Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. Welcome to the 05/13/2026 meeting of the Redmond Planning Commission. Like to call this meeting to order. We'll start with roll call. Commissioner Parna.

Present. Commissioner Coleman.

Present.

Commissioner Gagne. Present. Commissioner Van Nyman.

Present.

Vice Chair Whittier. Present. And I am Chair Weston. Commissioner Cobley is excused tonight. I'd like to thank the following staff for being present, Lauren Alpert, Jeff Churchill, and Chris Wyatt. I look for a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved. Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

And then any corrections to the meeting summary and meeting minutes from last time? All right. In that case, I look for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from 04/22/2026, and the workshop summary from 04/29/2026.

I wasn't there.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye, sorry.

All right.

Also approved. Yep, we sorted it out. All right, now it's time for us to hear public comment and items from the audience. Who do we have tonight?

We have David M.

Great, and as always, keep your comments to three minutes and start with your name and address please.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm David Morton, Redmond 98053. I want to talk about the gaps between Redmond's current water management programs and the goals and vision of Redmond 2050. Redmond has genuine strengths to build on. Your critical aquifer recharge area protections are among the most rigorous in the state, backed by decades of groundwater monitoring.

Redmond's general wastewater plan was updated in 2024 to reflect Redmond 2050 growth projections, and the new stormwater and surface water systems plan will reflect a commitment to healthier streams and lakes for the entire community. But a review of Redmond's plans across five water domains, potable water, wastewater, storm water, groundwater, and surface water, reveals nine significant gaps that deserve attention. Five of these are critical. First, Redmond has no water reuse or recycled water program. No framework to distribute reclaimed water for non potable uses like irrigation or industrial cooling.

Second, there's a limited gray water reuse policy, limited ways for dense new development in downtown or Overlake to reuse sink and shower water on-site. Third, the storm water and surface water systems plan, though urgently needed, has not yet been adopted, funded, released for public review. Fourth, Redmond has no formal one water governance structure. Your water utilities and programs operate in separate silos with no unified resource plan, shared metrics, or joint capital investment strategy. Fifth, Redmond's water shortage response plan, which was last updated in 2016, is seriously outdated.

It consists largely of deferred references to Cascade Water Alliance and Seattle Public Utilities Plans, contains no independent local triggers or demand reduction targets, and was written before Washington experienced four consecutive drought emergencies. It urgently urgently needs a climate informed update. There are four additional major gaps. One, full dependence on King County for wastewater treatment limits your ability to pursue reuse opportunities. Two, intensifying development in your critical aquifer recharge areas threatens groundwater quality and replenishment with no managed recharge program to offset it.

Three, your citywide watershed management plan is thirteen years old and predates Redmond 2050. Four, and you lack a formal water conservation plan with binding demand reduction targets. Redmond 2050 sets ambitious sustainability goals. Closing these nine gaps, particularly through an integrated one water governance framework, is how you make those goals real. Please prioritize this work. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. With that, we are going to move to our study session on non sorry, temporary noncommercial signs in the Redmond Zoning Code, bringing up Jeff Churchill and Lauren Alpert. And actually, before we begin, I'm just going to close the written portion of the public hearing.

Thank you. I'm just gonna pull up the issues matrix. Everyone can read that, right? Okay. So we've got a number of items still open.

And I just wanna remind that the major piece that was added was the comment from the lawyer, which was in the packet. So that's what we're waiting on for many of these. I think what we're gonna do is if people have additional questions, we might open them as separate issues at the end. Unless you truly feel like your answer wasn't, or your question wasn't addressed by the answer here. All right, so number three.

Are there any additional questions or comments on this?

This

is Commissioner Coleman and Commissioner Vice Chair Woodier.

So should I go ahead and close this one? Oh, it's common.

Oh, one moment for Commissioner Coleman. Sorry,

I'm just going back. There's something in the written comments here that confused me. Like in the second paragraph here, I'm just gonna read it, Still some kinds of speech such as obscenity, defamation, true threats are not protected by the First Amendment, Cities generally cannot ban science simply because they contain offensive, vulgar, hateful, or even some sexually suggestive content, but there are some narrow exceptions. The thing I was confused about is, you could have an offensive obscenity, or hateful obscenity, or something. I was confused about the fact that on one line it says some kinds of speech are not protected, and City generally cannot ban signs simply because they're not offended.

So, I was trying to work out what is that? What is an obscenity and what is offensive? There's no kind of guidance as to what that is, like how you draw that line.

I think we might be on different Yeah, I would say. So, are you on number three?

Sorry, I'm going, no, I'm going to the, maybe I am, I was going to the

I think we'll get there in a second. I think the first was just a question about

Sorry for confusing people.

Yeah. So, I think we're gonna go back to the issues matrix. We had a question about the answer if signs are knocked over by wind or weather, and if there's clutter or litter, how the city approaches that.

