Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

This meeting of the Kirkland Planning Commission is called to order. Let's start with a roll call.

Margaret Bunyal.

Here.

Erin Jacobson.

Here.

Gina Medea. Here. Julia Nolan. Here. Scott Reiser.

Here.

Angela Rosman is absent.

Rodney Rutherford. Here. And with the majority of commissioners present, we have a quorum and may conduct business. The next item on the agenda is comments from the audience. THIS IS THE PORTION OF THE MEETING WHERE WE WILL HEAR FROM THE PUBLIC ABOUT ITEMS THAT ARE NOT SCHEDULED FOR PUBLIC HEARING. TONIGHT'S PUBLIC HEARING IS ABOUT AMENDMENTS TO THE 2025 ANNUAL COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND ZONING MAP. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THE COMMISSION AT THIS TIME, NOT ABOUT THE PUBLIC HEARING, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND. IF YOU ARE ONLINE, CLICK THE RAISE HAND BUTTON AND IF YOU ARE IN THE AUDIENCE, I HAVE ONE PERSON WHO HAS SIGNED IN AND MAY Come to the mic after I give this guidance. In order to hear from as many people tonight, we're allowing any individual wishing to provide comments to speak for a maximum of three minutes. On the timer of the lectern, it will flash a yellow light when 30 seconds remain and a red light when your time has ended. To be fair to all speakers, we will adhere strictly to the three-minute limit. The Commission wants to hear from as many different views and opinions as possible. If you have already heard another speaker state your comment, please consider not repeating the comments and instead provide a comment or perspective that is unique to you. In making your comment, we ask that you direct them to the Commission. This is not a time for give and take with the Commission. Obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, or abusive language toward the Commission, city staff, or those in the audience are not allowed. As audience members, please refrain from any demonstrative agreement or disagreement with the speaker. such as clapping, cheering, or booing. These actions are not only disruptive, they may also intimidate or have the effect of excluding others in the community whose views may differ. So we'll begin items in the audience with a list of people who are in here in person who have signed up to speak. And so when I call your name, please approach the dais to address us. And so Lisa Berenson, come on up.

Hi, I'm Lisa Berenson and I was at the last meeting and I'm sure you're probably gonna cover this later but I just wanted to make this one comment and I don't know if it's applicable considering this is the Planning Commission versus the City Council but it was raised about public safety and reducing speed limits and basically With lowering the speed limits to 20 and to 30 in our neck of the woods, I drive a lot to Redmond, Bothell, Kenmore, and Bellevue. And they have not lowered their speed limits. And actually, when I was driving to work the other day, I noticed that part of Redmond had a 40 mile an hour speed limit on one of their main artilleries that takes you right through the border of Kirkland to Redmond. And what I have also noticed is that there's a huge problem between the transition between Kirkland and Kenmore, and Bothell and I did agree with what one of the other city council members said that we need more science even if the the posted speed limits are not reduced There are not enough signs in Kirkland about the speed limits, especially where we abut our neighbors. And also, one other comment. Lake Washington Boulevard, there's a sign as soon as you enter when you come off 520 that is a noise-related sign pertaining to automobiles. which is to help prevent drag racing and other... noise that is affecting neighbors negatively i strongly recommend we need one of those signs on juanita drive because still too much drag racing too much loud traffic noise after 10 p.m at night people can still hear it through their homes that are on both sides of juanita drive and that is primarily residences or juanita drive is a mixture of commercial and residences So I just wanted to put that in there. And I don't think lowering the speed limits is really going to solve our problem of accidents or near misses. Problem is, is we are growing rapidly. And also I've seen now with e-bikes and e-scooters, I'm seeing a lot of people driving those over our current speed limit. They're not wearing helmets and they're not acting like they're an automobile.

Thank you, Lisa. All right. And seeing no other requests to comment, I think we move on to the next item on the agenda, special presentations, which there are none this time. So we're on to the next item, study session, briefing on the state required streamlined design review. So anyone on staff like to pick that up?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So we recently took this item to City Council to get some high-level direction, and based on that, we've got a sort of new procedure for these design review procedural amendments that we wanted to make sure to come to Planning Commission and brief you on so you know what's happening at Council and what's happening at Planning Commission. So no action requested from the Commission tonight, just wanted to catch you up on to what's coming up. So with that, I will hand it over to our Senior Planner, Tony Lovett.

Great. Thanks, Allie. Yeah, Tony Levitt, Planning Department. And I'll have Tyler pull up the presentation here real quick for me. So yeah, this is an update regarding the House Bill 1293 requirements. We had previously come to you to discuss this earlier in the year, and we've made some progress, and we're kind of headed towards the finish line here. So...

Okay, great.

