anyway, this is sort of like a methodology that's in a vacuum from the supporting uh structure of the comm plant. Essentially what we're doing is we're creating the game board right now and and the rules for that game. Okay. Um and so how that happens, you know, how how it everything, you know, lays out um is kind of the later uh information that we'll provide uh through the comp plan, but this is just kind of the guidelines, the guard rails. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Is that it? All right, Cat, you're up. Thank you. Great discussion. I'll I'll um be presenting the alternatives or the options in alternative three. Great questions. I I hearing some of the questions and concerns. I want to say I wish I could in one update tackle all of the issues that are being raised and unfortunately we don't have the time or the resources. So we do take it in bite chunks. So for example, the minimum density, the parking, these have always been um discussion topics, but they do require a lot more analysis and their impacts are greater. So we have to just uh take them uh in small bite sizes as we can. Um and so uh that's just to to let you know that we do think about a lot of options. Uh but we have to narrow it down to what we can um what we can actually act on and what we can do. And so um this is just uh trust me we have talked about a lot of options about reszonings and parking changes and minimum densities but it creates such a significant change that we're not able to uh analyze all of that and bring you something that you can act on. So, we do talk about it. We wanted to make it um that it's u um um digestible for our changes that we're considering and trying to do it within a certain amount of time. Just remember, we'll be doing comp plan amendments every year and these topics can come up and we can do these changes as we go. Like I said, we update our plan every 5 10 years. So, we'll have a chance to keep uh fine-tuning it as we go. So uh with that I'll jump into uh alternative three. I'll be going over the buckets uh so to speak of um

uh 6 to9 and we'll start off with um the uh six area six which is the south annexation area. So uh the annexation of these areas into the city has made a big difference in our numbers. a big jump in our single family numbers went up just because of the annexations when we did the recalculations. So that's where you see the the number and in the uh no action alternative go up because we brought that property in as R2 zoning. They're all in the city right now. So the higher growth option u starts there with some zoning considerations. If you if the city council wants to uh chooses to to increase density in the annexed areas, threw it in as an option three. The city council wants to move that into option two, they can after the draft EIS after we do the analysis. But for the for for just the analysis and the alternatives right now, we focused it narrowly like said like a um a narrowly focused um terminology and uh um using a uh a very precise tool for uh growth inside the city. We came up with option two and then alternative two and alternative three is all the higher growth options that have come out, ideas that have come up in the community and so on. So with the area south area 6 uh south annexation area 6 the proposal there would be if the city council wants to consider higher growth there there is options to reszone the property to R4 and um uh increase the density there. We've also shown some potential for commercial on Waterloo that's along Highway 20 like a neighborhood commercial. because we're increasing the density there, you want to provide some options and services. So, we thought some commercial options would be very

suitable there. So, you can see area six with uh some areas going to R4 and some areas going to R3 uh which will sub uh uh substantially increase uh our capacity uh for the city. So, these are the higher growth options. So, that's area six. I'll go through all the areas and then we can open up uh the for questions. Um, area 7 is the area along Easy Street and Goldie Road. There are some properties there that are either underutilized or would like to redevelop. We've had requests from property owners for residential development. However, this is uh currently zoned commercial. At least most of the property is zoned commercial except for the properties along Easy Street. And we wanted to make this only a higher growth option. the city council for the city council to choose if they really thought that we want to prioritize residential over commercial. And one of the things that we heard through our survey, the initial survey that we want is we want to keep our economic development opportunities open. We want our commercial viability. So we've tried to not change a lot of the commercial properties to residential. If we have commercial vacant property, we've tried to keep it commercial because we want that commercial viability for the future. So, but you do have options. You can put an R4 overlay on it and you can say for some properties if they choose they can go for R4 density over residential. So, we can write some unique code for these particular areas so that you can choose residential over commercial. That is if the city council chooses that they want that option. So, these are all just choices. Um, area 8 is another option. So area 8 is what I call what we term as uptown. Uptown from downtown, you know, north of Bington along Bington, there are residential, there are some mixed uses,

there are offices all over here. So providing an overlay district that will allow for our four density will give property owners an option if they want to redevelop it into a higher density. So they can maintain their current use if they want to. But if they choose to to uh redevelop it, then the city council can provide options for R4. We think it's a good area. Again, services available close to service, close to downtown, close to shopping, a great area to consider um whether you want to have higher density. So we threw that in there as an alternative to consider. And then area nine is the midtone, the triangle. We heard this during the conversation with the county in the joint meetings and in other public meetings is about why don't we increase the density of the triangle in the center of the city the highway 20 midway and our downtown the triangle area. And so even though uh the alternative two picks small areas in the triangle, area 9 kind of just canvases the whole uh triangle and says should should we convert all of this to an R3 and R4 zoning and converting it into a higher density has drawbacks. Uh we are trying to create as minimum minimizing the nonconforming nature. So when we change the zoning from let's say R1 to R4, if there's a single family home in there, that becomes non-conforming in the R4 zoning. So they'll be when they redevelop, they'll have to redevelop at an R4 density. We're trying to minimize that as much as possible. In alternative 2, we have very little nonconformities, but in a higher growth option, if you want that change, people will have to deal with these changes. like you said, you know, if you want change, you have to deal with some some of these difficulties and part of that is being

creating all these nonconformities. So, your higher growth options include a lot more changes, a higher density, will provide a lot more housing, but it'll also create some nonconformities just because of the actions that we're taking. So, alternative three is in addition to alternative 2. It's not doesn't stand by itself. And the city council, like Clay mentioned earlier, you can take bits and pieces of what you like in alternative 3 and move it into alternative 2 or if you don't like something in alternative 2, you can take that out. We have the option to do that after we do the analysis. But these are kind of the buckets for uh putting them in for our study uh and presenting them as options. So that those are all the uh alternative three options uh to cover. I'll open it up for questions.

Questions, comments? Council member Marshall.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, CAC. Um, so personally for me, I I would support uh areas seven and eight. Um, not so much in favor of six in that or nine just just for the non-conforming aspect that you had mentioned. And also um you know in all the discussion that we had in the annexation of those parcels it was with the understanding that it would be at R2. You know we talked about not wanting to push our density out into and creating sprawl and pushing out to the edges of our town but keep it more centralized. And so for that reason I'm I'm not as supportive of uh reszoning area six. You know, I I understand the conversation about converting commercial to uh residential, but because we have our self-imposed restriction of we can only go residential to 16th, I think it makes sense to maximize that ability to go to 16th and then we can push the commercial north to 16th if we needed to. Um, so I like I like these options that you've presented. You know, I like I said, I'd be in favor of seven and eight, but not so much six, 10, and nine. Nine just creates such a large area of non-conforming potentially non-conforming and that just puts a lot of density where we where we currently have single family residency and and the capacity is not is not we we can meet the capacity if we did seven and eight we wouldn't need it you know otherwise and so um I appreciate Thank you.

Thank you council member.

Thank you mayor. I largely u agree with council member Marshall and his observations about these potentially conflicting uses but in um without going into the detail again I did want to mention the use of market factors is important especially from the business side of things but as a matter of public record I want to state that market factors are not the only thing that matters uh when it comes to development and redevelopment because we have to look at the long-term um needs of the city and it makes kind of a tension between the local government and potential developers, you know, or or actual developers who have in their own mind what they're trying to do. So, u it it's really quite a delicate walk to get it right. But in any event, um I think these are excellent uh starting points to move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? going once. What? Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Sorry.

I always have a question. I could be here for hours, but I'm holding myself back a lot. Honest. Uh, you you mentioned the challenges of being non-conforming. Um, and you know, we've we've again talked a lot about just because you reszone, it doesn't doesn't mean people are going to build there. Uh, I'm just wondering um when we reszone, the the intent is for us to start putting density there. What does a plan look like for one of these areas if we go from, you know, R2 to R4? How does the how does a city uh how does that impact the city's planning and pushing towards that? You so I guess questions like just simple things, you know, Gary Oaks are in there. Does that, you know, affect how we would deal with people removing trees or how do we encourage I mean what does it look to actually move a parcel from R2 to R4 from non-conforming to conforming?

It's a little bit of a broad question, but I mean it's a pertinent to this in nine.