Yeah. I don't have any other questions on

right, great. So we'll close number three. It's good. We'll get there in a second. Excellent. Thank you, Vice Chair Woodier.

Okay. This is number four, timeline for signs and removal of signs. So, we had a couple of updates from with the memo from the city attorney about placing a timeline for removal of post election signs. Are we do we wanna keep this open for further discussion? Do we wanna close this?

I actually did wanna have a brief conversation about this. So the comment by the lawyer was that it would be too difficult to come up with dates that don't seem related to the content of the signs for just a periodic sweep. I mean, this sort of goes to the letter question also. But I was wondering, is it really too difficult? Like if we were like every two months the signs come down.

And especially if commercial signs were included in that because there are a lot of negative, or there are just a lot of signs for businesses that are placed that are not swept by the city. At least in my neighborhood. So like having a day every so often where the city does go around to make sure those are all removed, regardless of content, doesn't actually seem that hard to me. Did I misread?

I think for commercial signs it would be a different conversation because there's a different burden placed on the city related to how protected that speech is. So it's less protected than noncommercial speech. I think what the attorney is saying is that it would be risky to do that for noncommercial signs, noncommercial speech signs, because it would place the city at risk of having the regulations challenged on the basis that they were a burden to free speech. And with commercial signs, that would not be the case, or less likely to be the case.

To me, that registers as less of a concern. If we were actually serious about them posing a problem to sight lines or pedestrians or just like the general feel of the city to have signs left for months. I'm I'm

Signs that are inappropriately placed can be swept anytime because they're in violation of the code. So we're really talking about signs that are in the appropriate place.

But even with that, it well, and again, in my neighborhood, like, you actually can't place signs in most of the neighborhood with the rules that we're looking at. So, there's a little bit of a question mark there already. But to me, it doesn't feel like it would be that hard to come up with, if we wanted to have them swept four times a year, or six times a year, or once a month, or something, to just have a pre published schedule that was more about the look and feel of the city. Saying that it's a free speech issue actually seems beside the point to me in this case.

I think that's what the city attorney is saying, and that it's a risk. I think the Planning Commission can still recommend it knowing that it's a risk.

Okay. Commissioner Coleman.

Yeah, thanks Jeff. That was kind of where I was trying to get to, because in the language that's in here, there's terms like likely versus is, or do or don't, there's no do or don't, or yes or no. It's a question of what degree of risk would you want to have. I also think there's a common sense question here. I totally get what we're saying, hey, there could be some risk of the council being in some violation.

I also think the opposite is also true, which is people understand the sensibility of doing something like this and would react accordingly as normal human beings, personally. Unless somebody got particularly antsy about I'm running for foo thing and my sign is up, and it's a month after the event's happened, but I still want my name and my sign out there because I'm making a political statement with my name even though I lost. Seems an odd thing for someone to do, someone could do that. I think that's a real outlier thing. Mostly things are gonna be outliers.

So I don't think we should be optimising for the outlier, think we should be optimising with a positive intent in place. That's my perspective. It's just a simple rule, hey, however many times it is in the year, whenever it is in the year, people know those things are gonna happen when they apply for a sign, like hey, here's what happens, just be aware of this. So that's my perspective, don't if anybody has any other thoughts on that.

Any other thoughts? No, then we'll save that conversation, I think, to the end when we're actually deciding what to do with our recommendation, but we can close.

We've got renewal of permits. I think this is where you were also looking at that language. Commissioner Coleman?

So Commissioner Coleman, do you want to start? This is back to your original point.

Thank you. Sorry, yeah, I'm back to where I started. I was a little confused just what was in the written statement around some kinds of speech such as obscenity defamation true threats, are not protected by the First Amendment. Cities generally cannot ban signs simply because they contain offensive folk or hateful names. Was just trying to work out like obscenity versus offensive versus hateful, I just like where'd you draw the line, I was just confused as to what the line actually is for an obscenity. Is there a list of obscenities that we should have? Just wasn't sure, that's the case, what does that actually mean? What's an example, probably, not in this?

Well, no, hold on. We're not going to do a list of

I wasn't thinking of an example here, but I just mean like, you know what I mean? Maybe there's an addendum list at the back of the thing anyway.

Is this a thing that Commissioner Coleman could search for and find an answer? Is this a know it when you see it?

I think that gets to the challenge, that I think what the attorney is saying is you can't really, can't say in advance, this item is obscene, you can't put it up. Because we're not reviewing content when we put the sign, when permit is approved, the staff doesn't know what the content of it is. It's not until it's out there that there can be a removal because it's in violation of the obscenity portions of the code. But that is, there's lots of complicated first amendment case law that I'm not an expert in going into what is and is not an obscenity and is and is not free speech. And that's why we can't just put a list in the code because it's never that simple.

Yeah, that makes sense. It does feel like it's a, you know it when you see it and someone's gotta make a call on that. I'm just confused like how you make a call on that.

