City Council - Regular Meeting

We can call the meeting in order. And before we start the business of the meeting today, I would like to ask that we take a moment to address the tragic gun violence over the weekend at the Bite of Seattle event. Three people lost their lives, and at least four more were injured, including a toddler. This is an upsetting, unnecessarily and unacceptable tragedy that has forever altered the lives of many and created fear at a beloved regional event attended by hundreds of thousands, including many from right here in our own community. I would like to offer a moment of silence for the victims and their loved ones. Thank you for doing that with us. Our hearts and thoughts are with everyone affected by this weekend's events. I continue to have hope that we can work together to create a future where this type of strategy is no longer part of our lives. And now I'm going to welcome you all for being here and for taking the time to engage in the work of our city. We are glad to hear from you. With that, City Clerk, are you ready for the roll call?

Yes, thank you. Mayor Malakoutian?

Here.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton?

Here.

Council Member Bhargava?

Here.

Council Member Breyer? Here. Council Member Newenhouse?

Here.

Council Member Robinson? Here. Council Member Suma Doria? Here. Thank you.

Councillor Newenhaus, would you please lead us in the flag salute?

To the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? I move to approve the agenda. Second. It's been moved by Deputy Mayor and seconded by Councilmember Newenhaus. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. City Clerk, are there any speakers signed up to provide oral communication?

Thank you mayor this evening. There are 4 pre registered speakers. So, before I start calling names, I'll go over a few comments and then a few of the rules. The council does appreciate members of the public engaging and contributing their perspectives and supports. Everyone's right to express themselves comments shared during oral communications represent the views of individuals and not necessarily the views of council members or the city. Now, a few of the rules. The total time for oral communications is for a period of no more than 30 minutes, and all topics must relate to City of Bellevue government. People speaking to items on tonight's agenda will be called first, and then if time remains, people speaking to items not on tonight's agenda will be called. The presiding officer is authorized in both of those categories to give preference to those who have not spoken to council within the last 60 days or who will be speaking on topics that will come in front of the council within the next 60 days. Each speaker is allowed to speak up to three minutes and only three speakers are allowed to speak to any one side of a particular topic. I also want to remind folks that in compliance with Washington state campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities during elections, no speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure or support or oppose a candidate for election, and that includes one's own campaign. People speaking on those topics will be asked to stop. So with that, I'll call our first speaker, who is Steve Kastner.

Mayor Moe, members of council, my name is Steve Kasner, the proud president of the Lake Hills Neighborhood Association. It seems like I was just here yesterday, it was back in February, to talk to you about all the exciting things that were gonna happen in Lake Hills. You didn't have seven people there then, but you do now, which I'm super excited about. September 17th, we'll go to Bellevue College to hear what our neighbors thought about the NEP process and the voting on the projects that were deemed feasible. But the real reason I'm here tonight is to thank each and every one of you who are supporting our neighborhood association in presence. If you were able to come to the picnic, working at the or supporting the neighborhood association. But a problem that only you guys can solve is all of the neighborhoods are desperately in need of new folks that you know that we don't know. I've whined loudly to a few of you who are directly connected to Lake Hills, but when I started doing this work 30 years ago, I was one of the youngest, but there were a group of us who got involved, who are still involved. Some of us you wish would quit being involved, but we cannot do that until such time as the 20-, 30-, 40-year-olds. I mean, last year, nine of the people who worked very hard for Lake Hills were over 70. they still want to do. Our bodies cannot do it anymore. So in working with the city and the people that you know who invited all of you or elected all of you to be here, please send them to the neighborhood associations that exist of which there are many. There are still neighborhoods that are not represented because there aren't any people to build association on top of. You know who all those folks are because you doorbelled every precinct in the city and you met some really cool people. So great neighborhoods is coming to Lake Hills. Some of you are on our neighborhood walk. I met a lot of young families that I didn't know, which was fun. And we've created a place where people can come to our We Are Lake Hills website and email the website. Well, I just recently found out that we didn't send those emails anywhere, but they're now corrected to go to somebody in the association, and I have the most people on my board of any organization in the city, and we need five to 10 more people. So thank you for all the hard work that you do and I'm thrilled that you are here today. But the neighborhoods want to participate. We just need some new folks to help us. Thank you very much and have a wonderful meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Amina Condell.

Welcome. Hello.

This is a very last-minute attempt to speak to you today because I just started... Ms. Condell, I'm sorry, if you could adjust the microphone down.

Oh, sorry, I turned it up.

Oh, sure.

Can you hear me now?

Thank you. You can come closer to the mic. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I did not have time to actually create a presentation and I haven't spoken at a city hall meeting since I tried to save a school a long time ago. So bear with me here. My name is Amina and I'm here today to talk about challenging a Bellevue City code because there is an issue that I'm directly affected by along with my other neighbor here. And that code is related to having farm animals, specifically roosters and possibly hens on and in regular neighborhoods in the Lake Hills area, and also specifically Bellevue. At first I thought, why are roosters not illegal in Bellevue? And then I thought, well, maybe there's some parts of Bellevue that have large properties and maybe some farmland still. So it wouldn't be fair to maybe say have roosters be completely illegal in Bellevue. But I came up with a solution. And that is that if somebody in a regular neighborhood who doesn't have an HOA that strictly prohibits roosters in their area, so neighbors don't have any protection and have to go through contacting many organizations to try and stop someone from having a rooster. That before a person gets a rooster, that they need to go through the permit and licensing process just like they would with a cat or a dog if a rooster is going to be considered a pet. The problem that I have is that I listen to a rooster from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. at night that crows all day long, every single hour, multiple times a day. And I don't have a reasonable neighbor, so I can't just approach my neighbor, which I already have, respectfully, but I can't just approach a neighbor and say, hey, your rooster's really bothering me. Could you please not have a rooster? This neighbor actually buys a rooster to, has a rooster to bother the neighbors and is malicious and difficult to deal with. So that is why I do feel like the code needs to be changed to protect people that have neighbors that are not reasonable. And my neighbor in the past has said, if I hate my neighbors, I will buy a rooster. And so I already had dealt with a rooster for 10 plus years. And now she was asked to get rid of the rooster. And now two years to three years later, she has another one. And it creates rat problems, fly problems, attracts many other kinds of pests. And I find living rats in my house and dead rats in my land, too.

Fortunately, your time has expired. I'd encourage you to email the rest of your comments to the council.

OK.

Thank you. Thank you.