Good question. Um I want to say that not all changes that you make result in actual actions on the property. So for example, there's some differences even in today's uh maps from since the city was incorporated or since the first uh plan was adopted in 1991. We have a land use map and a zoning map. And what you want to really do is to have them consistent land use and zoning. However, there is a tool that you can use to change your land use like we're doing in this comp plan and not change the zoning map. So, your land use is slightly different than your zoning map. And the idea is when they do make a change that they would convert to what your land use says because it's a future land use map. It's a planning tool. And we have had properties in the city since 1991 that are waiting still to catch up. So a change here doesn't automatically necessitate that all these properties will change. And that's the hard part of some of this area 9 is we couldn't it's hard to calculate that capacity for 20 years because redevelopment that doesn't happen that fast. Even though we create capacity there, the chances of them of us achieving a decent housing count in the next 20 years is not realistic. So these are just tools that we can have and over time as you say you can uh the community can uh put in additional tools to uh facilitate properties from going from non-conforming status to more conforming status. You can provide incentives. You can provide other things. But you cannot it's not a package that you can prepare right now. You just do the action right now in

terms of what you want, what vision you want to achieve. And over the next 10 years or 20 years, you're still working on trying to achieve that and trying to find out what tools are working and what tools are not working. And you'll be making continuous amendment. I won't say that. I wish we can say we could make this change, put this document away and 20 years later we'll have what it is, but that's not the case. We'll continue to keep working on it. So, it doesn't guarantee that whatever change you're making on this map will happen on the ground. It's just a tool that we use and there are people who take opportunities of these tools and there are people who are just don't care about them and it doesn't matter what we do, the property will never change. So those are what we take into account and the market factors and the redevelopment potential of that. Um so uh the changes that we make here doesn't necessarily relate 100% to the change we want to see in 20 years. It's just a tool and the game that we set for people to to try and achieve what we want to achieve. Good. There are anything else.

Just one other item maybe before we leave today. Go ahead. Yeah, mayor. Um I know that we had a couple of questions about uh option six and nine. I just want to make sure does the council feel comfortable with studying th those land use changes within for the draft EIS knowing that afterwards you you may not move some of them forward or others but just for or are there any that you're wanting to removed from consideration that we would not do environmental review on and study as part of the draft EIS? That's a good question.

Council member Marshall, it was yours. So, do you want to I I will defer to the will of council. For me personally, I'm not the rest of the council, not just myself. Um I'm not a fan of of even looking at those alternatives for six at this particular time. And I mean that is the farthest edges of our city and and the density requirements particularly when it comes to three and four. I I don't want to put our our maximum density at the very edge of town. Um and that would be unless I'm wrong. I I I would not recommend removing any of these areas and I'll state why. I mean, the city council eventually may not choose areas six or nine to be included. That's fine. That's ultimately your choice. But let's say 5 years from now or 10 years from now, some property owner from there wants to reszone it, wants to change it. This analysis will help us make that decision at that time in terms of impacts and so on. So it's okay to study a larger area, not act on it. But you have that information that's there for an action you want to take 5 years from now, 10 years from now, or even 15 years from now. You'll have that analysis and you can say, "We looked at it. We have it here. The demand is there now. Maybe we resurrected and relook at it." So it may not be something that you want to consider right now. You don't have to actually even adopt it, but having that analysis is uh uh is of value.

No, that makes sense and I I appreciate that that input. K, how long is an EIS good for? I mean, so you you mentioned 10 15 years from now. Is this still going to be valid information or are we going to have to do another EIS at that particular time?

Good question. Uh the EIS is valid for the projected population or for the time that it's the 20-year time limit. So our previous EIS expired in 2013. It was done in 1993. It said 20 years. However, the population that they planned for in 1993 was 28,000 and we haven't even gotten there. So we we we kept the EIS valid at least for the population. So the analysis was done for 28,000 people and was done, you know, with the time validity of 2013. That's how this EIS would work too. We have a population projection. We have a 20-year limit. Depending on where we are, that EIS will stay valid um depending on whether it's a year or whether it's the population count.

So I guess my only other question then was how does this affect cost? If we if we study area 6 is that increased cost or or or do we decrease cost of the EIS process if we cut out areas? The I think the cost will remain the same. The only time right now where the cost can increase is if we deviate from our choices after the draft EIS is done. Okay. So we've worked it in such a way that all of this is within our budget. All of these options are within our budget and the if we stay in schedule and we stay with these options and don't change these options, we should be fine budget wise.

Okay, that'll get over that. Thank you,

Council Member Merrell. Now, the whole business about change orders and cost, I'm uh adverse to that. So, I'm in agreement with you with regard to keeping on a steady path. uh I would favor in terms of the study and the analysis including areas 6 n and the other related areas because it's better to have done the work and looked at it and then have it at hand going forward because anything can happen here within the next 20 years 10 20 years and then I did want to mention as a matter for the record I've said it other times but working with undeveloped or uh underdeveloped property is vastly different than working than redevelopment of exist you know to redevelop substantially um developed properties. So I I I just as a matter of record I I want our city to move forward directly with those areas that are underdeveloped or not developed um and keep in parallel a track working on those other properties that are developed because they they're just two different creatures and uh redevelopment could take years and years and years. That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor.

So, Council Member Peterson, I see you. I'm going to call on Mayor Pro Tim and then you. She was next.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I thank you, K, for bringing up those points. I agree that it seems prudent to go ahead and gather the information if we have the opportunity, if it's not going to cost us any extra, and especially if the data is going to have such a long shelf life relatively to what we're doing. It's it never hurts to gather more information than you may need and we can always look back and rely on that in future decision making so that any decisions that we do make are we can always point to data and and say like no we're doing this because x y and z and it doesn't seem arbitrary. Um I don't like arbitrary. So um gathering information is good and and thank you also earlier for reinforcing the fact that the the public sentiment that we gather in all of our outreach is something that you guys keep in mind as you're crafting the things that you do dayto-day. It's um that's good to know that when people the public gives us feedback and people express what they want that that's something that staff is always considering what they're doing. So even though we might not, you know, make that really obvious and put that in big neon lights all the time, it's it's always there under the surface and it's always a consideration. Um and that's important. So thank you for reminding us of that. Appreciate it,

Council Member Peterson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, K, in looking at the east side of Highway 20 uh on the new H number six I'm and maybe other numbers are I'm seeing R3, R4, and C1 based on the hashtags. Is is that correct?

Uh yes. the changes that are being proposed east of the highway along water 2 waterl road. The green hash mark was is reszoned to R4. The pink hash mark is R3 and the red crosshatch is uh for C1 commercial. That's the proposal. Why would why would we put commercial there? Isn't that all strictly residential right now? And that tiny little road.

Absolutely. the I think we've talked to city council in the past about neighborhood nodes as a concept. So today, you know, all the commercial is located on Highway 20. If you want to buy a gallon of milk, you have to get on the highway and drive to the the store to get it. And so, um, the idea that you would have neighborhood nodes all around the city, so you have some convenience closer, so you can buy some convenient products without having to make that big trip to the store. So this concept will probably just is building up with this comp plan update. We're we're not doing it as part of the EIS, but we'll definitely be talking to you about it in the comp plan perspective in terms of how neighborhood nodes act and how do they serve the the neighborhood. And so when a higher density is being proposed in these areas, it's good for us to just consider uh commercial services for those areas so that they don't all have to make trips down the highway to the main stores.

If I may add something to that real quick, too. Um the the neighborhood node concept is important because what we're thinking of is, you know, not just 20 years down the road, but 40, 50, 60 years down the road. there's concern, understandable concern about putting density at the edge. Um, but that might not always be the case that maybe in 2100 that's the center of a, you know, vibrant walkable neighborhood instead of just being on the edge of something. So, we're trying to to plan, you know, what's required right now for 20 years, but also think further in advance.

Yeah. But if someone wanted to develop that property as say a C3 or a C4, then would they be restricted?

They can come and ask for a land use change uh or a reasonzoning depending on what they want to do. We're always taking applications for those and considering changes. So, a a pro a property owner that has a different idea can come and request changes. It just seems to me that that's kind of like the first little node that I've seen anyway. Um, and I I live over by the high school. I go all the way, which I don't consider all the way into town. And I I I understand the concept. I'm just not convinced of the need. But thank you. I appreciate the answer.

Yeah.

All right. Council member Stucky. two questions and one is obviously in in general when we're looking at to council member Marshall's point about having the density at the edge obviously there's an advantage having the density within the town for walkability and things like that if I was a developer and I wanted to put a multif family apartment complex in general would you say it's less expensive for me to buy a parcel downtown that may be a little more premium but be right there where all the hookups and everything is or one on the edge of town where the land might be a little bit less but now I have to pay for the hookups. Does that makes like could would an apartment on the edge of town cost me less to do than an apartment inside like the heart of downtown? That's a general I mean I know you can't give a a firm answer on that. I don't have a developer's outlook on the price and the cost uh of what it would be like a land value versus a connection fee. I don't have an analysis on that.