I think in terms of implementation of this regulation, there was something that came to the attention of the city, the city attorney would be in consultation on what our action should be.

Can I just clarify as a follow-up on that? Would there be an issue if there was actually a sign that was so problematic in its content that the city attorney would agree to remove it, wouldn't that be the case regardless of whether or not there was a permit?

Yes. I think whether or not there was a permit, if it was obscene in the judgment of the city attorney, then it would be removed.

Okay. So the permit doesn't actually get us closer to an action. It's sort of an extra or it's an outside step here. Like, the removal on the permit are different things completely.

Correct. For for an obscene sign.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments on this one, or are people ready to close? And I should mention Commissioner Copely, I believe, didn't close his portion of this. Okay. Great. Yes. Good to close? All right.

So this, whenever a person places so many signs that it makes it difficult or impossible for others to legally place signs. Commissioner Cobley had indicated that he was comfortable closing this item if there's no further discussion. Hateful non inclusive messages, this is concerning political message that is hateful or non inclusive, if there's any recourse to this.

Yeah, I close it over emails. Oh yes. Thank you.

Number 12, this is the discussion of what the comparison to other local communities are doing.

Commissioner Gagne. So at the April 8 hearing, I made some very explicit disclosures on the record after providing some disclosures in writing to city staff. At that point in time, felt comfortable moving forward with discussions and raising issues. Some things have changed for me professionally as of Friday of last week. I've been in communications with some professional advisers and just another governing board that I need to think about in terms of how I participate with this particular conversation. So, what feels ethical to me is to abstain from voting and abstain from any further discussion so all items can be closed for me.

All right thank you.

Number 14, addresses the permitting process. If we want to have some discussion on this.

So we will take commissioner Gagne out of this one. Mhmm. Commissioner Van Nijmehner, commissioner Aparna, any comments?

I had closed this via email, so I'm

Alright. So we will close. Thank you.

Would we like to close Number 15 as well that addresses permitting? All

right, so personally I think this is probably still a larger conversation. To have. I think the question is if anyone has additional questions about the answer provided in the issues matrix, not how we want to actually address this side of it. So Commissioner Aparna, you can start.

Yes. I also wanted to close this one. Great.

So you're one of and Commissioner Copeley said to close. Is that correct? Okay. So then, Vice Chair Wood here. Any further questions on this one? Okay. And I also am, so we can close that.

And that was the last issue that's currently on the matrix.

Great. All right, so, next up, now that we have the response from the lawyer, does anyone have new issues they would like to add? Or do you have the information that you need? No, we're good? Okay, great.

So at this point, wanna get specific about if we approve of this all up. I'm still sensing a fair amount of concern with the recommendation at or sorry, the changes as written. So we have options with the recommendation if we want to approve it in totality or if there are any amendments we would like to make. So I think at this point, we can start having a conversation about either parts or the whole either to keep or to amend. And amending could be removing, amending could be changing small amounts of wording.

So I don't know if anyone has start to the conversation. Commissioner Van Nyman.

So the issue was closed on the matrix, but in terms of making a recommendation, and I wasn't here for the meeting prior, but are people all comfortable with the staff's recommendation regarding the medians and the, roundabouts? Because that's like pretty much the vast majority of where these signs go in our city. And so you're really limiting where signs can be placed. Like there's just not a lot of area left if you're gonna tell people that they can't put the signs in the median and in the roundabouts. So that would be one concern.

The other concern I have is that because the first is true, you end up with this everybody's just gonna break the rule anyway. And I don't like having rules on the books that are meant to be designed to be broken. So those are my thoughts.

Okay. So that's a great place to start. Let's start there. Does anyone have comments either in agreement with commissioner Van Nyman or against? Commissioner Parna.

I am in agreement that we need to be a little bit, I think there's a happy middle median on this issue. Sorry, I just couldn't resist that. Because I feel that I see the point of safety being one and visibility, but trying to figure out where in the city you would do X and where you would do Y is a little more complex. And that's what we've been hearing over and over again. So, I don't have a solution.

I agree with the principle of it. But I don't have a solution because what if the signs, like if we are restricting the size of the signs, visibility should not be an issue if it's just gonna be like whatever, two, three feet above the ground or whatever. So we could technically look at the size as a way to increase visibility and not have a safety issue. As to it being in the median, yes, it is a safety issue. But I don't know.

I feel like we are over designing this whole thing when we really haven't had unless somebody's had problems getting run over by putting signs or something. I don't know why, I feel like this whole system's a bit over designed, and I'm inclined to agree with Tara

on that.

I have a strong preference not to include the median roundabout portion of this. Because again, just, even the safety piece feels overwrought to me when you think how many of the medians and I don't have roundabouts in my neighborhood, but how many of the medians are worked on each week by landscaping crews from the city. It just it really feels like this is not an actual huge safety problem in Redmond. So I don't, and I do think it is, there aren't places around me other than that to put political signs. So I just as a voter, and resident, would prefer not to have that piece included.