The next speaker is Nava Carlisle. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Moe and Honored Council Members. My name is Nova Carlyle. I'm the Government Affairs Intern at the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce. I'm here tonight to acknowledge the work of Development Services. Permitting and entitlement work is demanding. Given the volume and technical complexity involved, it touches nearly every business, developer, and homeowner in Bellevue. In the first half of this year alone, Development Services processed over 8,200 permit applications and issued nearly 7,800 permits. Handling that volume requires sustained efforts from staff. We want to recognize Jake Hesselgeser's leadership in this area. First review performance improved from 72%, meeting target timelines in 2025 to 82% in 2026. While some of this is due to the volume of complex permits being down, the timeline still shows meaningful gain, and it reflects consistent follow-through on process improvements. We also want to note the city's partnership with GovStream AI as an example of proactive modernization. Implementing AI tools to streamline complex processes helps position Bellevue well for developers considering major projects here. This kind of investment in efficiency matters as the city works through land use and policy updates intended to unlock development capacity across Bellevue. We also would like to appreciate the technical rigor that Nick Whipple and his team bring to difficult issues. Even where there are differences of opinion, the dialogue has remained productive and focused on finding workable solutions. We recognize that these are complex, high-stake matters. This is incredibly meaningful work, and it reflects a clear institutional focus on operational efficiency. We'd encourage the Council to continue supporting these efforts since improvements in permitting speed and process directly affect Bellevue's competitiveness, investment attraction, and the pace at which housing gets built. The Chamber values its ongoing partnership with development services. And as you receive this important update from staff about the department's pipeline in progress, we did not want to miss an opportunity to share our appreciation as we look forward to continue working together. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Paul Rood.

Thank you. Noise. Bellevue noise ordinances are written around heavy equipment as the reference and prohibit operation of heavy equipment and any other equipment making similar noise levels on Sundays, holidays, and evenings. Last year, I prepared for you data showing that small yard equipment makes more noise, noise in excess of heavy equipment, and I explained why this was the case. The floors noise is illegal on Sundays and residential zoning. Sunday, the 19th started out as a beautiful quiet day in the neighborhood. I plan to read at 830 a yard crew started power equipment. I called the police. I coached Officer Smith on how to enforce the noise as he was unfamiliar with the regulations. I insisted that he go out and address the noise. I measured 81 decibels at the property line, 400 times the limit. The noise stopped briefly then continued. I contacted my neighbor directly and the neighbor said that the cops had come by and said the noise was okay. I called the police again. I got a return call from Sergeant Hurley. He said we are not going to enforce yard noise. Then he said we have warned you not to call in noise complaints. I call in about 1 noise complaint a year and only the most flagrant violation. I knew that someday the police might resort to threats and intimidation. To preserve their inertia. As a designer, I cannot put equipment as loud as leaf blowers in power plants or industrial facilities. Because the operators could not communicate or think clearly to operate the plant safely, the maintenance personnel could not focus on repair procedures, and the administrative personnel could not concentrate on business communications due to noise inundation. They would all go home at the end of the day numb, irritated, detached, and stunned. We flow blower noise levels are between industrial and combat noise levels. Yet the city thinks the equipment is acceptable in residential zoning where we live, love, sleep, study, entertain and relax. Have we lost our sanity. As a reminder, I've prepared a red line for you, updating the noise ordinances to make the regulations clear, fair, objective, and effective. Let's the seven of you, me, police chief, city manager, and one of your lawyers sit in a room, harmonize on the updates, present them to the public, and establish some noise regulation in Bellevue. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, our final preregistered speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

Thank you.

Welcome. Thank you. Sorry, disability be old is not good. Not exactly good, okay. My name, Alex Zimmerman. I am president of Stand Up America. Bellevue right now is number one Nazi, Gestapo, fascist city controlled by Junta. No analogy in America. And I spoke about this before many times. So right now, I want to bring you an example of how this system works and what you build here. So Mayor Robinson gave me a trespass for three years. And cut my statement for election last year because I'm candidate against her. This is a pure crime. It's a felony. In civilized country, she possibly be in jail. Yeah. Yeah. My complaint to Bellevue Police, nothing. Bellevue Police is not police. It's a Gestapo. Yes. It's my experience. Good experience for 40 years. Second, what is I want talking about decision what is make Mayor Mohamed. I'm totally complain to police. I have order number of my complain right now because I three time complain about this. You, Mayor, cannot sign all the official document by not legal name. It's a very serious problem. Is this problem need be fixed. You know what this mean? When you cannot doing this, this a form in court. for change name. It cost only 50 bucks. When you don't make more than 200,000, I can pay you 50 bucks. I'm poor man, so I have 50 bucks. But this exactly what is you need do it, because it's a crime, it's a felony. There's not only problem about you, there's problem about this seven Nazi pig, you know what it mean, but it's for four year in very quiet. When you see the outside, it's okay, but right now you make a decision inside, but not legal name. Is this a felony? Yeah, and I complained to Bellevue Police, to this Gestapo, zero reaction. Zero reaction. It's a serious problem what is we have. And another problem fundamental, what is I talking for many years. Twelve years ago, you change rules only because Alex Zimmerman come and speak every day, so your people can speak only for 30 minutes. Only 10 people. Look right now. Place empty. People not believe you because you are crook. You are Nazi. You are fascist. You are more dangerous than Hitler Nazi and Gestapo. You know what I mean? Because Hitler Nazi and Gestapo don't have constitution for 250 years. It don't have freedom of speech. We have this. So why you broken everything? Can you explain to me? Nobody can explain to me. So you all criminal, all bandita, all Nazi. This is exactly what has happened. Viva Trump, viva new American revolution. Stand up slave and happy cow. Yeah, I very appreciate you.

I give you this. That is the end of our preregistered. Mr. Zimmerman, I'd ask you not... Thank you. That is the end of our list. So if there's anyone else joining us this evening who would like to make comment to the council, please raise your hand.

Your second warning, Mr. Zimmerman, do not disrupt the meeting.

Go ahead, ma'am. Come forward.

I'm Julica Bellevue. 3015, 164th place. Right now I'm one involved in the new mid-housing development. We have 10 houses on our block, a dead end street. We will now end up with 24 houses because of this mid-level development. That's wrong. That's not why we came to live in Bellevue. And something about Mr. Alexander, we get tired of listening to him. But you know what? Some of the things he says are really true. Some of the things we say, people are not listening. Bellevue is changing fast, and it's not really changing to the better. And I feel badly when people... sit there and kind of laugh at them because if you listen carefully, there are some facts that we should be aware of. So I've done the housing. Nothing I can do. We have no voice, no say anymore. So it really isn't a democracy because the government, the state of Washington, has taken that away. Bellevue, Mercer Island, all the cities have have to do it or I don't know, you get fined. But the reason today is the transportation, because transportation is a problem in Bellevue. Transportation down Bellevue Way, they have taken three lanes, made two lanes, one north, one south, put two bicycle lanes, which took the suicide lane turning. I've gone down it for, two weeks now, well, beginning of the second week, and Redmond's in charge, Bellevue's in charge. I know exactly who's in charge. Bellevue on the east side, Redmond on the west side, Bellevue has the intersection at Northeast 30th and Belle Red Way. I was there and I told the policeman, please put a revision sign. We've just about had head-on accidents even this morning. I go, where's the lane? We're using the road and the lanes are not there when you get up the next day. And when I came back, I just about had a car hit me because he did the same thing that I did when I was going north. There's a problem, and it's going all over the city, I'm sure, but I hate to see the roads disappear to bicyclists, which maybe we have 10 bicyclists a week go down that road or less. It's a lot of money, and it's made it very unsafe, and I don't know, that's... The transportation, it's a problem. Thank you. Thanks, goodbye.