Um but I would say that these areas that we're looking at I mean this is my personal outlook. You know Oak Harbor is small enough that everywhere is walkable and ridable. when I came to this community. I mean, I think you know, wherever you live in town, it's less than a mile to your sources uh on the highway. So, I consider Okabar very walkable and and and ridable. Uh mainly ridable, you know, more walkable when you if you're in downtown and uptown, but most of your city is at least a a short bike ride away. So, uh, these densities when we looked at even area 6, we weren't thinking just about densities. We looked at is is it serviced by bus? There's a bus service on Highway 20. There's a bus stop within a/4 mile of all of these properties. So, they're very serviceable. Uh, they're very close to uh taking neighborhood roads down to trails. uh from uh any of these Waterloo properties, you can take Capitol Drive and connect to the Winjama Park Trail and you can get to downtown. So these areas are very accessible from a planning standpoint. I can understand the the the community's uh perception on trying to put density on the edges of town. When we think edges of town, we think it's really far away from resources, but when we're looking at it from a planning perspective, we think that there are services here. That's why we're proposing uh for consideration of these changes.

Yeah, I I I tend to agree with you on the having run through town almost every day, it is pretty. But that being said, some people have mobility issues and things like that or young children who maybe they're okay walking 200 feet but not. And then my other question is I'm not super familiar, you know, when we look at that part that we annexed in. I'm not super familiar of how many people own parcels in that. And when you when I look at this, it kind of looks like a jigsaw of different zoning down in that area. Is there a chance that someone might own 20 parcels and have one part zone this, one part of my parcel zone this, one part of my parcel zone commercial, or does this take into account the current makeup?

Uh, it does take into account the current property lines and also street extensions. So we did take a look at it to make sure that when streets are extended, you know, that the right zoning falls on the right side of the property and so on. Wonderful. Thank you, Council Member Romero.

Thank you, mayor. Just a quick clarification when I stated that redevelopment is much more expensive than nondeveloped property or underdeveloped. I I I wanted to I want to limit my comment to say that is not always the case, but I am I am aware that there is substantial costs in working with existing structures and things that are already established as well as all the costs related to the property owners and and all the um opportunity costs related to it. Thank you, mayor.

All right. Anybody else? Yes, sir. Um, I would just like to weigh in on this conversation. It's it's actually really valid to why I joined the planning commission in the first place. Um, I've only lived here for about 2 years, but I went for a walk this weekend. It was sunny out. It was great. Um, it was wonderful. I went to explore the new neighborhood that I was living in and I had a great time. I walked way farther than I went and there was only one complaint that I would issue and that was that there was nowhere to stop to get a drink

because I was in the heart of this big area of the neighborhood. There was a school. There was barbecues going on. There was a great place for a roundabout actually. Lots of parks to walk by, but not a single place where I could stop and get even a drink of water. So, a node in that area would be crime. Thank you. Thank you for that.

If I can just follow up, you're looking at EIS proposals and land use proposals and a lot of it is driving kind of towards the housing aspect of it. We are exploring neighborhood node concepts. It's just not part of the EIS. We're not doing an EIS analysis. And the neighborhood note concept will come toward uh to the city council in a concept form in the sense that we may not recommend any land use changes at this time but we may identify little circles on where we think these nodes can happen and then over time we can develop land use changes or property owners can recommend or request changes for land uses if they want to you know have some commercial uses that they want to locate within these nodes. So we're going to provide an opportunity with this comp plan. It's just not part of the EIS study process. Thanks, Kak. Anything else? All right. Well, I think that's it. Thank you so much, K, for your presentation, everyone, actually. All right. Well, I think that concludes all of the EIS and comp plan discussion. We will we would normally move forward right now to the city administrator monthly departmental report. We had a slight emergency before council started. Our city administrator is not available. So, you all have had an opportunity to read through the report. Do any of you have any questions that maybe I can field? And if not, I can have Sabrina um email you directly with any answers that you might have. Go ahead.

Oh, was there more to that? Do what? Planning Commissioner, do you want to stay for the rest of the meeting? I didn't ask you. Or do you guys want to be found? I just figured if you didn't want to stay, you would get up and leave on your own. I didn't Yeah, it happens all the time. So, but yeah, you're welcome to. You leave or you're welcome to stay. So, we're happy to look at your faces and have you here. So, um but anyway, it was it's it's an offer. I just want to say thanks for having us here. Oh, absolutely. Thank you for being here and your time. I'm going to take that opportunity to leave cuz I got to pick my wife up.

All right. All right. I understand. All right. Thank you so much. All right. So, are there any questions or do you want to just email Sabrina directly or you can email me or even just ask me and then I'll have Sabrina email you or I can try to respond to you. Uh, with that, we're going to move on to engineering and our 2026 capital construction projects. And here to introduce this is our city engineer, Alex Warner. Hello, mayor, city council. I also will have my uh engineering project managers on staff joining me for this presentation. They'll be presenting each of their projects. So, um, to give you, uh, a little outline of what we're trying to do here, it's a a new approach for this season. We're bringing to you our projects that are, uh, currently scheduled to start construction in 2026 at this workshop. We're hoping to gauge your feedback and any questions you have and then we'll be following up with these projects coming to uh your evening city council meetings to award to the low bidder um on the consent agenda. So uh we have four projects. We've got the Southeast Gleno and Southeast 4th Avenue water main replacement and transportation benefit district overlay. Then we have the inflow and infiltration sanitary sewer rehabilitation project, our drinking water well 9 replacement, and our southeast Bington Drive SR202 Southeast 8th Avenue overlay project. So I will send it over to our uh first item on the list here is managed by Andy

Walsh.

Great. Uh, thank you, mayor and council. Thank you for having us. My name is Andy Walsh. I'm a project manager. Uh, relatively new here at the city. Been here less than a year, as a matter of fact. So, I'm going to be presenting two projects. Uh, Southeast Glen Cohen 4th and the sewer ini project. Okay. So first project here on the southeast Glen Cone fourth project um our consultant Grian Osborne prepared the water system plan in 2014 and they determined that uh a portion of the city did not have enough flow water flow including fire flows. So one of the projects they developed was the Southeast Glen Co and 4th Avenue water main replacement. Um, and in 2022 they were contracted with public works to design improvements and they completed that design in March of this year. That project Oh, okay. Thank you. Um so this uh project consisted of upsizing roughly 3,100 ft of existing 4-in water man in Gleno and fourth to uh 8 and 12 in mains and uh connecting them to strategic locations in the system. Since we were working in these areas, we kind of took a holistic approach to look at other utilities and evaluate them as well. So, we looked at the sanitary, we looked at the storm and pavement condition, and uh we decided that we needed to

overlay u southeast Glen Co and rebuild Southeast 4th all the way from Midway to Gleno. We also determined that we needed to replace some storm sewer in the intersection of Southeast 4th and Midway that was undized and that was from a separate storm sewer system plan that was developed in 2020. So we we just wanted to look at these comprehensively and be in there once. Uh the project was bid in March of this year. We received six bids in April and we will be bringing this to council next week for approval. Uh the engineers estimate for that work was $2 million, but the bids came in favorably and the low responsive and responsible bid was 1.5 million roughly and we are going to be requesting 200,000 for change order allowances. So this uh figure here kind of shows the area of the work extending down southeast Gleno and along fourth as well as southeast second place and southeast third. The um highlighted areas, it's kind of hard to see, but on that map show uh customers that were notified. So, we wanted to uh keep them informed of what was going on in advance of the work and do our public outreach. We also uh are coordinating around pedestrians. We know that there's a school in the area and uh working around vehicles too.