Commissioner Coleman.

Yeah, tend to agree with that. The thing that struck me through this whole conversation is, should we have places like, you can put signs here but you can't put signs there. There's places you can put signs because Redmond tends to be like a war zone of signs when it's this particular seasons. There's signs everywhere, and I've climbed in places, I've walked up, I've put signs in place, I'm like, Oh, I can put a sign there, because nobody else has got one there, the lacrosse team, looking at look at, so no, hey, wanna help. But I'm being serious for seconds, I'm not necessarily suggesting there should be places for signs, but the thing that I struggle with is, and I was joking, but basically, people are trying to find what's a novel place to stick a sign now?

And then you're like, where are all these signs across the whole city? And so that's the thing I find a bit of a struggle with, because that's the thing I think people get really agitated about, it's like, there's another sign, and I can't get away from these signs, there's a sign everywhere. So I do think actually, going back to the point, it's not a bad thing to have them in the places like the roundabouts and the medians, because you know people are gonna put signs there. And it maybe stops people putting signs in other places where it's just a pain in the sign to see a sign.

All right. I would say that I do like the portion of the placement of signs that was nowhere that's causing visibility issues, not on private land. I can see no parks. I can see nowhere that's blocking pedestrians. Like that part all seems sensible to me, just have an issue with the roundabouts and medians because it seemed, again, we covered it. All right, so that's helpful. Another topic that people would like

to cover. Commissioner Aparna. So this is regarding permitting, and I'm questioning the whole system. I don't feel it's needed. I think it's adding overhead when it's not really achieving anything. You're going to give unlimited renewals. You're going to let them do what they have to do. Enforcement, oh, is the permit there, not there? Who's going to do that? I see this as a massive overhead.

I also think whether people see it, people can perceive it as one more barrier to free speech on the opposite side of things, right? It's not that you're going to pay for it. But if I have to do one more step, it is, in my way of looking at it, it's a barrier. And I don't know. I just think it's a waste that the city can avoid.

A waste from process, waste of city time. Because all this will work only if you have enforcement. And is that the hill we want to die on as a city with budgets and other things and a lot of other pressing issues? I don't think so. And I really don't want to over design a system that is going to be abused no matter which way you look at it.

To your point earlier, Mr. Coleman, it's like why would you design something that is likely to fail anyway? So I don't see it and I would like that whole section struck out if I would like to propose that whole section be struck off so everything related to is there a temporary renewal, is there like five renewals, four renewals, all of that. Like how many kgs of renewals. We we don't get into all of that.

We just say you do your thing. Don't be courteous in be courteous in the city. Be safe. Don't block accessibility to folks. And that's it. It should be as simple as that. People are grown ups. We should treat them like grown ups. I don't think we should over police this. So.

Okay, lots of it. We'll start with Commissioner, or sorry Vice Chair Woodier.

I would agree with the sentiment. I I firmly believe that the regulation should be proportionate with the enforcement. And if you have a a body of regulations that are gonna encourage people like the medians to go against that, to violate that or you're gonna have complexity in the permitting process that pragmatically speaking is inconsequential like the number of renewals. I think we should be looking to strip things down to the bare minimum. And that bare minimum should be things that we're actually going to, that's actually gonna encourage in compliance and is going to be enforceable.

And I think there's opportunity to strip things down. I would 100% agree with what my partner is saying. And I think the opportunity that we have, because we do want to move toward closure, is maybe we go section by section, do we agree to keep or do we agree to take out? And if it's gonna be taking out, is it because it adds to the issue that I've just mentioned or does it not? Because whatever we do, we wanna be consistent so that we're not setting the city up for agitation.

Commissioner Coleman.

I'd to tie some things together because I think if if we looked at a couple, what are the problems we've got? Too many signs. We think that from some of the comments we've got here, the permitting piece and the compliance piece is causing a lot more time for the council, for people to go out and try and check what's going on. That's a cost, that's a time that folks that work for the council could be doing something else. So, there's a cost involved with that kind of compliance.

I would tie that to then saying, okay, great, we're gonna reduce the amount of cost from a signed compliance perspective by having sweeps x dates of the year. Those things all fit together to me. You don't do permitting and you tell people here's when it's gonna happen, and people have the opportunity to pick their size up if they want to and put them back, if they want to.

Alright. So let's just for the simplicity of working through the conversation, let's try to stay on permitting for a minute and then the next topic we'll load up is removal. Commissioner Van Amman.

Can I ask staff to start us out from the very beginning of what's the problem we're trying to solve with the permitting?

Maybe we can go one more step back and why are we here at all? Permitting and the other things. And that's because we have language in our code for political science that's not enforceable. And so it's the Wild West in Rebbend when it comes to temporary noncommercial science because there are no enforceable regulations on the books. So that's why we're here.