So this is just kind of a little summary of what we're gonna discuss tonight. So we'll get into the slides. Having difficulty here. Oh, there we go. Okay. So again, this all is due to House Bill 1293, which became effective in July of 2023. The House Bill requires that the city apply only clear and objective regulations to the exterior design of new developments. For a design review process, a clear and objective regulation must include one or more ascertainable guidelines, standards, or criteria by which an applicant can determine whether a given building design is permissible under the development regulation and may not result in a reduction in density, height, bulk, or scale below the generally applicable zoning regulations for a development proposal in the applicable zone. One additional requirement is that the bill requires that the design review process be conducted concurrently with the review of the project permit. And that process may not include more than one public meeting. So based on that, Um, previous briefings we had with the Council and the Planning Commission. We discussed the proposed amendment process. Council and the Planning Commission both expressed a preference to keep the DRB involved in the city's current design review process. Staff also convened a DRB subcommittee with three current DRB members. The DRB members expressed their interest in continuing to be part of the city's design review process, but want to ensure that the review would be helped to shape projects in a meaningful way. With the change to more prescriptive design regulations, especially with regard to bulk and mass, there was concern that items the DRB would review would be minor in nature, not impactful to the design of the project. So I did want to kind of go over our current process for folks that may not know about it completely. So since 1999, the city has used the current design review process. The process involves review by either the DRB, which is a seven-member board appointed by the city council as part of a public review process, or by staff as part of an administrative design review process. The projects that require review by the DRB must comply with applicable design guidelines based on the property's design district designation. The guidelines are intended to be less prescriptive to allow the DRB more flexibility in administering the requirements and to help shape the optimal design. ADR projects are required to comply with the design regulations contained in Chapter 92 of the zoning code. The design regulations are more prescriptive than the design guidelines and are administered by city staff. This review is done prior to or as part of the building permit application and additionally the city does not have a public noticing process for ADR applications. Just to give you some reference. These are the areas in the city that are subject to design review. Mostly they are associated with our commercial and high density residential zones. So again, just kind of a little overview where we're talking about. So as far as the design review process recommendations are concerned, so on October 21st, staff briefed the council on the design review process amendments to comply with this House bill. As part of the briefing, staff requested feedback on a proposed design review process and to clarify the role of the DRB. Council agreed with the proposed staff to undertake Chapter 92 administrative review of all eligible projects. Additionally, requests for minor modifications or variations previously reviewed by the DRB would be reviewed by staff under a new design modification process. Council also wanted to require public noticing for projects that currently go through the DRB process. Projects that currently go through the ADR process would not be noticed. Finally, under the council recommended approach, the DRB would review what we call an alternative compliance. So this process would allow an applicant to request a modification beyond what is permitted under the design modification process. This process is intended for proposals that seek to alter a qualitative design principle, such as eliminating required treatment or introducing a new design approach not contemplated in Chapter 92 of the zoning code. The DRB's review would be part of a public notice, public meeting, and their review would be limited to one meeting based on the House Bill requirements. Also during the meeting, the council expressed a preference to hold the public hearing for and review the chapter 142 zoning code amendments related to the new design review process. The reason for this was since those regulations directly relate to the future of the DRB, they wanted to be involved in that process. So after November 5th meeting, the council passed a motion to hold the chapter 1 42 code amendment process public hearing next week on November 18th. Also based on this direction, the Planning Commission will hold the public hearing for and review the amendments to the design regulations in Chapter 92. Additionally, the Planning Commission will review amendments to the design guidelines and miscellaneous amendments to the zoning code sections that are impacted by the design review process changes. I did want to go over some of the amendments that we are proposing as part of Chapter 92. Again, these are kind of just a flyover overview of what these are proposing. So Framework, who the city hired as a consultant to help with this project, and staff had been working on these amendments that will bring the development regulations to compliance with the House bill. A high level overview was provided again in the staff memo, but I wanted to show some visual examples of the amendments. So this first slide shows an example of a design guideline converted to a design regulation. So you can see this one relates to plazas. As you can see, the design guidelines are very general and lack specific design requirements, which in actuality gave the DRB some flexibility with their review. Of course, as a result of this House bill, we need to take this and make it more prescriptive. So the new design regulation provides specific requirements for plazas, including location, paving materials, lighting design, seating and landscaping requirements. The second slide shows some new graphics that will be used to specify design requirements for pedestrian friendly building facades and street corner entry and upper story design elements. So these are another thing where In the past, we have had some, especially in Chapter 92, we've had some of these in there, but this kind of helps to clarify and expands to these larger projects that we're going to be now reviewing as part of the ADR process. And the final slide shows some example of articulation options and blank wall designations. So these will help to determine what kind of articulation we want to see on buildings and also provide applicants examples of what we consider to be a blank wall. folks that would know what that is. It's basically a wall without windows, things like that. So it needs to be treated as part of the design review process. So again, these are just some of the examples of some of the chapter 92 amendments that we're going to bring to you at the public hearing on December 11th. And so with that, I will ask if you have any questions or comments for staff.