Thank you, we do have one hand online, and that's Heidi Dean. Miss Dean, can you hear me? Just a second, as a point of order, can I ask that staff respond to the traffic complaint that she just brought up?

Absolutely, yeah.

Miss Dean, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Your time begins now. Thank you, Charmaine.

Good evening. Sorry, I'm stuck in track this evening. Congratulations to Development Services. We're celebrating Development Services. As a matter of fact, I stopped at City Hall in Burlington on my way home from Ferndale to see our former Development services director Rebecca Horner in her new job as administrator of city of Burlington. Great little town and she's doing well and I don't want to take anything away from Mr. Hassell guesser in the form months that he's run. Development services. but also wanted to acknowledge that some of the things that have the improvements that have happened have also been due to Rebecca's work as Development Services Director before that. So congratulations all, keep up the good work. I did want to say since Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish are starting on their neighborhood area plans, Leslie Geller would not be able to speak tonight for what's happening with East Gate. But I did want to ask that, given what we saw with Victoria and Eastgate, that the council make sure that the staff, when they go to do those surveys at the beginning, and especially about the transportation portion, that they really make sure that it's a multimodal survey, because that did not happen. with Factorio and Eastgate. As a matter of fact, any kind of traffic congestion related to cars was left off of those surveys. And it was all about bike, bus and walking, pedestrian. So it was not a multimodal survey that was called out by the Transportation Commission. And the staff was asked to address that, fix that in the policies. And by the time it got to Planning Commission, again, that hadn't happened. And that was just kind of shrugged off. Planning Commission should have addressed that. They did not. And that's what's coming to you. So I, you know, I feel good that Lake Hills has a strong neighborhood association that will address things. And you've got Vic Bishop in West Lake Sam, but engagement is going to be important. And it's going to be important that you truly address that and that you not just let these special interest groups that come in and try to drive neighborhood area plans. get a hold of those things or the staff deciding what a neighborhood area plan should be like. So thank you for your attention to that. Good night.

Thank you.

Okay, I do not see any additional hands. So Mayor, I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much. Again, thanks everyone who took the time to share your comments with us. I assure you that we are listening and we will follow up if and when necessary. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor and seconded by Council Member Newhouse. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. We have a public hearing. City Manager, would you please introduce that to us?

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council. Tonight we're asking you to hold a public hearing that is required related to action that you took in June implementing a moratorium on detention center siting in Bellevue. Staff is here to provide you a brief presentation, just summarizing the issue prior to you considering opening the public hearing. So we have Nick Whipple, our Code and Policy Director from Development Services, and Matt McFarland from our City Attorney's Office. And with that, I'll hand it over to Nick.

Great, thank you. And good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the Council. So we are here tonight, as City Manager Carlson noted, asking you all to hold the required public hearing action to adopt this ordinance happened at the June 9th Council meeting. So this is a requirement for the process when you adopt a moratorium ordinance. And I'm having trouble advancing the slides here. Jacques, if you can assist. There we go. It might have been me. So with that, again, the action is to hold the public hearing on Ordinance 6926, which imposed a one-year moratorium on the acceptance or processing of applications for detention centers. For our agenda, we want to touch on the background, just recall that June 9th meeting, what's included in that moratorium ordinance, and then what's the plan long-term to address this through a code or a potential policy amendment. So starting out first with our background. So as we noted at the June 9th meeting, detention centers have expanded nationwide, including in the Puget Sound region. And we also know there is interest in the federal government in citing a potential detention facility within the Puget Sound area. In response, several jurisdictions in Washington state and in the region have recently adopted moratoriums on detention centers to allow that time to figure out what's the right approach to address this type of use. Matt will walk through some additional background in the moratorium.

Thank you, Nick. Good evening, Council. You may recall from June 9th that one thing we discussed, and it's in the moratorium ordinance as well, is there's a gap in the city's land use code and our zoning and land use control ordinances that don't regulate moratorium uses, I'm sorry, detention center uses as a specific use. And that can lead to a lack of mitigation because of the intensity and the high occupancy of those type of detention center uses. So the goal with the moratorium is to pause while the city can adopt appropriate regulations for that type of use. And the moratorium specifically, which you may also remember from June 9th, adopted a one-year pause on the acceptance of any land use applications to establish a detention center use in the city or processing any of those land use applications. that pause will give the city time to evaluate and develop zoning and land use controls in order to appropriately mitigate and address the impacts associated with detention centers. And also, if you recall, the scope of the MORATORIUM COVERS DETENTION CENTER USES AS THEY'RE KIND OF DEFINED AND IDENTIFIED IN THE GROWTH MANAGEMENT ACT WITH SOME BELLEVUE SPECIFIC LANGUAGE IN THAT SCOPE ALSO WHERE WE LOOKED AT SOME OF THE USES THAT ARE ONGOING IN BELLEVUE TO TRY TO MAKE SURE THIS MORATORIUM ORDINANCE DOES NOT AFFECT THOSE AS WELL.

All right, and so just as a reminder for the Council and the public, the Growth Management Act and Code City provisions do authorize cities to adopt moratoriums when a public hearing is held within 60 days of adoption. So that is why we are here tonight. Also, as a reminder, the moratorium did establish a work plan to identify those regulatory and policy gaps around this novel use. Evaluate potential code and policy amendments and develop findings and recommendations for you all to consider at a future date and then coordinate this work with our existing planned legislative initiatives. So this could be absorbed within our current work planning process without needing additional resources to address how moratorium regulation should look. And our process here, so the moratorium that you all adopted on June 9th will expire June 9th of next year. 2027 review and development of potential code and policy changes are happening within existing and planned work legislative initiatives. And then an additional public hearing is required if. This moratorium was needed to be extended. If, for example, the work wasn't quite completed, then we would assess at that point whether an extension of the moratorium ordinance would be appropriate. Another hearing would be required to do so. With that, Mayor, we'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing? I move to open the public hearing. Is there a second? Second. It has been moved by Deputy Mayor and seconded by Council Member Robinson. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. City Clerk, you are in the public hearing.