So, the the appropriate traffic control in place. We also, as part of this project, will be installing new curb ramps on the north side of the intersection of Jer Jerome and Southeast and at Midway and Southeast. So, whoops. This picture here is a view looking west on Southeast 4. And maybe a little hard to see, but the pavement is in really poor shape. it. We determined it couldn't be overlaid. It just needed to be completely removed and rebuilt. Uh here is a picture of southeast second place. And a lot of the aggregate is exposed from the uh base material below the asphalt. So that is definitely in rough shape, too. And uh since I'm a utility engineer, um you can almost imagine what those new utilities will look like underground here. It's just a utility engineer joke, but those those things are kind of buried and

excited to see it. It's kind of out of sight, out of mind really. Um, so this next project of mine is the sewer uh rehab inflow and infiltration project. Can I ask a question about that first project? Yes. Ah, I'm going to regret this question the moment I ask it. Expand on bike lanes and what that means. Okay. So, is just signage? Just signage. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you for that question. We are going to be installing the sherros which are the shared bike lane arrows and so uh it is a designated area I think under one of the comp plans a transportation comp plan to uh be a bike lane route so we are including those sheros along southeast. Do we have an example of the is that what I'm thinking of like the bike lane we have in front of the fire station when that ends there's just arrows on the ground that show bike I mean do you have an example yeah I can take that um that's correct there they're shared lane markings are put in the street there isn't a separated facility for the bike and it was identified forth as a neighborhood greenway in the active transportation plan and that's what they recommend is the the shared lane markings and signage that vehicles should back bicycles in the city.

Got it. Got it. Thank you. Any other questions on that first project? Uh so in in rebuilding forth, does that include adding sidewalks or we we not doing sidewalks there? We are not with this project. We did consider that and we started some preliminary design which then led to uh somewhat extensive regrading into the front yards of these properties and replacements of coververts so that it would drain better. And my understanding is that there's another project that's upcoming that will be addressing some uh sidewalks. Is is that right?

Yeah. So, what we've been finding lately uh with these internal designs and I mean lately, but over the last several years is we get into um constructing new sidewalk, it really becomes a project of its own where we start with a water mane replacement and then okay, let's fill in some sidewalk. Now we need to do enclosed uh storm drainage and there could be rideaway impacts and like on 4th Avenue we could be building sidewalk that we know is in rideaway but it looks like it's 10 ft into people's front yards. So it opens up a whole another conversation. It becomes a much larger project when initially this started as a water man replacement to increase fire flows. So, it really is a scope creep issue and we're looking at better ways to approach these sidewalk connection projects. Hoping to bring some more information to you soon on that. Uh, but this one it really was the scope was just starting to expand. That was out of control and not within what was in the approved budget.

Okay. Thank you, Alex. So, can you just address also I I think what I don't know, but I'm going to tell you what my concern is. I'm ass sure it's also on their minds. How much work are we going to have to undo to eventually address the sidewalks when we get to that? Because I don't want to be doing work to undo work to do it again. So, I think that that's what the concern is here that no one's asking. Certain that that's absolutely something that we do not want to do is have to go rip out things that we just put.

Yep. Exactly. So um this this particular case um with Fourth and Gleno, we're sticking to the existing roadway Prism. We'll get a much better driving surface. Um but the rideway is actually considerably wider than what the road is. So eventually we hope to come back um connect that sidewalk, but it'll be outside of the existing roadway. Perfect. Thanks, Alex. That's that's all I wanted them to hear. So Mr. Mayor. Yes. Yes. Council member Peterson. Sorry.

Thank you. It's okay. I just didn't think you saw my hand. Um on the um schematic I'm looking at my iPad, too. Sorry. Any particular reason that we didn't go all the way up third? What's Southeast Fiser Court look like up there since the beginning of that road looks so rough?

Uh sure. We did consider um continuing continuing that overland to Fiser Court. Um the water man project uh those improvements stop at Fiser Court that that neighborhood has a newer water man that didn't need a replacement. And then looking at the condition of the pavement in Fiser Court, we determined that it didn't need a full overlay. And the same thing up there at the north end of Glen Co, why it doesn't go around the bend or into that little eyebrow culde-sac. And that's just something that we have to um analyze with the pavement condition knowing that we have limited transportation benefit district funds. We try to keep that money to the pavement that is needing replacement at this time.

I and I appreciate not doing work you don't need to. So thank you for that

go ahead. for the person or persons most qualified to answer. Uh the idea of extending the asphalt forming it into a walkway alongside at least one side of the street. uh that should that does not take the kind of infrastructure that concrete has and the cost is much less and it would provide walkway and and bicycle way possibly putting what do you call uh the equivalent of rumble strips but dots and anyway something that if somebody was driving on it they would sense it because like I said I have in my mind the number of people that have been taken out by cars and bad light or bad driving and they just kill people who are in the walkway. So, I'm just uh if one of you would address that with regard to being included or not included or even if it's feasible.

Uh yeah, that was um you another uh potential solution here for fourth. Um we do have the grass line ditches and you know extending the the roadway width. It's not just the asphalt you then have to over excavate and put down a good subgrade. So, um, we really didn't pursue that option too far. It was, okay, let's let's see about putting in these concrete sidewalk connections to complete um to complete the the network. And then seeing it was becoming a project of its own, we decided to peel that out and just focus on the water man and the roadway. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for the questions. So, uh, this next project here, the sanitary sewer rehab, uh, inflow and infiltration project. In 2023, the city applied for federal federal community project grant funds to address the infiltration and leaking sewer mains in that southeast area of the city, generally east of Midway and south of Woodby. There are 70 requests submitted, only 15 awarded, and the city of Oak Harbor received one of those awards in the amount of $1.95 million. Uh, this is managed by the EPA. In 2025, the city awarded a design contract to an engineering firm, BHC Consultants, and currently we're at 30% design. Sorry about the slides there. So, uh, the city and BHC worked together to evaluate condition of the sewers and manholes in this area and determine the best replacement methods. And we decided that open cut excavation on a good portion and trenchless lining using a uh fiberglass kind of epoxy lined felt liner were the best options. um it reduces the footprint of the construction and is a quick method when when when that method is warranted. So, uh we determined that 11,600 ft of pipe needed to be rehabilitated and that's 2.2 2 miles. And this rehabilitation will reduce the water intrusion into the sewer collection system that preserves pipe capacities

and preserves the clean water facility treatment capacity. This lining and pipe replacement also protects the pipe against failure which can lead to sewer backups. It also reduces xfiltration. So, it's uh a good idea from an environmental standpoint with the with the Oak Harbor Bay nearby. Uh it's wise choice. So, this project uh we anticipate to be awarded in July, take this to city council for approval uh with a construction start in uh third quarter of this year and completion the first quarter of next year. engineering design was just over $200,000 and so the estimated budget to be within that $ 1.95 million grant is 1.7 million. We're hoping to have favorable bids on that project as well. This next slide again if it's uh readable uh shows a map of the area of the pipe placements and sewer lining. And so we've got some going from the far west. There's a piece in Bington just about a block west of city hall here. A segment to line in Ireland right adjacent to city hall. a segment in um Midway and u couple other streets 6th 8th and 9inth and then extending Pacik to the east and on up north to uh southeast for fourth and just north of that. So we've got quite a large area there that we identified the worst pipes and are going to address the

worst of the worst. Uh once again, we will be notifying the public of this work, coordinating with the pedestrians and motorists. One additional outcome that I think Gideon here will appreciate too is uh avoiding some of the archaeological sensitive areas with uh excavations in line with previous excavation or sewer pipelining that is trenchless and won't disturb the the ground nearby at all. This is a just a a picture of one of the sewers that we videotaped. I believe this is in Ireland Street. And just on the left side of that pipe is a hole, probably the size of a fist with some debris that's kind of collecting there. That's an old concrete pipe. You can see the aggregate exposed. And then this next picture, which we've kind of blurred out a little bit uh for uh self-preservation, but it uh has a lot of debris collected in the bottom and then some broken pipes that are stuck through. So, uh some of the sewers are in in rough shape and going to try to get those addressed. So, that's the end of my piece of the presentation.

Oh, thank you, Mr. Walsh. and um you know, you're not a council member till you see some of these pictures, right? So, you've really seen inside the pipes. But I do just want to add uh we want to especially thank uh US Congressman Rick Larson who work closely with staff and still working closely with the mayor and and and council and staff to make this grant possible.