Is there still the flexibility that let's say that somebody was designing a building and they did not meet all of these guidelines but they thought they had something else that hit the spirit of the law if not the letter to go through the design review board or is it just every single thing from here on out needs to meet these exact standards?

So that's the idea. I think of the alternative compliance. So if somebody wanted to propose a design, we'd first start out and review it for compliance with the Chapter 92 requirements. If they did not meet some of those specific requirements, then we would look to the alternative compliance process as a way to get them to their design. Again, they will have to meet the will still have design guidelines that the DRB will use to review that proposal. So they would still have to meet that. So, you know, it's not a blank check to design whatever you want. So they will still have requirements to meet.

So any sort of modification requires the alternative process. Normally, we've had sections of the codes that if you do a modification, there were certain criteria you met. That's going away. Any sort of modification is now going to that alternative process.

No, there will be there will be a ability to so there will be some minutes We're still kind of working on exactly what will be in chapter 92 as far as administrative so they're kind of like Smaller there's really smaller modifications that we could approve a staff and there's a design modification which really now are the things that are mostly are the things that the DRB reviews like they can reduce a request a reduction in setbacks in certain zones, things like that. So that would be something that would be reviewed as part of that design modification. And then if you had to go beyond that, then that's when that gets into the alternative compliance.

And when you say, I always think of a building set back out.

Mm-hmm.

Variants versus you talking about property line setbacks or the modulation of the building setback so or in all the Design zones is there is there zero?

setbacks in those zones There are some zones most of our pedestrian oriented zones do not do not have like front setbacks but there are some zones where I can think of I did a project along on the Market Street corridor where they had a like a 10-foot setback, but they wanted to do pedestrian-oriented facade, and so through a minor modification process, they were able to push that up to the property line. So there's different mechanisms in place, but generally, it was kind of the minor modification and variances were specified in 142, and then they would go to the DRV for their review of those. So the actual variance process does not apply? We could still have variances if we felt that they were significant enough. Actually, that's one of the things that in The minor modification variance right now. It just it says a minor variation It doesn't define what that is. So we are proposing to define that so there would be You know, it could be like a reduction up to like 50% So actually I take that back on that project. I was talking about they actually did have to go through a variance I apologize so they went through a very instant to get a full reduction and

And they're subject to those very specific standards, right? The very specific variant standards, right? Yeah.

Commissioner Medea?

Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. I found the examples particularly helpful. I have a couple of questions, if you'll indulge me. Of course, now I've lost my place. So for the, God help me, I'm so sorry. The limitation to one review, I think this was brought up early in the process by Commissioner Reiser. I don't mean to call you out, but I know you had expressed this concern. And so I'm still seeking clarity as well on how that one public meeting would apply to a multi-phased project. Have we gotten clarity on that?

Well, so again, the process would be only if they're proposing the alternative compliance. If they were proposing a phased project, we could do that under the ADR review. So it would just be them reviewing those pieces, the piece of the project that didn't comply with the requirements of 92, and they had to go through that alternative compliance.

so it does set it up a little different than our obviously our current process and then i'm just going to jump in real quick here and tony can correct me if i'm wrong here but i think the the process if design review is still required we would still require every building that's part of that project to be reviewed through design review so if someone was saying hey we have half of the buildings as part of this larger development project ready for design review we want to get these done so we can start phase one they would have to come back for phase two with the remainder of their buildings. And we don't believe that that would be a violation of the state's requirement for one meeting because we still have to, in some manner, review the whole project. If they wanted us to do design review for a full development and all their phases in one design review process, I think we would be obligated to do it that way. But if they opt into phasing, I think we could accommodate it in alignment with the state's requirements. Does that answer? Yeah.

No, and that's helpful. I appreciate that. And then glad to see the public noticing component. I know that that's been something that folks would want to be involved in when that's applicable. My question with regard to staff conducting admin review for compliance with the regulations, do you have a sense of how much that might increase the workload for staff? Is there any budgetary or time implications that we just need to be cognizant of?

No, I mean, I guess I, you know, I think currently we have, you know, planners that do projects for, that go through the design review board. I mean, I think it's going to be somewhat similar to that. I mean, obviously there's not going to be that public meeting elements, but there's still going to be, it's obviously going to be more intensive projects. review by staff. So, you know, I guess we will see as we move into this new process.