Thank you, Mayor. There are two preregistered speakers. So our first speaker is Guillermo Rivera.

Welcome.

Mayor, oh, sorry. Mayor, deputy mayor, and council members. My name is Guillermo Rivera, and I'm a community organizer with Eastside for All. First, I want to thank you for your leadership and your work to pass Ordinance 6926, banning detention centers in Balbi for one year. That was an important step for our communities. Deeply appreciate the council taking action. At the same time, our communities continue to experience tremendous stress and fear because of the ongoing ICE activity in Bellevue. Almost every day, we get reports of someone being detained and another family being affected. Yesterday, around 7 a.m., we received a report that ICE agents were near Walmart and Hopelink. A husband and a wife were detained after leaving their apartment for work just outside their car. I wish I could share all terrible details, but we must protect them. What we can share is that our young children witnessed agents taking parents away. The Circle, a community-based organization, along with community volunteers, responded to stay with the little girl and her niece through the day, ensuring that they have support during an incredible, difficult, and frightening situation. Families are afraid to go to work. take their children to school, or simply leave their homes for daily needs. We cannot add more fear and uncertainty to communities that are being ready to carry too much stress. That is why I respectfully ask to make Bellevue banned detention centers permanent, not for a year. As you develop and implement a permanent ban, I ask you to include the community most directly affected immigration enforcement. Their experience, voices, and expertise must have shaping the intent to protect them. Finally, local policies are important. but our communities also need long-term regional support. We need a regional center that get coordinate resources, information, rapid response, and support for immigrants and refugee communities through our region. A network of providers have been engaging with Bellevue and other Eastside staff to explore this vision. As Bellevue continue to welcome in the world, the need for a coordinated regional center has grown over in the past 20 to 30 years, reflecting the Eastside involving diversity and increased demand for accessibly culturally grounded services. We look forward to sharing more and exploring Bellevue's leadership role in shaping the next step in our region collaboration. And thank you again for all the work that you are doing on this. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Heather Kelly. Welcome.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor and council members. Thank you so much for passing the 1 year moratorium on detention centers in the city of Bellevue. I especially want to underscore that because I know that the city's hands are tied in many areas around immigration enforcement. I also appreciate your direction to staff to identify gaps in the current ordinance and to recommend additional protections. I urge you to act promptly to make this prohibition permanent and to close any loopholes in city code or land use regulations that could allow privately operated facilities or federally operated detention centers to locate in Bellevue. Bellevue must not, under any circumstances, become part of a system that detains people in cruel and inhumane conditions or strips them of their rights and due process. We have all seen the devastating human cost of detention, families torn apart, people held in degrading conditions, and communities living in fear. Our city has a responsibility to ensure it is never complicit in these abuses. By making this ban permanent and closing every remaining loophole, Bellevue can send an unmistakable message that detention facilities have no place in our community. I respectfully urge you to act swiftly to permanently ban detention centers and strengthen the ordinance so Bellevue's commitment is clear, enduring, and impossible to undermine in the future. Thank you all so much for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you, that is the end of our preregistered list, so I'd ask at this point if there's anyone else joining us this evening who would like to make a comment in this public hearing, please raise your hand. That goes for those online as well. Okay, Mayor, I do not see any additional hands. I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? I move to close the public hearing. Is there a second? It's been moved by Deputy Mayor and seconded by Council Member Robinson. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes and the public hearing is closed.

So, City Manager, are we done with this part of our... We are complete unless the Council wishes to ask any questions.

Anyone has any questions? I think we are all great. We can start the first study session.

Great. Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council. I'm very excited to have our Development Services team up here this evening to give you an update on three primary things. First, the team's here to give you a look at what's coming in the development pipeline. They do that regularly. Second, you're going to hear some highlights of the key process improvements. And I want to say the department is working very hard to make these process improvements to help make it faster, smoother, more consistent for our customers in the development services arena. And the data is showing that that it's working. And lastly, some good news about a new program that's helping out small businesses through the permitting process. So thank you to Jake Hesselgeser, our acting director, who's here this evening, Greg Schrader, our assistant director, and Steph Collier, our program manager. And with that, I'll hand it over to Jake.

Thank you, city manager Carlson, good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, and council members. It's so exciting to be with you here this evening to share this development services update. THIS IS AN INFORMATIONAL UPDATE JUST ON THE ITEMS THAT CITY MANAGER CARLSON NOTED. OUR AGENDA FOR THIS EVENING WILL INCLUDE A BRIEF DEVELOPMENT UPDATE THAT GREG WILL PROVIDE. I'LL TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT OUR WORK PLAN AND WHAT WE'RE FOCUSED ON FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AND THEN WE'LL DIVE DEEPER INTO A COUPLE OF TOPICS, OUR SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM WHICH STEPH COLLIER WILL TALK ABOUT AND THEN I'LL ROUND US OUT WITH A LITTLE BIT OF INFORMATION ABOUT OUR GOVSTREAM AI PROJECT. WITH THAT, I WILL HAND IT OVER TO GREG FOR THE DEVELOPMENT UPDATE.

great thanks Jake good evening mayor deputy mayor council members it's a pleasure to be here so I will start With this graph, which illustrates our permit activity, the top line represents permit applications, the lower black line is issued permits. You see that in 2025, we reached a peak, and this year is trending very close to that same high level of activity, so that's great news. I wanted to include some photos of projects that are under construction. You're probably familiar with a number of these. The Pearl Apartments is the farthest along at the Silver Cloud site. Broadstone on 112th, Bosa Park on the east side of the downtown park on Bellevue Way. And then, of course, the Ani Project, a very large project on 106th. They have all broken ground with demolition and some excavation activity. And then I wanted to talk about permit timeline performance. The Local Project Review Act was modified by Washington Senate Bill 5290 in 2023, and it established these timelines that you see that relate to projects that do not require public noticing, that do have public noticing and last for 170 days, projects that have both public noticing and public hearing. The applications that we were required to report to the state on all met the shot clocks after the January 1st, 2025 implementation. That is, I will note, a small subset of all of the total permits that we processed, but that's, I think, also good news. We also noticed some increase in the response time from some of our applicants. I'd like to highlight what we call first review decisions. Our goal is for 80% of those decisions to meet the established targets. There's more information in the agenda memo about the targets and the types of projects that those apply to, but our performance in that regard did improve from 72% in 2025 to 82% in 2026. And we are continuing with very targeted emphasis in each review team on that. And with that, I'll turn it back to Jade for the work plan update.