All right. All right, mayor and council. It's good to see you all. It's been a been a while. Uh, I'm Gideon Kaufman. I'm the city's archaeologist as well as project manager and I'm overseeing the Well 9 replacement project. A little bit of background. Well 9's located in Kimble Park. That's on six and Heler Street, smaller neighborhood park. Um, we're currently getting about 25 gallons per minute out of the out of the system. However, our water ride allows for 250 gallons a minute. The city has tried numerous uh repairs, whether that's blowing out the screen, replacing the screen, and about 25 years of of various repairs. It's time to uh to retap the well. We secured RH2 for doing the design work in 2025. Um, what makes this project unique is that it's not going to design and then bidding out construction. Prior to that, the well has to be tapped and then tested. Um, you see the budget there. We're still very early in this project. So, part of that testing is pumping 250 gallons a minute for 24 hours in a residential neighborhood. So instead of flooding people's houses, we decided to go out and test our storm water capacity and make sure that it can actually handle 250 gallons a minute. It's been great working with Andy as well as our storm water crew. That picture on the left is us out on uh 20 in in Swantown. Um also shows how important reflective PPE is. Um to get an idea of design, you have the existing wellhouse

just um east of where that callout is. And where that call out is is about 12 ft to the west where they're proposing the the newly tapped well. So we would like to use the existing wellhouse and as much as the existing infrastructure that we can. So, forthcoming EF e efforts um bids open, they've been open for about an hour and 7 minutes. They opened at at 2:00 today. So, that's kind of exciting. And then the the drilling and testing, the company that um will be doing that work brings their own test pump out and and oversees it during that whole 24 hours. If there is a problem, then they they stop testing immediately. um and then design the pumping system based on that drilling and testing and then we get to advertise again and I'll see you folks again um for uh coming up with a a pumping system construction construct the pumping system and in order to maintain it you have to run it for 10 minutes about once a month and the water department is is a okay with that. That's it. Oh, if I just may add one thing to for those that have been on council, this has been a city priority and talked about for a long time. This is a real key part of having backup supply for the city.

Mhm. So, we know our water comes across that bridge. We know that this we're in an active earthquake zone. We can expect and need to be prepared for when that goes down. So this is a real key strategy that the council and the mayor have authorized us to move forward. So this is very exciting for us to get to this stage and good good job for the team working together to get us here. Did anyone have a question about the well project before we move on? Yeah, go ahead. Council member Mero.

Thank you mayor. Actually a question about the sewer lines. That was fascinating to me about use of the lining. Um I was going to ask um what's the lifespan the service life of the lining of a lining and and does it reduce the capacity of the or does it significantly reduce the capacity of the sewer line?

Yeah, those are uh good questions and to answer the longevity I I'm guessing a little bit but I would say about 50 years. It's almost like replacing with a new pipe and they come in various thicknesses. So, it is considered a structural replacement whereas there's coatings that will preserve the integrity uh or or prevent further corrosion, let's say, but it's not structural like this is. And this is a product I've used before um on other projects. It's really pretty neat to see. And if if you're interested, happy to let you know when some of that construction will be going on. But um they they order the pipe to fit. They measure the diameter and it's in a long sock that's kind of refrigerated and the felt is impregnated with this epoxy. And what they do is they have this large hopper over the manhole. They guide it into the pipe and uh it's essentially inverted when it's placed above the manhole and then they pressurize it and it re it it it inverts or opens to its u permanent state. So uh it cures with time other pipes uh well so it cures with heat I guess and other will cure with UV ultraviolet light

but it becomes solid and I have a sample of it. Um so long long response because I kind of like the stuff but um it should last roughly 50 years in terms of capacity. It does affect diameter slightly by reducing diameter, but we're replacing an an old clay or let's say concrete pipe that has that exposed aggregate and it has a higher roughness. So the flow characteristics are worse in the existing condition. With this new pipe, it's it's very straight like a new PVC slippery pipe. So, it's kind of a wash is what your capacity you improve capacity even though your diameter reduces slightly.

Thank you. Good news. Any other questions? Did you have a question? Yes, Council Marshall. I I have a question now that I didn't know I had. Um, how long are the pipes going to have to be closed then? I mean, we're talking about sewer pipes and such in order to to line them and you said they cure over time. Um, so how long do they have to be shut down for? So I misspoke when I said they cure over time. It really um is is more heat activated. Um, there is a kind of shelf life to the product when they ship it out on ice and then when it's exposed to air, it starts to

um, what's the term I'm looking for? React chemically react. But but it does cure with the heat. So it's essentially I think they were saying 2 to 4 hours they can complete the install and reinstate the sewer service. Oh wow. Okay. And so during that time we'll either be bypass pumping the sewer flows or collecting it in an upstream manhole. U some of that are means and methods that the contractor determines they need to do for that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any any Oh yes. Council member Peterson.

Thank you. By the way, that was fascinating information about the the way that product works about the drilling. I'm not suggesting that you don't know what you're doing, but what is the potential that we won't find water and we will have to spend all that money?

That's that's a difficult one to answer. uh RH2 um they're hydraologists and they're they've they've done these kind of projects all over the state. Um we do need to get into that aquifer because if we use a different aquifer, the cost as far as permitting goes goes through the roof. So it would take a considerable amount of time. Um, and there's more areas around that wellhouse that we could we could potentially tap. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Floor is all yours, Phil. Thank you for waiting. Sorry.

Thank you. Afternoon, mayor and council. Um, yep. So, this is the Southeast Bington Drive overlay project. Uh, this is a project that's uh merely a pavement preservation project. There's no additional sidewalk being installed in this project. Um, just to give you an idea of the project limits, um, we're going from the highway to Southeast 8th, so all the way around past PD and to Southeast 8. That's the project limits we have, uh, designed for this. Um, just to give you a quick overview of the existing conditions in pavement speak, this has reached its useful life. um maintenance crew is pretty tired of coming out here and filling the cracks, painting the stripes every year. It's just not very useful um of their time. So, it's reached its useful life. Um we've decided that when they did the pavement condition index rating a few years ago, it's just keeps decreasing. So, it's time for a new layer of asphalt to be installed. Um another photo here. Some of the I'm sure most of you come this way when you come to city hall. A lot of trench patches, a lot of alligatoring, just a lot of defects in the roadway that needs to be addressed. So again, it's just a maintenance issue.

Alligatoring. Uh alligatoring, it's just a another uh pavement condition term. Um similar to an alligator's backout. Has those random cracks and not very um symmetrical. Learned a new term today.

Yep. Alligatoring of the pavement. It's a new term for a pavement talk. So yeah, it's good to correct these trench patches that were have been there for years. Um again, uh this area in front of and adjacent to city hall and PD, a lot of uh cracking, uh trench patching. Uh another thing we're going to address, uh per our maintenance department is the sidewalk in front of PD. Um if you noticed that the tree roots are uplifting it pretty significantly. Um, there's only so much the maintenance compartment can do when shaving the sidewalk to make it level for users to walk or access. So, one of the things we're going to address during this project is replacing that sidewalk. Um, it will most likely come to uh addressing the roots in the in that area. Um, talking with the parks department and the and the tree person there. Um, it might impact the trees TBD to be determined. It depends once the contractor goes out there and excavates. We'll see how the tree is. Right now, it's impacting the roadway and the sidewalk. So, there's going to be some coordination with the parks department to see how far those roots extend to the roadway. So, that's going to be addressed. Also, uh in addition to the in front of PD and city hall, we're going to upgrade uh the crosswalk here as far as installing the new uh typical the flashing crosswalk sign that we've seen um throughout the city. uh just enhances visibility um when crossing. I know there's been flags installed just to u make it easier for pedestrians to be seen when crossing. Um in addition to having the lighted crosswalk here at this crosswalk location, um we're looking into putting an advanced flashing sign around the corner uh more closer to southeast as you're coming from southeast um heading towards the curve. and just the overall scope of work. Again, we're going to address the

subgrade issues, the potholes, and take care of those that are failing and then pave the new roadway. Uh new curb ramps. There's a couple locations on Elely in Bington that have substandard or non-existent curb ramps. So, we're going to take care of those. Um, as I mentioned, we're going to remove and replace the existing defective sidewalk and then also um replace the striping. We're going to go with a new current standard of the reflective tape, better visibility for drivers and users of the roadway. And the new striping um we're going to install striping for bicycles. Uh that's the location we're going to stripe for bicycles from the highway to Elely. It's the most uh ideal location to put the a dedicated bike lane in that area. We've determined uh funding um with the help of Wendy Horn from grants administrator uh put together the funding uh application from the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board TIB. Um they accepted it. We got approved. Um so they will be providing that dollar amount there, the $669,000. Um and then estimated local funds for the paving and the work is around $27,000 as of right now. Again, it's just preliminary. We haven't gone out to bid for this project yet. And just a quick uh overview overview of a cross-section again from Bington on Bington from the highway to Erie. Uh this would just be the layout as we mentioned the bike lane, travel lane, uh maintain the sub sorry center left turn lane and then um so that would be striped for uh bicycles that section and then the section here closer to city hall just going to maintain no additional sidewalk just maintain the shoulders as is and then maintain the traffic lanes as they are now.