Well, and then I'm old enough where I grew up, you know, watching Terminator, so, like, I know how the whole AI story ends, and yet... I almost wonder if there's a place for some of the stuff to be reviewed against what is now clear and objective criteria. But anyway, that's not my decision to make. There's a couple more comments and I promise I will be quiet. In the summary, in the staff memo, there are two things that stood out. The specific modulation requirements to ensure that larger buildings are broken down into smaller forms to reduce perceived scale. love that that's being thought of because there's a lot of commentary about that. And I think in particular about bridal trails and the building right there by Pagliacci. And I don't know if this is more of a rhetorical question, but do we think that that building would have looked different had the clear and objective design standards been in place at that time? And then the other sub bullet in the summary about articulation standards to incorporate smaller scale elements, balconies, bay windows, et cetera. Love seeing that because with all due respect to our neighboring Redmond, I want there to still be some personality in our buildings. I don't want kind of barracks and meshed in our cities. So I'm feeling okay about this. Thank you.

Sorry, Mr. Chair, if I could just, I think one thing I wanted to make sure the commission knows that's sort of a spinoff to Commissioner Medea's comments is just that council also in light of this sort of changing or evolving role of the DRB, Council also directed staff that they wanted to see us after we complete these amendments to come back to them in about a year and report out on how it's going. So has the DRB been utilized since it's now going to be an option for people? Does their composition and their role still make sense after we've worked with the new code for a while? And in terms of the staff workload and resourcing, I think that kind of one-year check-in gives us a similar opportunity. So I do think we'll be kind of tracking it and paying attention and can report out to the Commission in response to Commissioner Medea's question as we use it.

Thank you. Commissioner Jacobson?

Thank you. First question, and I appreciate staff for coming and talking with me ahead of the meeting, but I also want to make sure that it's a public topic. On the notification requirements, it seems like the city is consistently drawing a distinction between property owners and residents. As the one renter on this commission, I think it's important that we make sure to engage all of our residents. Could you tell me again what you told me earlier?

Yeah, so yeah, we had, Commissioner Jacobson had sent an email to staff and we looked, discussed it and you know, I think some of us are in agreement that we think it would be a great idea to, you know, because right now basically what the code says is we notify all property owners within 300 feet and all residents that are adjacent to the property development. So the idea would be to look to increase that notification for residents to the 300 foot level as well. So I think that's something we will present next week as part of our discussion with the city council at the public hearing.

Thank you. And then from talking with you, it seems like this is in quite a few places. And so my question to Allison would be, would it be within scope of like a miscellaneous zoning code amendment sometime next year to just go through the zoning code and find all these places where we're notifying residents and property owners differently?

Thanks for the question, Commissioner Jacobson. I think it's a really good one, and I think it's a great idea. I think we could consider that and bring it forward. There is some inconsistency throughout the code for different processes in how we notice renters and property owners, so I like the idea, and I think it's something we could consider through miscellaneous code amendments.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you.

All right. Any further comments from the Commission? Seeing none, I guess that's it.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So that brings us to the next item on the agenda, our public hearing for the 2025 Annual Comprehensive Plan Amendments and Zoning Map Amendment. So at this time, I open the public hearing. And Allison or whoever of our staff is taken from here.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is Planning Commission's first official touch on the annual comprehensive plan amendments. We briefly walked you through what this year's package included in an administrative report a couple meetings ago when Planning Commission agreed to take these amendments straight to hearings. So that is why we are here tonight. And to take you through the amendments included in this year's package, I will hand it over to our senior planner, Lindsay Levine.