Great. In your agenda materials this evening is attachment A, which is a pretty detailed look at our continuous improvement work plan, balancing across four different perspective areas. Wanted to start first by centering around customer feedback. We take in a lot of customer feedback through channels like the Bellevue Development Committee, our customer experience program, and while we do receive pretty high satisfaction ratings, We do hear ideas for process improvements and some of the top line themes include really specific improvement ideas and I'll share a couple highlights here in a minute. Also the desire to improve project management and coordination on the city side of things, really abstracting the regulatory complexity that applicants have to go through. We hear a lot of feedback around streamlining and simplifying permitting and definitely creating more consistent and predictable process. We also saw a lot of synergy across customer personas. So those who might be submitting a deck addition to all the way up to a high rise construction. So many of our improvement efforts are focused on delivering the best value for our customers. A few initiatives that we have underway right now are consolidated review pilot is targeting a new process for single family building permit applications. The early data from this is showing that we're able to cut provision cycles by an entire revision cycle, thus shrinking the amount of time that it takes for those permits to go through the system. When we complete the pilot, looking to perhaps scale that process improvement to other permit types to receive that same benefit. We're focused on a number of land use permitting process improvements, including developing templates for staff reports, as well as improving public facing information and balancing the workload across our land use division for entitlement permitting. We've hired an outside consultant, Matrix Consulting Group, to come in and do kind of an internal audit and needs assessment for us and develop a customer service training program. So this is really investing in our workforce and helping them develop the competencies and skills that they need to be successful in navigating a highly regulatory complex environment while delivering good customer service. On the technology front, I'll talk about GovStream AI in more detail in a minute. And then one other, which is our public facing dashboard project, which is aiming to increase transparency and accountability into much of the timeline data that Greg spoke about earlier. We're looking to launch this in quarter three and have that available for the public. And with that, I'll turn it to Steph to talk about our small business program.

Passing the baton here. It's great to be here tonight, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members. Last time I was at Council, I think, was about 20 years ago, so it's nice to be back in the seat here. If I had one picture to share with you about our new small business program and development services, it would be this one, because it illustrates teamwork, coaching, and empathy. In some ways, this little leaguer is like our small business customers. They are so energized and eager. eager to learn, eager to open their business. They're very optimistic, but they don't necessarily know about permitting. They need a coach. And what do we know about a great coach? A great coach helps us understand the rules. They help us walk through each step. They don't necessarily go to bat for us, but they make sure that we have everything we need to succeed. And that is precisely what this new service is for our small business customers. We want our small business customers to have the confidence to know what to expect, that they have clarity, and that we care about them, that we care and value that they have a successful project. So it's been a blast to have this program and to be able to build it out. What it looks like from an operational standpoint is this essentially a customer journey, and it really captures the first call to the grand opening. We have partnered with Economic Development. Yoshiko Ueda is our small business analyst. She essentially greets our small business customers and ensures that they not only receive these services but other services that the city and or region may offer our small businesses. She qualifies them, and the way we qualify is that you have fewer than 25 full-time employees and you make less than $5 million in annual recurring revenue. Once Yoshiko meets with them, I take the baton and I really work with this customer one-on-one in a personalized, dedicated way. The theme here is that this is very proactive. We have never worked with our customers in the pre-lease phase of their journey. So we are really there to help them and their real estate broker find a location that they can afford, that they understand what it's going to take to remodel that tenant space. Then once they find a location, we work with them and get them ready for the next leg of the race, which is essentially the permit review process. Before they apply, we make sure that they have all their answers squared away. Then when they're ready for construction, we do it all over again and prepare them for inspection. We have had great success so far, and we wouldn't be here at all without a great team. Internally, we have numerous cross-departmental partners who have helped us along the way. Within development services, we have dozens of staff who have essentially raised their hand and said, Steph, what can I do to help? Mini City Hall, we now offer office hours every Wednesday for walk-in customers to come join us and ask questions about small business services here in the city. Economic Development has indeed been a key partner for us, helping us build these services and get the customers to us as soon as possible. Externally, we also have been on the streets of Bellevue, forging partnerships with real estate brokers, small business bankers. The Chamber of Commerce now offers a small business discount on your membership. The Bellevue Fire Foundation has a starter kit for small businesses as well. And all of this to say that everybody is in the corner of the small business owner in Bellevue. We have had six months of data so far, and what the data is telling us is something we did hypothesize. that early, early engagement is really the way to go. The sooner we can work with our small business customers, the better. Diversity is real. The demand is also real. Each small business customer comes to us from different backgrounds, different experiences, and different exposure levels to the permitting process. But I can also say that those proactive services have been really key for us. One of our small business customers came to me mid during the review process. They are opening Taste Buds Kitchen in Kelsey Creek Park, or Kelsey Creek Plaza. They should be opening sometime in the next month or two. We started working with them during the inspection process, and this is the sentiment that Connor and Marta shared with us about the services. Our first international customers, Esther and Attila, Yoshiko and I actually met with them before they even landed a real estate agent, so that was very proactive. They are relocating their bakery from Budapest to Bellevue, so look for that bakery to open sometime in 2027. Attila is an award-winning and internationally known chocolatier, so it will be a really wonderful thing to see them open their shop in Bellevue. And I'll hand it back to Jake.

Great. Thanks, Steph. So to conclude us, I wanted to talk a little bit about our GovStream AI project, which has drawn a lot of attention from not only the council, but the public, the region, and even nationally. We have been focused on permit acceleration. And the approach that we've taken with GovStream is really a holistic approach, partnering with our IT department, and their staff who come here to City Hall and sit with our staff to understand the process and develop tools that really aimed at each phase of the process. So starting first, this graphic shows permit inquiries on the left-hand side. That's when people are asking us questions before they even file an application, the actual application process. We have aspirations of moving into plan review and inspections and code compliance after our first phase here. What we've deployed so far under permit inquiries is their product called Permit Guide, which is two AI assistants, an email assistant and a chat assistant. Each one of those is highly trained and integrated with our city system. So think about permit tracking system data, public records, GIS, all of the city codes so that we can surface information across multiple different systems in a very quick and efficient manner, thus drawing down on the time that staff have to take to handle those permit inquiries. always keeping a human in the loop under each one of those. We spend about 20,000 hours a year answering questions. So you can imagine if we could create a 30% efficiency gain, we could repurpose that human capital on higher value work, and that's the goal. We're working with them right now in the application and completeness phase, working on two AI assistants here, research assistant and application assistant. These will be public facing. Later this summer, we look to do kind of a soft launch of both of these to the public and just know that throughout this entire journey, when the public would be interfacing with this, really the aim here is ongoing two-way communication between the applicant and the builder, making it a more intuitive process for everyone. You might ask, what are some of the results here? We did do a bit of a pilot here for application assistant. We chose two different permit types, single family building permit, which is that top row, and then a tree removal permit. We ran over 500 permits through the GovStream AI tool. And in the current state, without any of the AI applied, we see about 22% of those new home applications coming in complete the first time. That means that we have to ask for more information. There's an initial correction cycle and such. 40% for tree removal permits. With the new intake system, through just a few iterations, we were able to increase that application quality to 67%. So a three times increase in terms of application quality. And really, you can imagine this is going to help move projects to approval weeks, if not even months sooner. So what's coming here in the future? The public launch that I mentioned, which will be a bit of a public preview working alongside mybuildingpermit.com and our other systems. We're not looking to replace anything at this point, but also looking to expand that intake guidance as we gain experience in these two permit types and begin to scale that to perhaps other permit types. Also, later here in the fall, we look to start to dive into the permit review phase of our partnership with Govstream AI, looking at tools that can really help the reviewers as they're going through documents and reviewing those sort of things. And really, the payoff here, again, is moving Bellevue permitting from things that take months towards weeks and even days in some instances. So with that, that concludes our presentation. Again, information only. Happy to answer any questions, take any comments that the Council may have.