We need to develop a, or at least propose and consider, a set of regulations that are enforceable and that are consistent with Supreme Court precedent. As it relates to permitting, so we reached out to our code enforcement officers cause they're people doing compliance and enforcement and so they are really the experts on the ground. And from their perspective, it's about being able to equitably apply the sign code. If there is no permit, first of all, have no way of knowing whose sign it is. Also, if there are questions about whose permit came first, and in the case of sign clutter, which was an issue that was raised here, having the permit dates allows us to apply a fair system for removing them if they're causing clutter.

We have no way of getting signs back to people who own them if we remove them, if we don't know whose they are. And maybe you could say that's really the problem of the person who signed it is because they left their sign out. But it's also a problem for the city because we're doing their trash pickup essentially. They're not gonna put their name on it or not have any contact information. Without a permit, there's no way to enforce penalties on code violators.

Repeat repeat offenders who are repeatedly violating the code, they are subject to enforcement action. But if there's no contact information, there's no permit, there's really no way to enforce that. And so it's a I can leave my signs littered in Redmond, there's no way for someone to come after me because there's it's not it can't be tied back to me. So that's that's some of the ideas behind the permitting from the code enforcement perspective.

So so not like political science, but like I guess I'm trying to understand what kind of signs we have out there that don't have any contact information and that are like, don't most signs are trying to advertise something so there's inherently some name and contact associated with it. But what doesn't?

Just message signs that convey a noncommercial message, a political message that might not be tied to a specific candidate's campaign, but are are trying to sell you an idea, but might not have any other contact information.

Has this come up? Like, is this a like, we're trying to make sure that we know what to do in a future case that hasn't arrived yet? Or has this been an issue in Redmond in the

last Code few violations generally definitely come up. Sign code violations. We our code enforcement officers do sign code enforcement now. It's not something that'll be added to their workload. It's something that they're already doing.

But I mean specifically for the issue of signed political messages or idea messages that don't have contact information. Has that been an issue in Regent?

We can follow-up on that specific issue, specific question.

In some of our early meetings with code enforcement on this, they did say they do try to track down some of the sign owners, and that does take time to track down contact information versus if we had a permit system or a database of the contact information. So that's one mechanism at the permitting is to be able to have that information in a central place for them.

But this what I'm understanding is the city actually really can't remove signs for the most part. Sign The lawyer's response.

Well, any sign that's placed in violation of the code, for example, blocking access to a sidewalk, can be removed. And if code enforcement has trouble tracking down who signed it is, then it can be difficult to educate them about future behavior. And also it can be difficult to get their sign back to them.

Commissioner Parana.

I had this question and it's on a different topic. Okay. We get this, like in my head, it's reminding me of what we do with the tree permits. It's an honor code system. We get a tree permit from the city. There's no code enforcement. I've had trees pulled. My neighbors have had trees pulled. They haven't planted. I've planted that tree's not growing very well, but it's trying. But my point, what I'm making is that not once we've had anybody come out and enforce that. And these are trees. Important to us, really important to the city. Like all residents would agree. So, and that's like an honor code.

It's free permit. There's really nothing I had to do. I've got the papers with me. Nobody's asked to check it. So for me, the signs, yes, they are annoyance maybe, but we are not enforcing the big things.

So I'm finding it really hard to understand why we would start enforcing the smaller things, which are annoyances and not bigger issue related stuff. The code enforcement that I have seen, excellent work is like all the electrical, plumbing, all of them. They are awesome at their work. But these optional things which are honor based, I don't know if it's something that is working very well. I mean, that's that's my observation.

I could be wrong, but, that's that's principally why I'm not really for this. Let's clean up house and the stuff that we need to enforce first, and then we can add more enforcement load if you want to. Unless they're having some significant issues, but those should have been brought to us

before. I guess we're the questions now, so. For the permit process specifically, is anyone in favor of this? Commissioner Van Dymon?

I'm still open to that idea. I'm just really trying to understand the degree of the problem that we think exists.

I

mean, I I mean, I I understand the mechanism part that you're saying. I guess I just don't understand why something that's published as code can't be enforced without a permit.

So that the code can be enforced but without it I think the thing that's lacking without the permit is any ability to enforce that code against the person who violated it, because we won't know who that is. And there's also a matter of property. If we don't know whose property it is, it's difficult to get it back to that person or that entity. And it also deprives the city of a chance to educate that person on where signs can be placed legally and and and, allow that person to do that, in the future.

All right. Any further questions or opinions on permitting? Vice Chair Woodier.

Can you pull up the actual permit process right first so I can just see it? I can't find it. I just wanted to look at something. Where where is that? I wanna see how.

Yeah. Also, for anyone who's also curious, you can go to the meeting materials page. Where

where is

And then specifically on today's meeting, there's a technical committee report and recommendation which has the text that we are discussing. Okay. Okay. It's in the resources portion under May 13.

I knew I saw it somewhere.