GOOD EVENING, COMMISSION. MY NAME IS LINDSEY LEVINE. I'M A SENIOR PLANNER IN THE PLANNING AND BUILDING DEPARTMENT. AS INTRODUCED, I'M HERE TO TALK ABOUT THE 2025 ANNUAL COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AMENDMENTS PLUS A ZONING MAP AMENDMENT. THIS IS A PUBLIC HEARING. SO AS PART OF THE PUBLIC HEARING, WE'LL START WITH A STAFF PRESENTATION. And then we will have the public testimony and then planning commission will deliberate and make a recommendation. And of course there will be the opportunity for the planning commission to ask questions as well. So for some background on the comprehensive plan sure sorry about that um so for some background on the comp plan amendments portion cities jurisdictions are allowed to amend their comp plan once per year we always do this towards the end of the year to capture any changes that might be needed though they're usually relatively minor mostly to update the plan with the most current information in specific instances where that would be needed to update maps if land use has changed when properties are rezoned and to update the capital facilities plan tables each year, and those are lists of capital projects, their costs, and funding sources for these projects. We had a very large update to the comprehensive plan last year that was part of our mandatory periodic update, and there are a couple of cleanup items from that, so I'll be talking about that a little bit later. First I wanted to give a background on rezonings since we are proposing one rezone tonight and that is just separate from the comp plan amendments but very much related. So we're bringing those two together. So a bit of a refresher on zoning and land use designations. So a land use designation is a policy level designation and it symbolizes the main use appropriate for an area and is shown in the city's land use map which is housed within the comprehensive plan land use element. The policy level designation does not establish specific development standards for those specific uses. Zoning is the division of land into use zones and each of these use zones has the land use regulations and development standards. Some common examples are maximum allowed height and that differs from other zoning types. zoning designations for land within the city are shown in the zoning map and tonight we're proposing a rezone for one property changing that to the park zone so that changes the name of that and the color on the map that would become green and called park open space zone and that is also known as a zoning map amendment so that's a yeah the same term as rezone here And I just want to note that while most zoning types have a specific development standard, the park zone development standards are on a case by case basis by the parks director. And this allows for flexibility since each park and community center is unique. Okay, so I'm going to talk about the rezone first, which is that zoning map amendment. This specific parcel was donated to the city recently for park use. The property is located just south of Rose Hill Park. It actually borders the park, and the plan is to incorporate that property into this park. The former property owner was an avid gardener and requested that part of the property become pea patches. The property currently has a single family home and a couple of other small accessory structures that will be demolished later this year due to unsafe conditions of these structures and to create more usable space for the park. The property is currently zoned as RSX 7.2 low density residential and staff proposes to amend the zoning to park slash open space. And then whenever we amend the zoning of a property, we also typically amend the land use designation property. Again, that lives in the land use map in the comprehensive plan. During the station area process, a couple years back, the land use designation of both Rose Hill Meadows Park and this park acquisition property that I talked about in the previous slide, or inadvertently amended to transit-oriented development. The Rose Hill Meadows Park used to be the park designation, the park land use designation. And while park uses can exist within the TOD land use designation, staff proposes to amend the land use designation to park slash open space to correct this error and be consistent with the current use of the park. So that's for Rose Hill Meadows Park. And then we're proposing the same for that new park acquisition. That's going to become part of the park in the future. Now moving on to the other comprehensive plan amendments. Um, so first for the land use element, we added a policy about reducing and mitigating the risks posed by wildfires. We typically don't add whole new, um, policies outside of the periodic process. Um, however, this was requested by the department of commerce, um, when they reviewed our periodic update to the comp plan. So we're trying to comply with their request. Next, for the utilities element, text from the existing conditions section was updated because last year the water supply contracts were in negotiations. So the text about Cascade Water Alliance's water supply was updated now that we do have that information. And the second part of the utilities amendments is just to the narrative text that corresponds to a policy about the Northeast recycling and transfer station. The element currently includes a policy about coordinating with the county on the siting of this new facility. However, the county did issue their decision in March of this year, so after the comp plan was published last year. And that new facility will replace the Houghton Transfer Center and provide expanded waste disposal and recycling services. And this is a county decision. This is not a city decision. staff updated the narrative text to reflect the citing decision by the county and The city actually did appeal the citing of this decision however What the city envisions for the design and mitigation? is also what's stated in the updated narrative text So even though this is a decision that the city What it wasn't the preferred outcome and You know, the city is working with the county and is doing everything in the city's power to make sure that there is good design for this site and good mitigation, especially given that there's surrounding residences to this facility. And then for the capital facilities element, as I mentioned earlier, we usually update the capital facilities plan table each year. that includes lists of capital projects their costs and the funding sources for those projects we noticed when looking at other comp plans that other cities do not include these tables in their capital facilities element instead they they reference where they live which is typically on various places on their city websites and city plans and so we decided to move to this model too It decreases redundancy, it streamlined staff time on the comp plan annual amendments, and it helps with document control by not having two versions of these tables available on the city's website. These capital facilities plan tables are available at all times on the city's budget information webpage, and these are updated each year. Next, the transportation element also needed to have this updated information about the location of those tables. We also added a reference to a map that already exists. So not a new table or not a new map on the city's transportation webpage. And this map had been inadvertently removed in the past. And so we are adding this reference in and we are referencing the live version which lives on a city website rather than having a copy of the map in here since it does change occasionally. And finally, there are very minor amendments to the history of Kirkland appendix, and that arose from some further coordination with the Kirkland Heritage Society. These are really minor edits. One example is updating some photo references and a couple of sentences for accuracy. And then finally, just wanted to add that we have not received any public comments thus far on the comprehensive plan amendments or on the zoning map amendments. After questions in a moment, we will move to public testimony, planning commission deliberation and recommendation. And then if recommended, council is proposed to adopt on December 9th. And when you're ready, I do have some sample motions queued up and we will need separate motions for the comprehensive plan amendment and then a separate one for the zoning map amendment. I can turn it over to the chair for questions if there are any.