Thank you so much, Jake, Greg, Steph. Nice seeing you. And also, I see Tony on the back end and Nick. Thank you for the whole team. I think moving from 72% to 82% on the first review target is really meaningful progress. Meeting all of the state shot clock is amazing. The small business programs warms my heart. And I think I was one of the fewest moment I was very proud was I was in a meeting with all of the other mayors and we were the only city that had the GovStream AI and the other mayors were looking at us like we are doing something right. So I wanted to appreciate you all for making our city being We are known for being innovative and you are an example of that. The other thing that I really appreciate when I was looking at the work plan was we are not just thinking about the speed, we are thinking about being predictable and also consistent from application to permit. So just want to say thank you. On that note, we'll start with Council Member Robinson.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree with what the Mayor just said. This is so gratifying to hear the results of, and I just want to thank everybody involved. I hear it from other cities and people who are applying for pre-admitting right now, and everybody sounds very positive. with all this change. So thank you. I just had two questions. I've had at least five designers reach out to me about wanting to have a small business here in Bellevue where they can showcase their fashions. And they're kind of starting with very little funding. And so just trying to figure out how we can support that style of business, maybe finding older or temporary shop fronts for them to use. I don't know what the answer is, but I would love if you could get back to me on what the options are for those individuals. And then we saw in New York the success of these pop-ups and having an area where people can do that. So I'd really love to hear from you someday what we can do to encourage that and support it.

Happy to get back to you with information. I will say the next leg of the journey beyond the small business program for staff here is also to help us activate public space and that sort of thing. So we're beginning to work with our community development department on how we might do that and streamline those type of activations, which could help with some of the pop-up stuff that you mentioned.

That'd be great. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Council Member Smataviria.

Thank you for the presentation, and good to see you again, Steph. I just want to give a couple of praise, because as soon as she was put on the ground, we had a meeting right away, and she reached out to talk to brokers, just ready to go. So I really appreciate you making a huge difference, because I think that when you all work together, removing the uncertainty and unknown, when you invest majority people's capital into a space, it takes a lot of effort, right? And then because the city is really prioritizing that, It makes this place so much more attractive, invest. And I love, can I just, I have, let me see. Yeah, I think I don't have, I have only two questions about the slides. The one of the slide 10 is talk about customer service, the workforce training part. Um, can we, can you give me an example? Like, is that like a training, uh, upscaling the skill set so they can, um, external facing the customer answering question better? What type of program are we thinking about?

Yeah, so this is good, good question council member. This is kind of a multifaceted thing. The first phase here is the consultants helping us kind of reinforce some of the standard operating procedures that we have today and also identifying where we have gaps. So some of the things that we deal with include, You know, conflicts, managing through conflict, enforcing regulations is kind of fraught with that. So how do you handle that with care and empathy and work with the customer to find a solution and get to a yes? The initial answer might be a no, but how do we get to yes? So that's really that kind of mindset. We're also looking to embed this in our ongoing onboarding program. So when new staff come in, this is not just a one and done type of program. And then beyond that, they're looking to help us develop new standard operating procedures, perhaps that we don't have today. So, yeah.

I think that's great. And I believe that the first initial interaction, first impression is everything, right? So when people ask me for help and they feel they can be heard and respected, also we're eager to help, they always most likely going to come back repeatedly to make the process more and giving really great feedback too. My next question is about, there's a slide talking about there's a diversity of the small business coming to town, which is so exciting. Thank you for bringing great chocolate to town. That's amazing. I do have a question about if there is a, if when small business, I mean, every space could be different, right? And every industry could be different. If there's something that we haven't seen before in design or process or how the HVAC is built, What does that look like so we don't delay the whole process still moving forward, even if it's something like we maybe have never seen before in the building design?

So we do offer some alternate pathways. And maybe I'd ask Greg to talk about this a little bit from the building code side of things. But the same type of alternate pathway that Greg will explain are allowed through some of our other codes. So Greg, do you want to talk about alternate methods?

Happy to. Appreciate the question. Most of the construction codes have provisions that allow designers to provide alternatives that equal or exceed the intent of the code. And so it's sometimes what we might call a performance based code, and it is a process of some back and forth and evaluation and questions and research. But that path does exist to allow that type of innovative approach.

Thank you. And I think that's it. But last question is about AI. Can I ask, please? OK. So because it's making our work so much more efficient, and because of that, would you say that our staff now has so much more efficiency added, now they can actually help more customers because of the AI? Do you feel that way?