And then lastly, so uh utility coordination, uh schedule-wise, we have other projects besides the paving that we need to get or that's going to be happening on Bington. Uh we've been notified, this was post, uh after we've applied for the grant and got the money. Uh we found out from Cascade Natural Gas that they need to replace uh part of their service line um on Bington. So that's part of the schedule that we need to maintain uh keep an eye on from their perspective so we can finish our work when they're done. Uh as Andy mentioned, there's some work happening for the INI project in the same vicinity on Bington here on Ireland and then also on Ele. So once that's complete too, we have to keep an eye on that schedule. And then as mentioned previously, the new development here on Bington, the Bay View P Vista development, there will also be tying into services on Bington. So we need to keep an eye on that schedule. So once all these three items are complete, um we can get a better idea of when we start paving on Bington. Uh so right now tenatively schedules from Cascade um the INI project baby Vista we're we're shooting for advertising this June July time frame and then hopefully pave September again this might change depending on what we hear from Cascade and then how the other uh the INI project goes and then also the development on on Bington. Uh communication wise, we know uh it's heavily traveled businesses, uh post office, city hall, PD. So, communication is going to be important for this one. Uh typical, we do snail mail just to let residents and uh occupants know what's going on. Uh city websites also been useful for us for projects. Uh I'll work with Maggie Aguilar to get social media out there. And then as part of the

project too, we're going to put on the contractor. We've learned that it's been pretty helpful. The contractor provides the alternating message sign boards, the actual scrolling sign that says construction happening, construction forthcoming. So, we're going to put that in the contract for the contractor to provide those kind of signage. It it it worked for Northeast 7th when that was happening just to have those visuals of people are aware of a projects coming even though they don't have um work or business happening in Bington. this keeps them up to date. And then lastly, just as I mentioned, just an overview of what's going on in Bington. Uh the left hand side, the yellow line there, that's the proposed Cascade work that's going to take place. Um the orange square there is a new development, the Bay View Vista Apartments. And then the two green lines, kind of hard to see, but adjacent to the development. And then here on Ireland, adjacent to PD in city hall, uh the different sewer work that's going to be taking place adjacent to Bington. I think that is it. So again, any questions about Bington?

Yeah. So my question is probably more for the panel. Whoever wants to speak, I don't care. But we're we're getting a lot of questions and that's why I'm asking the question. We talk about that this sidewalk is at the end of its useful life. So when we look at that on a citywide scope and we look at all of our site or not just the sidewalk, I'm sorry, but the the street is at the end of its useful life. What makes this a priority over Pioneer between Pioneer and 20? Because that's where we're seeing a lot of complaints and it's also we're seeing a lot of deterioration and it's very undrivable at times. Um so what makes this a higher priority over Pioneer then? How do you guys determine that? Can you talk to that?

Yeah. Yeah, I can. Um, so we have different payment conditions, we have different pots of money, we have different conditions of utilities. All of these things go into where we should strategically target obtaining this grant money. Pioneer Way we know has significant utility issues. Uh water, sewer, storm, all need to be upgraded. Yes, the pavement on Pioneer Way is worse than the condition on Bington. That is true. We don't yet know on Pioneer what utility sizes and capacity that we are building to. that has a lot to do with the previous conversation upzoning and um increasing density. So, we definitely discussed that this last year. We've been successful for four years in a row now getting the transportation improvement board grant. So, we wanted to put together a successful application package. Pioneer Way is still in the capital improvement plan. we have a separate project, but that will likely need multiple sources of funding and we really need to have those questions answered as to what we are putting under the ground before we go back and replace the road. Yeah. So, and that's that that's what I wanted to bring out here in in the meeting with. So, essentially, when we finish the comp plan and we push that further down the road and we understand what that's looking like and development potentially is going to look like, then that will drive that project getting done. Is that what you're saying? We're bringing that to fruition. Yeah, that that'll tell us how large the pipes are that we're putting back and what kind of flows we need.

Yeah, I think I think it's just important and helpful for folks that are watching to to hear that. So, that

Yeah, man. If I may just add a little bit to what um Mr. Warner said and it's a very good question because you're right, it's going to constantly keep coming up. So, just some history that I think is important. about 15 years ago, um maybe might have been 20 years ago, uh a lot of cities, counties, jurisdictions came to the state and said, "Look, you've got these programs to help us improve and and add things, you know, new traffic signals, you know, new capacity, but we're just having a hard time doing maintenance." And so, this is 15, 20 years ago, right? So the state and the feds both took money out of their existing transportation budget said we're no no longer going to use this to make improvements. We're only going to use this money to do preservation. But what they said and for example our state TIB said is we're not going to use it to reconstruct a road like Pioneer that needs to be reconstructed. You only can use it if you are already know that you need to preserve this road. Most people who drive down a asphalt road that needs to be preserved looks just fine to them. So in essence, that ounce of prevention has to happen really early before it looks bad to most citizens. And that's where it gets to be complex on how these things work. So a lot both federal and state money is really for us to be way ahead of the game and do preservation which again Wendy and and this group four years in a row we've been able to get state tib money where the city had not get gotten it I think forever you know what I mean so suddenly now we're doing really well to go get that pioneer is a big huge

problem that will take a lot of time so that is that's a really good question cuz every time we do one of these projects someone's going to talk to you or they're going to talk to us and they're going to say number one why did you stop here and why didn't you keep going or why didn't you do this too and then why didn't you go do it on another street in my neighborhood so thank you yeah no absolutely and thank you you were being kind when people talk with me but usually they talk at me so but I get it so um any other questions or comments from council Sandy Council member Peterson yes

thank you so Mr. Sure. You just mentioned that Pioneer needed a lot of work underneath the ground and you've said it before and and I appreciate that it does, but I remember that when we had the discussion about one way or not, blah blah blah and pioneer. I thought that we replaced a lot of sewer and other infrastructure in that area. Make me smart and help me understand why we would need to do it again. if my memory is correct. Thank you.

Yeah. Uh I wasn't here at that time, but I believe you're referring to the one-way conversion of Pioneer that's further east of this, uh section of Pyon Airway, uh that we have our capital project set out for. So, uh our capital project and the bad portions of Pioneer Way are from Highway 20 to City Beach Street. And that one-way conversion that did replace water and sewer main and other utilities occurred from City Beach over to uh Midway. So, and so that portion is still intact and we're not talking about Yes. Yes. This is directly west of that segment of Pioneer. Thank you. I was concerned.

Sure. Council member Wigenstein. Do we have a flashing crosswalk at City Beach in Barington there by the post office? Uh, no we do not. Will we be putting one in with this changes? We do not currently intend to. I think we should. That's a pretty busy crosswalk. Um, with all those apartments and stuff that live down. I mean, I' I'd like to see it. So So, and more apartments coming. And more apartments coming. Yeah. I mean just I I appreciate the feedback.

So our general approach currently is to install those at midblock crossings or near schools, but we can definitely take that into consideration. Buildings going up with everything getting built up there and whatnot. It's pretty close to the sidewalks anyways. So just to to allow that blinking. I love it at on the one on Woodby Avenue is excellent because you can see it coming. It's lights up and and you don't always see the people standing on the side waiting to cross the street because there's trees that are overhang different times of the year, right? And so

um I just think it's, you know, anytime we're going to be upgrading sidewalks. If we can make it safer, we should be doing so. And I was just responding to another council member this morning about another request in the city. Those are about $30,000 uh each to install. Um but it is uh yeah, it it's a tool we can utilize um if we can afford.

Yes, Council Member Marshall. Thank you, Mayor. So, Alex, the the infrastructure underneath Bington is good. I'm cuz I I thought I remember we had a pretty major water mane break by the post office just a few years ago. I mean, so we all good underneath there or uh so our analysis of that is it doesn't need to be replaced currently. Sometimes we have breaks even um in these pipes that um you know have some useful life remaining in them. Okay. And then my my next question is this I think you refer to it as Bay View Vista or the development. Yes.

Yes. Are they going to are they being required to put in a section of sidewalk along Barington Drive there? Yes, they are. Okay. Yes. And then that developer actually reached out to me and had a suggestion that we put a crosswalk leading from that gravel parking lot that belongs to Island Thrift going to Island Thrift. He said that there he's noticed a a number of near miss because there's there's quite a bit of of pedestrian traffic crossing that that section of street right there. And just so while we're doing this, if maybe that I'm not suggesting a $30,000 flashing sidewalk, but maybe we could just do a regular crosswalk right there and and help with put some of the pedestrian traffic right there.