I guess the permit section begins on page page nine of the technical committee report. Did you wanna go through anything or

just I wanna look at was just trying to find it quickly and I wasn't moving fast enough.

So maybe for a moment we can do people wanna finish the permitting discussion or do we wanna chase pieces? Jeff?

I just have a question. It relates to at the conclusion of each of these discussion sections, where do you want to be? I think with the first one meetings around about just counting, there's a majority of planning commissioners who want to change that, change it, repeal it something. With permitting, I'm not sure, so my question back to you Chairs, of at the conclusion of the discussion, do you wanna be giving staff direction on which direction you want this to head?

Yes. And to be clear, the medians and roundabouts I heard removing that portion of it. Do we formally

vote or do we just

No, but what we're gonna do is we're going to start to build our recommendation. And then we can formally vote on that. And if there are any further amendments at that point, then they can be proposed during our voting process. Commissioner Van Nyman.

So if we were to pull the permitting entire piece out, does does the rest of the document still work?

There would still be, standards for the size, the height, the materials, the location, all that would still be in place. Those signs were illegally placed or were of a material that was not allowed or were too tall or any of that. It could still be removed.

But there's no, like, cross referencing of it and that you could pull the whole thing out and the whole document would stand just fine?

Yes and I think we would bring it back to you to show you what it would look like, and in the course of doing that we would want to make sure that we would read it and we'd say, yeah, this still works.

Yeah, and I think what we're deciding here is in Part B general standards. Section one is permit, remove that. Section two is fee, remove that. Section three is duration, remove that. Sorry, step four is expired and absent permits, remove that.

Keep section five, which is signed materials and construction, which has not raised anyone's higher yet. Keep step six sign placement except for the medians portion. And then we have a question out about item seven, which is removal and disposal. So we'll come back to that part. And then allowed temporary non commercial sign types and standards within the right of way, it's part C, we would keep that, we would keep D, which is the portion on private property.

So it really is just removing the permit, the fees, the permit process that we're discussing. I haven't spoken yet, realized. I'm just nodding along with what other people are saying. So I'm just gonna officially say my stance on this. I really strongly believe that this is too much red tape for not enough reward.

If it was we needed the process the permit process in order to remove it somehow, that would feel very different to me. But to have a permit that is barely enforceable. And honestly, I have a really hard time that someone who's placing an anonymous sign is going to follow the code. Anyway, every sixty days to get a sticker from the city. For every sign they put out, I just can't see it.

So I'm this to me, it's I I appreciate that our current sign code isn't enforceable, but I really wanna stay on the side of common sense here. And I think saying, putting reasonable limits around basically what's a sign that's important, but not annoying in its construction and placement. And then giving the city to remove ones that don't meet that standard to me seems adequate for what we're trying to achieve here. Vice chair Woodier.

And has the city agreed that we're using that you're using stickers, to be a fixed be on the sign? Because that that's quite a number of stickers I could see given the volume of signs we have in the city.

I think the idea is that we would not mandate a certain way of showing the permit number could be written on. It could be printed on by the sign printer. It could be a sticker. I mean, I think any of the

But the city's not issuing stickers. It's the district issuing permit numbers, it's up to the city.

I I think this city may issue stickers upon request. I don't think will automatically print stickers for everybody, but if that's what someone needs or wants to do that.

And the city would also need like all of the back end pieces of a website to request the permit, someone to staff the permit situation, databases to record the permits, the security on the databases, etcetera. So there's there's pieces here.

We would use the permit system that we have and configure it for a new permit type. And it, you know, it already comes with the rest of the back end is built in.

Commissioner Van Nyman.

We've probably covered this before. But what are our neighbors doing in this regard?

That was in the issues matrix. We can go to item

oh, 12. Thank you.

And this was commissioner Kanye's comment that we just closed or question, but there's a good response here, including from the lawyer.

I'm not sure that really answers what I was saying. Like, does Kirkland do? What does Bothell do? What does Bellevue do?

So I know Kirkland, just because I looked it up, they limit size and placement and they do sweep signs.

Because part of this whole thing about permitting, it would be one thing if that was just kind of standard and our neighbors all did it too. I mean, you think about a campaign that spans all these different different municipalities and if every municipality starts putting up sign permitting requirements, that becomes a fair burden for somebody who's running, again, I know most of the signs are political, but not limited to that. Okay, I-nine Sports, right, is trying to recruit from Kirkland and Bellevue and

And that one would be a commercial sign. So that one doesn't follow.

Commercial? Yeah. Boy Scouts is commercial?

Yes. Not sure. I think anything where they're collecting dues or membership, you could argue is commercial.

So that would include nonprofits then? I'm looking at the city. Because you're because you're gonna see a lot of, like, nonprofits, like, sports teams as an example.