The capability is certainly there, and we've seen the efficiency gains. What we're working on right now is scaling the use across all of our staff. We just rolled these two first AI assistants out not too long ago, so staff are getting used to those, where they fit in their daily workload. The goal really is to create that front-end efficiency of about 30%. In the small-scale pilot, we're able to see that level of efficiency, but seeing on the broad scale, we're not quite there yet, but we do expect to get there at some point.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor. So I looked at the presentation, and our stated target of 11 weeks for utilities and eight weeks for major projects is well ahead of the Washington statewide average. And it also sets us up on the national stage, where we are ahead of cities like Austin, Texas, and Charlottesville, North Carolina. Obviously, we're going off of this first review and not issuance. But even benchmarked with that caveat, According to my research, we are killing it. So this is really, really exciting to see. And I have municipal friends in Massachusetts that have reached out to ask about this implementation of Gulfstream AI, which was before my... time here on the council, but I'm hoping we can produce some scholarship about it because it's scalable solutions that have provided excellent results. So thank you so much for everything that you're doing. And the small business programs are great, especially the office hours. I've heard from a number of folks who are interested in getting started here. So just making yourself accessible, efficient. I have nothing to say but praise. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Councilwoman Ewenhouse.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, this is an exciting update. I 100% agree that we're making a lot of great progress to be more efficient, be more, I think, the speed and the predictability really, really important and paramount. Love the talk about the new tools, especially AI. I, too, speaking at NLC, was on a panel. No other city had implemented. They were talking about it. They were interested in it, but they actually hadn't implemented anything yet. And I know we're taking, I would say, a very measured approach to see how AI can help us with the permitting process, which is great, and we should continue to do that. And I love the... that partnership with GovStream and as well as your plan to continue to look and implement additional technology when needed. I also like to hear just a little bit more in terms of how we're tracking success as well. I think speed is one of them, absolutely, and thanks to the state, we're given some clear parameters there in terms of how quick we need to get through this permitting process. But the other part of that, too, and I think the concierge program, which I love and have been an advocate for for years, I'm so glad that that's fully launched and the early results look great. It's early still. I think we could still learn from it. In fact, I'm even going to bring up an example that I would like to get your thoughts on. So, because I found it kind of curious that one of the examples that you used, the taste bud examples, the taste buds kitchen, they had approached me and I think the city manager as well about their frustration with the process. And in fact, we were trying to put them into a situation where they had to pay for a parking study. It got resolved. But tell me, what did we learn from that and how do we improve going forward so that clearly they were happy with the end result because they provided, you know, I would say a good quote and certainly they were aware that probably we're going to talk about them this evening. But what did we learn from that?

Actually, they weren't aware we were going to talk about them this evening. Oh, okay. All right. And that is one of the reasons we included them because I caught them mid-tailspin And that is not what we want for an optimal experience for our small business.

Oh, so they were not in the program yet when they ran into that issue. Gotcha. Okay.

Correct. And so because I was on board and building the program, then that's how they got on my radar because I am available and certainly helpful in an ombuds type role at that point. So when I met with Connor and Marta, I asked them what was their experience and what what can we do going forward to get you to where we need to go? And so that's where our partnership began. But that's also part of my role is we have yet to catch everyone at the pre-lease stage.

No, but that's a great story. That's a success story right there that we were able to turn that around. And I don't believe they ended up having to do that part. They did not. Good, because they were shut down for a certain period of time. And every small business owner can understand, every day counts, every hour counts that they're not open. They're not having revenue come in. So I know that certainly that was a stressful time for them. Very. How do we intercept those earlier? Is it when they first make the permit submittal, do we get a sense immediately if they meet that criteria, if they are a smaller business and we offer our services, or do they have to request it? Go ahead.

Happy to sing some notes on that as well. One more thing about Connor and Marta, we also, for them, they we ask them for advice, right? So that we can incorporate their feedback and improve the process going forward so that we can learn from those experiences. So the outreach to the real estate brokers and property managers and the small business bankers, that has been instrumental in us getting to small business customers when they are looking for their leased tenant space. We ideally want to work with them before they even sign a lease because we don't want customers signing a lease where their use is not permitted or they get into a tenant space where construction costs are cost prohibitive for them. So that's why the outreach to brokers and bankers and property managers. So if you have any advice of folks you'd like me to meet with, please let me know and I'm happy to reach out to them. If, however, we miss them at the pre-lease stage, then staff are also very aware of these services and they are saying, Steph, I think, you know, and then we get them into the queue and start working with them wherever they are.

So what, and that's a great story and I love that and I love the constant improvement. That is fantastic. Just wondering, what other feedback loops do we have to continuously look at improving or changing or adapting if needed? What other feedback loops are there available?

Maybe I'll offer a couple of comments on this one. Certainly our customer experience program, we receive a lot of feedback through that. And that is data that we collect that tells us how well are we doing. We do have aspirations, while you don't see it in the work plan right now, of making that data more publicly accessible so the community can see what we're hearing and then how we're responding to that and how we're using that to prioritize our work plan. So that's one way that we get feedback. Certainly we hear it from staff too, so from an internal perspective. they're the best equipped to understand where are those rep points and how do we resolve those. So concepts like really good project management, single point of contact, things that we're trying out with our small business program are showing really good success. That consolidated review pilot that I mentioned, part of the success on that is we have a single person orchestrating all of the review comments and dealing with the applicants. So those are concepts that are coming from real feedback loops and that we're deploying and then hoping to iterate and improve over time.

Do they have an opportunity to rate the quality of customer service that they received?

They do, and I'd be happy to provide you with our survey comments or questions that we provide to applicants.

Okay, fantastic. And what is our goal for that?

We target 80% customer satisfaction. So that's either across everything or very satisfied. So, yeah. And I think we're at about 82% right now, I want to say.

So similar to the timeline. To the timeline. Yeah, I was going to say. That's not bad. Okay. All right. Great. Well, I look forward to that number continually to go up and improve. And very excited about this moving forward. So thank you for all your work. Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Council Member Nieuwenhuis. Council Member Bhargava.

Thank you. Really great presentation. A lot of optimism. Great work across the board as well. Small business support or permitting improvements, the data is telling. So really appreciate that. Let me start with just a couple things on the small business piece, which I think is really great. I love the idea of a concierge program. I like the idea of proactively also doing work. One question I have on that is, one of the biggest challenges that folks talk about when they think about a small business is understanding, is it feasible? Can we do something? If I do something, I can do many things. What should I be doing? And they come with choices. Do we have anything like that in the concierge program that Allah understands Bellevue's demand curves on small business opportunities? And do we put that out in some way?

We have a small business development center. He's an advisor, DIO, and we partner very closely with him. So he has one-on-one consultation meetings with any small business. This is a no-cost service. If they have even an idea, he will meet with them and help them understand the market, what a business plan requires, et cetera. So we partner with him when we see small businesses come across our, we refer them to him.

Yeah, I think that's great because if folks come in, like economic development will bring in likely successful small businesses to come and flourish, which I think is really great. But then organically growing small business opportunities within the city will be a really big win. So I applaud you for doing that and encourage you to grow that further. On the permitting side, one question and one sort of thought that I wanted to share. Question is, it's really great to see the data. So when we think about the parameters, it's cost, quality, customer experience. But in the public sector, in the way we work, we have to think about access and equity as well. So clearly defining metrics around those pieces of how we look at each of them, I think would be really important. Councilman Newenhouse is pushing on the quality metrics or the CX metrics. I think it'll be really great when the next time we see this to see beyond the productivity and time reductions, but also to see the real measurable metrics and outcomes on the CX and potentially on how we're making sure that these tools are accessible and easy for everyone to use. The question I have is, how are we accounting for a mix of projects? Because I know we've seen a lift in the productivity and outcomes in terms of meeting shot clocks and all of that. But the change can happen year on year in the types of projects you get in. And do we slice and dice in that way? And are we sure we're accounting for mix appropriately?