So, we do have added flexibility. We're designing this in house. So that is saving us about $60 to $100,000 in consulting fees. So um it makes us more nimble. But uh it's interesting that that actually would be a good place for flash and crossing because that is a midblock crossing and feedback we've gotten from insurance and uh those folks is if you do a midblock crossing, you want to do the full meal deal enhanced uh with the the flashing signs, okay? And those those things. So there there's always a balance here and um you know we we can definitely consider these these items.

Yeah, that's all I was going to say. You want it right there at the parking lot to to across the street. However, we could get people safely across Bington right there to Island Rift. They seem to that's they seem to his his observation was he's seen several near misses and and any kind of a crosswalk across Bington right there that would lead to Island Thrift cuz they do park there and I imagine they'll be coming from the apartment complex as well. Well, yeah. And I was just going to add that if we look at right where the the parking lot's now going to join up but up against the new apartment complex. If we were to put it right there, it would still be mid block and we could do the flashing one right there. And I think it would we would be able to capture both of those at with one shot. So,

so that would be not covered by the transportation improvement board. It would be local funds, but we can consider it. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Council,

if I could just respond to Council Marshall, regarding those utilities, you're right. So, imagine that water line, you know, um we'll just use generic example. Imagine it's 65 years old. It's been patched a lot of times. And so, now we're going to pave it. That paving roughly is, you know, uh 7 to 10 years that we want to get out of it. So what we're doing is we are crossing our fingers. So no, not everything is okay with the infrastructure underneath Bington. What we're doing is we're just crossing our fingers and saying it's really old, but maybe it's got a few more years left in it because we don't have enough money to replace all these things where we're just going to take a gamble and hopefully that it lasts its full life cycle, right? Pave it now. But if if water comes shooting out um you know a year from after this project's done would not be a surprise, right? Cuz we're really trying to stretch this infrastructure to literally the end of its useful life. And yes, there's still a lot of patching and old pipe throughout there. So I I hope you understand that, right? We just we really don't have anywhere close to the funds to say, "Okay, it's only been 65 years. Let's so let's just go ahead and replace it." And that's our answer to everything. So, we're trying to judge those decisions.

I understand. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Romero. Mr. Schuler. Thank you. That answers my question about the existing infrastructure on Bington. I did want to strongly endorse the concept of having a crosswalk in and about Island Thrift because I've seen people I I live just half a block away practically and I see it regularly, people nearly getting creamed. So, I think that that would be a a valid place to put a crosswalk, a protected crosswalk of some sort or another. Council member Peterson, you have your hand up.

I do. So, I want to go away from this project and talk for a second about another one if that's all right. Can I? Uh, you want like completely different project than what we had on the agenda? I just want to ask a question about one. Yeah, it's a crosswalk issue. Oh, okay. So, between Highway 20 and Oak Harbor Road, there's SARS and then the roller barn and all that stuff on the other side of the street. M

we've been talking for years about a mid block sidewalk there. Where are we on that? If I'm allowed to ask that now without everybody getting mad at me or even if you do. I know exactly where she's talking about. People People cross there all the time.

Yes. um as part of our safe streets for all plan that was adopted last year. It was one of the improvements in the project list they recommended. So that is where it currently stands. It's not funded. It's not currently in our capital plan, but it is a potential uh safety project as part of that planning document. So I guess my request would be to figure out a way to move it forward because I think in addition to the thrift although I know that's planned now that is an that is a tragedy waiting to happen and we've been working on this waiting for the better part of 15 years that I know of

I'd like to figure out a way to move it forward since that's safe streets for all. Would that qualify under IRPO potentially as one of their projects? Uh potentially there's potential money there. That's why I'm asking. And you're only talking 30 to 60,000. We just talked about it last week. So Okay. Yeah. I know. Alex and I have talked about this one and it is on a plan. It It's multiple lanes there. So it it makes it a very complex solution. I think there's about I think there's about $110,000 available though. So, I mean, if that's something that we're ready to go on and we could present to them, we might be able to grab that. Excellent. And I could take that.

Thank you for any work you could do on that and I could take that back next month. So,

all right. Anything? Yes. You're welcome. Thank you. Um, is there anything else for the good of the order on this issue? Yes. Uh, just one last thing back to this Bington project. The last slide here shows three different work efforts that are currently underway or have not yet begun that we were not directly aware of when we applied for the grant funds. So, this project I would say is at high risk for being delayed into 2027, but we're doing everything we can to start it this year. We are communicating with the transportation improvement board and keeping them a breast of the current project schedule. Thank you for that. All right. Anything else? Going once, twice. All right, we are going to move on to the last item on here, which is finance opportunity zone 2.0 application. Thank you very much for your presentations. And here to introduce this is our grants administrator, Wendy Horn, as well as our community services director, Stacy Bratchner. Bye, everybody. All right. Good afternoon again, Mr. Mayor and Council. Pleasure to be here again. Good quality time with the planning department today. Um, I am joined today by the city's grant manager, Wendy Horn. We have a guest today. Uh, Christina Hines is with us, executive director for EDC Island County. I also have here Carol Brobeck, uh, associate planner with my department. Uh, if it's the council's pleasure to move forward with, uh, an opportunity zone application, this is the team, uh, that will be supporting with those application materials. All right, I do remember how to use this I believe. There we go. So, our goal today uh subsequent to this presentation is to request guidance from the council on the desired scope specifically uh which if any census tracks within the city, the council may be interested in having

staff prepare applications to the department of commerce for potential opportunity zone designation. So, in support of that request, we've prepared a brief presentation today just to refresh the council and the listening public on what an opportunity zone or OZ is on the benefits that those zones can provide, how the legislation has been recently updated. We'll provide some recommendations for this body's consideration and additionally we'll provide some information about the scope of the application itself as well as the deadline for application which of course like any application the deadline is soon. So first uh just a refresher on what an opportunity zone is. So, uh, opportunity zones essentially they're a top- down government program out of DC, uh, specifically the US Secretary of the Treasury, and then that gets implemented through HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and then at the state level, it gets implemented through the Department of Commerce who then supports communities in our state with designation and then ultimately implementation of the program. In the very simplest of terms, OZ's are a tax benefit for investors. They're an economic tool for development and job creation in underinvested rural communities. And you can see right now that we have a currently um designated OZ that is good until 2028. Now, in this program, what the feds define as economically distressed communities. Uh those are places that have either one or a combination of low per capita income, high unemployment, or a high concentration of what the def uh the feds define as poverty. And then those um those factors get grouped at a census track level. And just recall that a census tract is just simply a statistical subdivision by the US Census Bureau that helps approximate neighborhoods and also track population changes. Oak Harbor's current opportunity zone that you can see on the map there tracks along SR20 and it also includes parts of the downtown

waterfront. Now, um you may recall that the original program, which is sometimes called Oz 1.0, 0 was established in 2017 originally through the tax cuts and jobs act. The 1.0 map that's in effect is good through the end of 2028. So what we want to discuss with council today is the 2.0 version which is going to be in effect until 2036. Governor Ferguson has already nominated the updated uh census tracks for the 2.0 0 map and the feds have established some tighten uh eligibility requirements including a detailed application process for jurisdictions like ours through the department of commerce. So the news flash if you will uh between 1.0 and 2.0 is that the new version of the opportunity zones is designed to attract even more investment than 1.0. Uh we're going to get permanent designations, reduce substantial improvement threshold test. So, in other words, there's going to be an easier threshold for projects to meet so they can get that additional investment, those additional tax deferrals, um, etc. So, with 2.0, the overall amount of eligible tracks in Washington has has been reduced. However, the good news for our city is that we've gained an additional eligible tract. So, the application asks jurisdictions a series of questions that are meant to pass three broad tests, if you will. Uh, one, does the area or track need new investment to grow its economy? Can the area realistically attract private capital and put it to productive use within the policy's timelines? And then, does the city uh have local policies that are conducive to potential investments? So the application period is going to open on May 1st and the nomination form asks jurisdictions to describe things like active projects, the current zoning, potential financing waiting in

the wings, the most needed services in these areas, infrastructure availability, and also to provide supporting documentation, which is I've got the got the team here who's going to be helping us out with that. All right. So current census track uh identified as 9707 is still eligible and additionally census track 9709 has been added as well. This tract extends from pioneer to the C plane base. Now in both cases staff based on the updated 2.0 0 criteria and also uh the application materials that we've reviewed so far. We would respectfully recommend to the city council that both tracks would likely be successful in being designated uh designated by the state uh or in the case of 9707 the one that's currently designated redesated as opportunity zones with successful application. So again um application opens on oh I think I put April 28th. It opens on May 1st. there is a draft available for us to view right now and then it closes on May 28th, so fairly quickly. Um, if it's council's pleasure to pursue uh one or two of those OZ's designations on those eligible tracks, uh we'd respectfully request guidance on that today. And then ultimately, we would ask for city council to uh adopt a resolution to accompany that application or those applications. So, at this point, uh, myself or Christine, Wendy, we'd be happy to answer any questions, uh, to facilitate the the conversation. Thanks for your attention.