All right. Any questions from the commission? Commissioner Reusser.

Okay. And you don't have to answer this fully. Sorry. You don't have to fully. It was just for my, what were the city's concerns about the transfer station?

There's a couple of issues related to the transfer station, Commissioner Reiser. One is that the selected alternative that was selected by the county is an alternative that has the transfer station operate while the construction is happening. So we're concerned about sort of the magnitude of impacts. But I think the bigger issue is that the zoning code, as Lindsay mentioned, doesn't call for specific doesn't establish specific development standards for the transfer station so it doesn't establish things like setbacks and landscape buffers and um building height and all the other zoning requirements that that you're familiar with on the planning commission it has the transfer station go through a process that is ultimately approved by city council so in the absence of specific zoning regulations i think the city's interest is just making sure that county knows in our comprehensive plan that we want a very high standard of design and green building and consideration for the neighbors so i think the primary intent of the comprehensive plan amendment is just to reinforce that we want really great design from the county great thank you any further comments or questions from the commission

Seeing none, I will go ahead and open this to public testimony. Do we have anyone who's signed up for testimony? Yes, I have a... Yes, we have... Let's see, this is for the comprehensive plan amendments and zoning map amendment. So... First on the list is Lisa Berenson. Would you like to speak on the? OK. OK. Next on the list is Liz Hunt.

Hello, good evening. Liz Hunt, Kirkland resident. Good evening Planning Commissioners and staff. I just, similar to the other person who was going to comment, I have a number of smaller items that I wanted to call out on each of the various sections, but I'm not going to take the time to do that here. I would like to point out one item, though, which is that the Kirkland code on the City website is not up to date, which I think most of you are aware of. But it cooked me by surprise, and this includes the Kirkland Municipal Code, the Kirkland Zoning Code, and the Comprehensive Plan. So when I do a search for something like ADU zoning code and I go to the zoning code published on code publishing or whatever it's called, and I go to the code and I'm reading about the rules, I am not reading the current rules. And there's no way for me to know that. And the one thing that does appear is on the page, as again, you probably have seen, there's a little yellow box that says ORD and a four-digit code for the ordinance number. I guess it says updated and then ORD. 4592 or whatever. And so if you know what you're doing, you know that that's a flag to show you that the section you're reading has been updated, but it doesn't tell you that the updates are not appearing in what you are reading. And so if you eventually figure out that you should click on that box It will take you to the ordinance and then for you to then go find the section that you were reading within the ordinance to see what's changed. That's quite cumbersome. There is, if you happen to enter the zoning code from the very home page of the code, which I don't know how many people go there. I always do a search and I end up somewhere directly from the search. But if you go to the home page, I see that staff has added a box on the front that says codification in progress, which again, you have to know what that means. And then you can click on the ordinance again and go to the ordinance. So long story, but it's, and I know that there was a statement in the packet tonight that said this should be updated and made accessible by the end of the year. But we've been over 11 months now with stuff on there being old. So that's, and it's silent unless you know you're not reading the latest stuff. So it would be great to have that completed. Thank you very much. Thank you, Liz.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak to the Commission on the topic of the annual comprehensive plan amendments and zoning map amendments? Seeing none, I will close the spoken testimony of the public hearing and we can move on to deliberation. Oh, I see if we have some suggested motions. Commissioner Jacobson.

Just to get us started, I move to recommend approval of the rezone of the 2025 annual comprehensive plan amendments.

All right, we have a second. Would you like to speak to your motion?

I appreciate all the work that staff is doing I definitely agree with the public commentary that we need to keep things up to date and I look forward to staff finishing that process but we the motion and the discussion tonight is amending our comp plan and also Yeah, and other things that we the Planning Commission have control over All right any further discussion from the Commission?

Mr. Chair. Yes. Pardon the interruption. We just, as we heard Commissioner Jacobson realize we have a little typo on screen and so would like to clarify that Commissioner Jacobson was motioning to approve the annual comprehensive plan amendments and then we'll ask you for a separate motion to rezone the park property.

Would you like me to restate it or?

For clarity if you don't mind please.

I move to recommend approval of the 2025 Annual Comprehensive Plan Amendments.

Second. All right. So the revised amendment is, or the revised motion is now on the table. Any comment on the motion from others on the commission? Seeing none, I will go ahead and call the vote. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Abstentions? All right. That appears to have passed unanimously.

And Commissioner Jacobson? And I believe this is the corrected text on the screen. So I move to recommend approval of the rezone of the city-owned property.