Okay, so anyway we can put that one on the back burner for a quick moment, but the political campaign that's statewide or spans multiple jurisdictions, that's you know pretty not an insignificant burden because now we're saying that when somebody's running for office that spans Redmond, Kirkland, Woodinville and we're gonna like that you we we say, they should print their number the permit number on the sign. Well, doesn't work because those signs should be interchangeable between all of the different locations of their campaign.

Alright. So where are we on the permit question? Do we wanna do people wanna speak up if they want it? Because I'm hearing a lot of no's. Okay.

So I'm hearing even more no's. Alright, so I'm hearing not a lot of resounding interest in keeping the permit portions. So in that case, I'm going to say we are looking at a recommendation that would remove the permit piece along with the fees and the other items I listed earlier. The question that I have next is what we wanna do about item seven, which is removal and disposal because that was an open issue. I think we know commissioner Coleman's stance on it was that it would still be useful to have like a calendar based sweep.

Is there any discussion on that at this point, now that we have the lawyer's response? Commissioner Aparna.

I think it's a very good idea to put that in, but if you want to, because it's the regulations, have to be a little bit, we can't say periodic.

Just make sure you're in the mic.

Sorry, because it's regulations, we shouldn't be saying periodic, we should suggest quarterly or bi annually thing. I wouldn't put it monthly because I think that's too much because there'll be several months where there's nothing going on. So maybe the first week of every quarter, beginning of every quarter or something like that. Basically or offset it so that it doesn't hit election season and nobody's signs getting touched at that time. That would clear us of a lot of the potential issues.

So we just offset it and make sure that election season from primary to thing is clear. And that's why I said twice a year makes more sense. And so just chunk it and put it in. Maybe it's July. That we can leave I think, but saying it twice a year should be adequate.

Commissioner Van Nyman.

You don't necessarily know when election season is. Right? I mean, the school can run a bond in February. The school can run a bond in April. This you know, there can be special elections. You know, you just don't necessarily know. You you might you might stumble yourself into all of the school levy signs getting pulled.

One thing that I, I like the idea of the periodic sweep, whatever the period is, and being published in advance so that it's something that is easy to find in the sign portion on the city's website. But I could also see doing something like tying it to landscaping schedules or other times that the city is in the right way doing work or tying it to street sweeping schedule or tying it to like, probably isn't room on a street sweeper to hold all the signs. But just some sort of periodic schedule like that would make a lot of sense to me. But as long as it's published in advance. Commissioner Coleman, do you wanna wrap this up?

Yeah, I'll wrap it up. I agree what you were just saying. I think the other thing I wanna just go and reiterate and add is when we think about if we're going to recommend no permits and the other things we're recommending, which is something which would cost the city to put in place and probably significant amount trying to manage that. This would actually save money as well on the other side, which is we would have particular times when we know these things are going to happen. Frankly, we just have to clear communicate to people that these are when these happen. If you are going to put up a sign, you should know when those signs are going to get pulled. And if you wanna take your sign, go pick up your signs and put them back afterwards. I don't see that's a big thing.

Or leaving it open.

Or leaving it open, yeah, totally.

Here's the sweep and then here's the time period to pick it back up if you want it. Seems minimalist to me. I

was gonna say, may I? Yes, please. I like the idea of periodic sweeps. I wonder if four times once a quarter is too many given the unpredictable ability of cycles like bonds, elections, etcetera. I can foresee two periods of the year where you probably have the least conflict.

I'm gonna

throw out there December and July because you're out of the sixty day window for many of the elections and bonds and other types of things that require community voting. But fewer is probably easier and then it's also, I think it works without having to over complicate and overburden the city too and policing signs.

I also feel like this actually probably is one of those things that we should not decide as a group because I don't know the city process. I don't know public works calendar. I don't know their staffing levels, etcetera. But saying that the city provides two to four sweeps per year, communicated in advance on the website, along with the information about what sort of signs are permitted. Or no, sorry, excuse the wording, but allowed. Feels low cost and like it would still.

And if I may, I just want to add like it should be in harmony with the city's schedule, the city's operations. The point is that the point of doing periodic sweeps is just to make sure that we don't have orphan signs, zombie signs. So maybe we, maybe that's the language we put in this document, let the city decide the periods and to your point the communications.

Commissioner Aparna.

I think absolutely I agree, but I think what we should say in the regulations is that the number of times a year and that I think part of the regulation should state that the city must publish the dates as published so that we mandate the publishing of the dates to make sure that everybody, well, it could be December, July next year, and maybe something else, right? But if you say that it will be published and we publish it, that's regulations which will work I think.

Yeah, and I would prefer that it was the publication, sorry, we would publish the dates of the removal, how long the signs will be kept afterwards, and where they can be picked up, or who to contact to pick them

Yeah, that's

And then it's just all right there in the code. Jeff.