Council member Stucky, please correct me if I'm wrong, and I often am. So, because I've looked at property in the opportunity zone before, and I feel like this is not something people are very knowledgeable on. I talked to two banks when I was getting a loan, couldn't explain it to me. I talked to a couple real estate agents, couldn't explain it to me. Do we even know if this is being taken advant Like do we know that two or three people have taken advant Like what statistics do you have because nobody could explain it to me. Yeah. Yes. Thank you for that question. Uh to my understanding and then I'll just look to Wendy and Christine to make sure. Okay. That um I believe at this point we haven't had anyone take advantage of it. As far as I know, no.

Thank you. But I have had three in the last months. Two of them being in the last and this program started remind me again. 2017. So nine years, not one. So I mean, I don't see a harm, but I also don't want a lot of staff time being tied up with I mean, maybe it'll be used once or twice. We could be like, "Hey, look what we did." I I honestly just don't see it being used more than once or twice by one savvy investor. And we could call that a win or not, but most people aren't knowledgeable about it. It's not well advertised. To me, it's just kind of a nothing to be honest. So, thank you for that feedback,

Council Member Marshall. Christina, can you explain in in your estimation why it hasn't been taken advantage of very much or or at all to this point? And could you so council sorry I just wanted to ask you

Oh yes. Uh so Councilman Burstaki is absolutely correct. It hasn't been taken advantage of because people don't understand what it is. Um it's an educational component. You need it's it's a it's a tax process, right? So you need CPAs and attorneys who understand the processes, who understand how to open these qualified opportunity zone funds where capital gains money goes. Now the great thing about opportunity zones that we don't talk about is the investment doesn't actually have to be a local capital gains investment. It can come from anywhere in the United States. An investment somewhere in New Jersey that generates capital gains can go into a qualified investment fund here to invest in a project. So as we're looking at possible redevel focusing on development of the downtown area in the future years, this may become a big player. We don't know for sure that it would be, but depending on what that investment looks like privately. It would be a gamecher for those who want to save a significant amount of tax dollars on those capital gains as well as any appreciation if they hold the property longer than 10 years. So there's different aspects to this that need broad education.

So you mentioned holding the property for 10 years. One of the significant changes is we're changing that threshold then from 10 years to 5 years and and that seems to be you know I I spoke with a developer recently about a project in an opportunity zone and that was the holdup though was that requirement to hang on to that property for that that amount of time. And so do we see changing it from five 10 years from from 10 to five is that going to increase or is that five years still in your estimation only going to still be a barrier to people participating in this program?

So I just want to pose a correction that I'm I will have to look into. I don't believe they're changing from 5 to 10 years. There's different steps along the way. There's a 5-year requirement. What is changing is the 10% to upwards of 30% savings of the initial investment and then the 10-year piece has always been an appreciation portion. And that piece is as far as I know hasn't changed at all. The percentages in which you can save tax dollars is what changed, not necessarily those years, but I will double check that because

yeah, in our packet it says the most significant change is a 5-year investment hold. And and so when I was just reading through it and going through it with the developer, it was it's currently 10 years and then at 10 years I think you have the ability to it's like almost 100% um wash at that point. And this one in here it says a 5-year for the appreciation. So there's two different pieces to it. There's the tax savings on your initial capital gains investment. Okay. And then the appreciation of the property is a different portion of that tax savings. I got you. Okay. And then your question was sorry what was the rest of the question?

So my question is is that is that still going to be a bar the the idea that you have to hold on to it for that part that length of time. I mean a lot of developers they they want to come in they might want to make the investment then they want to sell it. They want to be done and they want to move on to the next project. Is is the requirement to hold on to the property as long as you have to hold on to it be a barrier to people participating for the appreciation portion? Possibly. But the 5-year change from 10% to 30% in rural areas um is the incentive to boost that 5% or 5year holding time. Okay. So, I think it balances it out pretty well in those changes. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Any other questions? I just will say that I think it will be interesting to see how current tax legislation changes are going to impact this as well because I think now that this is going to become a moot point. But that's just me. So yes, Mayor Pertmp.

Thank you. I I think that you know any incentive or opportunity we can provide is something that is worth looking into. So I would I would support moving forward just so we have another tool in our toolbox provided that it's not going to um be too much of a strain on like staff time and resources etc. I just I want I want the the ROI to to pencil out there. So, if it's something that we have the bandwidth to do and um you know and then for the potential payoff then I I would support moving forward. But if this is going to be something that's really timeconuming and labor intensive and you know maybe someone will take advantage of it, maybe not then um then maybe not so much. So, I'm just I'm curious about what what staff if you have an opinion. I know I know staff hates it when I ask for your opinion on things, but um is this something that's worth the the time and effort or not, I guess, is my I would I would defer to

So, Stacy, how long do you think this is going to take to to draft this resolution and bring this forward to council? That's it.

Oh, is the juice worth the squeeze? I love that question. Um, it'll take 28 days. Um, so as far as capacity, um, we we will take guidance from council on whatever council decides we can get it done within the um, within the time limitations, the one or the the two applications. Uh I we are thinking about it also in the context of the comprehensive plan as well. Uh both of these areas dovetail uh with both alternatives two and three as we think about future growth and investment of those areas. So not trying to sway the council but maybe just a little bit um as uh as as we think about future investment and opportunities. So, I would encourage the council to think about that in their decision-m as well.

So, I mean, you you're what you're stating then is you can get this done. I think that that's what their overall concern is though is that they're 100 hours of staff. That's what Yeah, that's what I think they're more worried about. It's not that they're so much against it. They're just worried about is this going to become too laborious for you all to move forward and get turned around and back to us? We got it. Okay. All right. Then I think that they're telling you that they support that. So, yeah. Mayor, Council Member Peterson. Yes. Council member Peterson. Sorry.

That's okay. Um I I appreciate what Council Member Stucky and Council Member, sorry, Terry, I had to think your last name. Um, the ROI, the time invested. I get that that Stacy says they have the time. I appreciate that, too. But capital gains investments are not something I see. I just I don't know. I'm kind of with the mayor on are people going to be funding this? I'm ambivalent. I I would absolutely defer to the rest of the council, but I don't know. Are there other things that we could be better focused on? Um, opportunity zones have worked in other places. They don't seem to work here, but maybe that's a a missagular issue for getting the word out. I don't I don't know. It's it's a big crapshoot to me. And I I don't know that I like our staff spending time on navies. That's just my opinion. Thank you.

Yeah, I just want to make it clear too. I wasn't trying to dissuade anyone. I was making a more general comment about our current tax situation and legislators in Olympia and what they're doing. So, um, yes, Council Member Marshall, thank you. I I think Council Member Peterson makes a good point though. I think the only communication we have currently is on the EDC website in terms of the opportunity zone and and so the more outlets that we have to to you know kind of educate and talk about the opportunities if we could have it on development services portion of the website where we talk about this these these are opportunities for development and investment and um you know then then the more we get the word out the more you know potentially what about chamber website

well I would be more than happy to talk to the director about that. Yes. I'm sure that we could find a way to make that work. Yes. Yeah. No, I think that's Yeah, I think those are all good points. That was smooth. That was smooth. Yes. Council member Arms.

Um Yeah. Is if you think you can do it along with everything else, you know, the old saying goes nothing ventured, nothing gained. And if you know, we nothing comes out of it, then we know that we don't have to do it again. But, you know, we're looking for people to invest. We're looking for other opportunities and if there's not a lot of people out there doing it then we're going to be one of those and so maybe this would be what we need. We keep saying we're looking for this but you know if we don't try something new and maybe it will spark some interest but it's up to you if you can work it that would be fine. Council member Romero,

following my general principle of uh going the next step to develop our community, I would generally favor it, especially since there has not been adequate promotion and um education, training, you know, just the whole gamut of uh finding out what demand there is for it. So um so I would echo those who support moving forward with it. And again, we we won't know unless we try. Thank you. All right, that it. Well, thank you very much for the presentation. I think you have your marching orders. Yes, I do.