Second.

All right.

It's been moved and seconded. Would you like to speak to this? Always a good thing when we get more parks. All right.

I was just agreeing. Okay.

Commissioner Roycer?

Sorry, I don't mean to, I should have asked this earlier. So, I'm guessing it was inadvertently zoned TOD when we said that anything within a quarter mile of Oral 5, either way. Was that how it got zoned TOD?

Yeah, I can answer that. Thanks for the question, Commissioner Reiser, and the opportunity to clarify. So it wasn't rezoned. It was that the land use designation in the comprehensive plan map was inadvertently changed, and it was as part of the station area plan redesignation to TOD for that area.

So a follow-up, what about other parks that, as we have done, and it's probably not, part of the comprehensive plan yet, but as we did the quarter mile of anything from 405, I know there's multiple parks in that area. Will we have to do this for all of them?

No, we don't think so. Our sort of primary option or first option is for the land use designation of parks to be park. I think that the commission last year when you redesignated the land use for the Houghton Park and Ride, it was with the thought that the northern portion of that property might be activated in some sort of way in the future. And so the TOD land use designation we thought was the best option for that. But I think the more standard practice is that parks would have a park open space land use designation. So that's what we're changing it back to in this instance.

Okay.

All right. Seeing no further comment, I'll call the vote. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Any abstentions? And I believe that was Gina's vote in favor. All right. And that passes unanimously. all right um and i think uh is there anything further that you would like from the commission on this topic i think that's all we need all right sounds good and with that i close um i made a note what happened with the city's appeal on the houghton transfer station did it get resolved or is it still sitting out there in limbo somewhere

Yeah, I wish we had the city attorney here to give us a current update, but I think both appeals are pending, actually. There's two separate appeals. One's on the SEPA determination. The other is on the process that the county took for choosing the preferred alternative. One goes to Superior Court, one goes to the hearing examiner, and I think they're both on hold, I believe, pending the city and the county working on a settlement agreement, which we're currently undertaking. I believe so, yeah. Yeah, it is the counties, yep.

All right. With that, now I will close the public hearing. And we're on to the next item on the agenda. which is the reading and approval of minutes, which there are none. So then administrative reports and planning commission discussion.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So a quick calendar update for you all. We have canceled your second November meeting for the holiday on that day. So your next meeting will be December 11th when we'll bring you that public hearing on the actual design regulation amendments that we briefed you on earlier tonight. And that will be your last meeting of the year as we do have the practice of also canceling your second December meeting. So almost there. And then just a quick kind of admin report out from staff. I did want to mention because you all have put in a lot of work on a lot of projects this year and those are starting to all hit council. So I just wanted to make sure you're all aware of what council's discussing in their upcoming meetings. in case you haven't been following along super closely. So a lot of planning items at the next two council meetings. At council's meeting next week on November 18th, we are taking them back. Another discussion of the Juanita. Rezone the Michaels and Goodwill sites for them to consider and so we talked to them at their last meeting about this They were considering potentially some amendments to the Planning Commission recommendation So next week we're going to be sort of briefing them again on the Planning Commission recommendations for both of those areas and then council might be starting to consider some amendments to the Planning Commission recommendation and Staff is going to be working with them on potential amendments ahead of their December 9th meeting. So Juanita Kars will be going to Planning Commission next week. We are also holding the public hearing for the design review procedures that Tony talked to you about tonight. So that'll be a public hearing at Council next week. And then in addition to that, council is holding a public hearing for the Houghton Village development plan at their meeting next week. And so that one was kind of a planning commission and advisory role. It's mostly been working through council for that development plan. And then at their December meeting, we do have them tentatively scheduled to consider adoption of the Houghton Village Development Plan, the annual comprehensive plan amendments, now that Planning Commission has completed your recommendation a few minutes ago, the Juanita rezones or the car applications, and the critical area ordinance update as well. And so big meeting with Planning Commission's recommendations represented at Council on December 9th. And happy to answer any questions if you have them, but just wanted to give you a quick update.

Commissioner Jacobson? Not on this topic, but just wondering when we're going to be going back to our planning work program discussion. We're at the end of the year. I'm wondering when we're going to get to that next year.

Thanks for the question. And I invite Adam to jump in, too. So what we're looking at right now is probably another touch with council on that item. So I think this past year, we kicked off the work program update process with council and planning commission in a joint study session. And we will at least be starting with council on that one early on next year. I think in February, most likely.