So one observation I would make is that the idea of sign sweeps is not a land use regulation. It's really a work program item. It's delving into what code enforcement should do. And I think that's not something that belongs in the zoning code at all because it's not a land use regulation. So I think if the Planning Commission likes the idea of a sign sweep, I think it could communicate that to the City Council and to the mayor and say, should consider this, but illegal signs can already be removed in the code. Sign sweeps would not be they're not a land use regulation. I I'm, and I don't think it'd be a good idea to include them here for that reason.

Okay, that's utterly sensible and I see your point. So we'll leave seven as is, but if we could add to our recommendation that the commission would prefer the City Council adds a work item to sweep signs some number of times per year at a low cost time for the city.

I know we don't

have to listen to it. I

think the discussion around this illustrates what concerns the city attorney because so much of the discussion centered around when is it gonna be convenient based on what we know about election cycles. And that is that's precisely what the city attorney is concerned about is the city choosing times based on basically the content of what's out there, which is like political content.

Oh, well, let me clarify because that's not what I meant at all. So what I meant is at a low cost time of year for the city when they are basically looking at sidewalks, the right of way, etcetera, and just as a cleanup pass, not as a content pass. Commissioner Coleman.

You just said the word I was gonna say.

Times two.

Instead of sweep, cleanup is actually what you're doing. So sweep sound kinda like a, it's kinda gotten it's an odd term.

I meant with a broom, or like a street sweeper. But yes, just looking at the right of way and cleaning it up. In a content agnostic sort of way. All right, is there any other comment on this or have we done our work for tonight? All right. Everyone, thank you for your work on this. I know this is an unusual amount of disagreement for us, but I think people did a nice job, Jeff.

If the commission is done with its discussion, it would actually be very helpful to staff if the commission actually voted. And you don't have a report, but just to say, we want to recommend this with these changes. And you've already talked through all the changes you want. So if you just put that in the motion, that makes it really easy for us to create the report for you to look at your next meeting.

Great. In that case, do you want me to actually go through what should be included piece by piece or do you feel like you have it?

I think we have it. I think if you can summarize it in a motion, identifying the key issues, you know, meetings and roundabouts permits and removal and disposal, and summarizing the direction of the commission. That will be enough, the meeting was recorded, we can go back and listen to the details again.

Great, so in that case, are all ready? All right, So I look for a motion to ask staff to prepare a recommendation at the next meeting that includes, first of all, approval of the changes to the temporary non commercial sign code in the Redmond zoning code. With the exception of changes to remove the permit piece, including fees, etcetera. Remove the medians and roundabouts in placement. And do we have another portion?

Oh, and to add a recommendation to counsel in addition, that we would like to see a removal program as part of the public works right of way maintenance to remove signs at pre published times of year with the full detail in our discussion before. Do I see a motion for that? So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? We have one abstain. Zero opposed. And everyone thank you for your work. Alright. With that, we will move to staff and commissioner updates. I don't have any updates today.

We are continuing to interview, I guess I do. We're continuing an interview for the youth advisory position. We've had some initial interviews and we're continuing in that process. And yeah, thank you once again for everyone attending the workshop a couple of weeks ago.

Maybe one other staff update just don't forget your joint meeting with the City Council is on May 26 that's the night before your next meeting. So thirteen days from tonight. And the main discussion topic, if you want to start thinking about it, will be your contribution of your questions and ideas on how the city can respond to Senate Bill sixty twenty six from the 2026 legislative session. And for those of you who don't remember exactly what that was all about, it is about residential uses in commercial and mixed use zones, which in Rebbein would include business park and manufacturing park zones as well, where housing is not currently allowed. So we do expect that will be an item on the docket, which of course is also at your next meeting, so you'll have another chance to discuss it in a couple of weeks.

But if you wanted to start thinking about that, that will be great help to staff to get some early comments from commissioners and City Council at the joint meeting.

Commissioner Parna. I have one word water that's going to be coming up to you as a specific thing but discussing water in the larger context of the plans and everything. I'd like to hear more what the council is, how it's kind of thinking about the water supply plan that got passed, the Cascade Water Alliance, and the new initiative by King County Council Member Balducci.

This a request for this?

Yes. The Point Meeting? Yes. So I would like, given this context, I would love to hear what counsel has to say about how they are thinking about it. It's just more a question for the counsel. I think the Commission has talked about this so I'm hoping that the rest of Commissioners want to hear too.

Noted, thank you.

One more staff update June 2 which is the Tuesday after your joint meeting there will be a public hearing at the City Council meeting at 07:00 or shortly thereafter about on the interim official control that the Council adopted on April 21 about commercial drone ports. And I'm saying that for the benefit of you, but also for people watching, so that we can get the word out in many forums.

And can you remind anyone watching, or for us for that matter, where we can find the information?

Yes, that the city you can go to redmond.gov/droneports, or you can search droneports from the redmond.gov homepage. That will have the ordinance the council actually adopted. It has the date and time of the public hearing as well.

Great, thank you. Any commissioner updates? Alright. In that case, I look for a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. And we are adjourned.