And this is also the time for any other planning commissioners to raise any other points of discussion. It's open. I'll raise one point of discussion. At our officer elections this past, was it May, I think? THEN I AGREED TO SERVE AS CHAIR, BUT I ALSO MENTIONED AT THAT TIME THAT I WAS INTERESTED IN CUTTING MY TERM SHORT AND GIVING THE OPPORTUNITY TO SOMEONE ELSE, RECOGNIZING THAT THAT WAS THE START OF MY SECOND TERM AND TRYING TO FIND A WAY TO TRANSITION MORE SMOOTHLY WITH THE UPCOMING ANGELA ROSMAN WILL BE ENDING HER TERM AT THE END OF MARCH, I BELIEVE IT IS. currently serving as vice chair and having us both transition at the same time maybe seemed a bit abrupt and so I would propose the the Commission consider officer elections like a special officer election at the next meeting if there is interest so welcome to just to discuss that now I So, yeah, I wanted to open that up and make that an option. Commissioner Jacobson?

Thank you. I appreciate your interest in making sure that we have enough time for transition because you're right. If we were to not have a special officer elections, then we would, like Commissioner Rosman terms out, March 31st. So then whoever would be appointed would be only vice chair for a month. And then we would have our normal cycle. I guess my question for staff is like, is there a motion that we need to make? Or is this more of like head nods?

so thank you for the question your policies and procedures for planning commission really only state that officer elections should be held in may of every year at the first meeting and it doesn't really provide us with a specific procedure for a special election and so what we think is that technically the Chair Rutherford would need to relinquish his role, and then we would kind of, as a result of relinquishing the role, we would need to hold the special election. I don't think we need a motion for that. Probably something in writing from Chair Rutherford, and then staff would bring you, would be able to put that special officer election on your agenda.

All right. So I don't know if it would be appropriate now to discuss, like... who might have any interest in this here, or if we should wait until that time comes.

I think that's at the discretion of the commission.

Okay.

So I wanted to leave that open.

Yeah. Doesn't Angela's position end in March?

End of March, yes.

And so there's that period where there might not be a vice chair?

Or we'd have to then elect one At the start of April and then again in May.

Oh, fine.

Is hers the only position that's up? I thought there was two. Who normally?

There's a chair and vice chair, so Rodney is going to kind of, Angela would move into president, or chair. I'm sorry. Angela would move into the chair, somebody would move into the vice chair, and then another election would have to happen.

But aren't two positions expiring in March?

Terms. I can't remember. I think it's just maybe just one. I think that might be the one out of four years that it's just one, but I can't remember.

Angela is the only one leaving in.

You're only allowed two, two terms. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah.

Just a quick clarification Because because Commissioner Nolan took over someone else's term with her appointment That term the original term Does also expire in March of next year Okay, and then at that point she would reapply for the for the seat technically Or she she may reapply

Yes, my intention at the moment is to reapply, but I mean, I cannot say whether or not I will be accepted.

But then I took over for someone, and it has my, at least on the city website, it has my expiration date as March 2029. So is that incorrect? Sorry.

We had some kind of quick turnarounds on that. So for your term, Commissioner Buñuel, I'd need to double check to clarify.

I think I've got paperwork that came from the city clerk.

If I may, it's dependent on the term, the specifics of the term that were vacated by your predecessor.

Oh, I see.

So both Commissioner Nolan and I were originally appointed to fulfill the remainder of a term about a year before the term expired. Whereas you, as I understand, were appointed to fulfill a term for most of the full term, basically.

And then staff, to edify, I still consider myself new and we have some new commissioners as well. Can you clarify what the requirements or minimum experience expectations might be for a vice chair role?

Sure. There are none.

We can all fog mirrors. That's great. I mean, you have to be a commissioner.

Yeah, you do have to be a commissioner. There's no minimum tenure requirement in your policies and procedures. Historically, the commission... You know tends to has tended to sort of follow like the line of tenure But that that has been an option Between like in a discussion between commissioners in your elections and is not a requirement per your policies and procedures Commissioner Jacobson, thanks.

Yeah I've understood as we generally follow seniority with pauses from time to time and which I would just note that if we do one year terms, and there are seven of us and we serve for up to eight years, we run into a problem eventually. And so it is reasonable for us to have sort of pauses like we have had with Chair Rutherford.

All right. SO I GUESS WE'LL WAIT AND I'LL PROBABLY DISCUSS WITH VICE CHAIR ROSMAN ABOUT THE PATH FORWARD AND WE'LL LET STAFF KNOW WITH ENOUGH TIME FOR THE NEXT MEETING. ALL RIGHT. SOUNDS GOOD. ANY FURTHER COMMISSION DISCUSSION? And with that, we are on to the penultimate item on the agenda, comments from the audience. This is a final chance at this meeting to speak to the Commission for three minutes. Is there anyone interested? I see there's no attendees online at the time. Seeing none, that brings us to the end of our agenda, and this meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.