So if I understand your question correctly, Councilmember, I think you're talking about the complexity and the scale and how do we resource for that and deal with the ebbs and flows?

And how do we make sure that our rate of improvements are accounting for that change as well? So we're... confident that the rate is as good as it gets?

Great question. So it's not an exact science, but we have a pretty good methodology in terms of the way that we forecast development activity. We look at economic indicators during the region, partner with our finance and asset management department to understand what's happening with the broader economic trends. And then we develop a forecast each year, which we're usually within a couple of percentage points of And that forecast goes all the way down to the individual project level. So the actual permit types and the amount of time that we spend on that. So we have a pretty good idea of what the data is telling us. We also resource with not only internal staff, but also outside consultants so that we can kind of shave the peaks off of workload as things are coming in the door. And we might be going through a staffing change or turnover or trying to fill a hard to fill position. So those are a couple of ways that we kind of account for those things.

Got it. Last comment, really. As you think about your next agent beyond the readiness check and the other things, you go into your research for staff, I think one of the things you could consider looking into is something that I've seen Seattle do really well, is that they have a, I'm trying to remember the name, I think it's called Bluebeam, which they use, which essentially creates a centralized repository of comment collection across teams that really simplifies this process for them and has improved productivity significantly. I don't have to say that's the vendor, but I'm just saying that those are the kinds of opportunities beyond just an agent that might be worth looking at.

Appreciate that feedback.

Thank you so much, Council Member Bargabo. Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you also for all the hard work that you and your team have done to make development services increasingly more customer focused. I think the results speak for themselves and they're really quite impressive. Just a few questions here for you. Just kind of digging into this, I'm curious, what are the main factors contributing to the current high volumes of permit applications and issued permits?

Great question. So last year we saw the high applications really underpinned by single family. So a new single family and some of the new middle housing typology and also single family reinvestment. That little bit of a dip that you've seen this year as a result of the residential market on the single family front, we haven't seen quite as many of those applications come in. We are seeing more of the major projects move out to construction right now. I think we've issued over, gosh, I want to say, $600 to $700 million in construction valuation already this year. Greg shared a few of those projects. So starting to see not the economic conditions are perfect, but some of those developers moving those projects out to construction. So those are a few of the trends that we're seeing in the data.

In the agenda memo, it's stated that amongst other things that the pace of permit applications is being driven by investments in new single family housing, residential reinvestment projects, and new applications stemming from the Wilberton vision implementation land use code. And I'm just curious if you could provide some context regarding Wilberton and why the LUCA has been so effective at spurring growth.

Well, certainly the Wilberton Lucas brought in a number of new applications under the catalyst program. So we filled up that catalyst program very quickly. And obviously that was a policy decision that the council made to bring in that multifamily housing during tough economic conditions. So certainly that collaborative process and developing the recommendations with stakeholders, the planning commission, and the council really led to that. being a code that brought in those new applications fairly quickly. I think we've seen now about 700 of those units now file for building permit applications. So it's not just the entitlement phase. We're starting to see a few of those actually move into kind of the construction permitting phase.

Looking ahead, which process improvements that are currently included in the DS work plan or it could be added to the current work plan could help us realize the most positive impact on speeding up our development review pipeline.

I think it's a couple of different factors here. It's and I'll maybe borrow a line from the city manager from the other day, which is high human touch and high tech put together. So really ensuring that we have humans that are equipped with the skills and competencies to deliver really good customer service, leveraging technology to create efficiencies where we might see those. And then also doing the hard work of process improvement, which Throwing technology at something doesn't always solve the issue. You also have to look at the process behind that. So I think it's a multitude of those different process improvements that we're working on in connection with one another to achieve the results that we're looking for.

Also wanted to mention, I really like the employee learning and growth perspective section of the DS work plan. And I'm pleased to see that all four categories will be in the implementation stage by the first of the year. As was mentioned in the presentation, you've made significant and impressive improvements in overall departmental effectiveness with a nearly 14% improvement in permit timelines for first reviews. And I think that there's really widespread support and appreciation for all of your efforts. And, you know, like a lot of good things, I think there's a desire for additional improvements. And I just want to recognize the impactful improvements for sure that you have made, but more of a good thing is good. So please keep up that effort. I think now certainly is the time for us to keep our foot on the gas and to keep pushing for greater efficiencies and quicker approvals. But excellent work. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Can we go to... Go ahead. Yeah.

Councilmember Hamilton, of the 700 units seeking permits for Wilberton, how many are affordable?

I don't have that information, but I'm happy to get it to you.

Okay, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you. Can we go to the slide seven, please? Again, the numbers looks amazing that we are meeting all of the shot clocks. Can you tell me about that 120% that average time outside city review increase, 124%? What is driving that increase?

The amount of time spent by applicants responding to comments. So we've seen this in recent years. It's been kind of a trend. and it kind of matches the economic trends. So projects that aren't moving as quickly because the applicants are slowing down their process and responding to us. So last year, though, we saw a pretty big increase in that kind of trend.

So that's awesome. And when you have that dashboard that you mentioned in a slide, I guess 10, don't go there, but you are going to see that in dashboard, like how much time lapse, how much is applicant time? How much is city time? Everything should be there.

That is the goal. I will say that our consolidated review pilot for building permits is really essential to achieving that. Currently right now for many of our construction permits, the process is not consolidated. So the data is really hard to report on and separate that applicant time and city time. So that process improvement will help us do that across the board for all the permits. But that is the goal.

That's amazing. Now from improved from 72% to 82%, again, amazing job. What's... does the remaining 18% look like? Are those missing by a few days or a few months? Is it in different permitting type? Can you tell us something about that 18%?

So part of the reason we target that 80% goal is to deal with what we would consider edge cases. And those edge cases could be a result of us having a short-term resource challenge. So it could be on the city side of things. It could also be the complexity of the application combined with the application quality, leading to more time that the reviewers actually have to spend reviewing that. Hopefully, with some of the improvements that we're making, like Dove Stream is a good example, we can help to improve that application quality so we can kind of minimize those type of things. Happy to follow up with more specific data on the actual permit types themselves and provide that to you.

That would be great. My next question is the work plan plays a strong emphasis on consistency in code interpretation. Are you going to document that, like what happened if one reviewer changed from a different reviewer, one reviewer retired, you have a new reviewer? How are you going to bring that consistency on how we are interpreting the code?

One of the main ways is developing really good, strong rigor around standard operating procedures so that we don't rely as much on institutional knowledge. We've had really good SOPs or standard operating procedures in the past, but maybe not to the level that we would like to see them. So staff training, of course, is another thing that was really essential to that.

Thank you. Now I have some AI questions, and I think the first one is when we are moving with AI. So in the work that plan, you had AI moving, technology modernization moving, and as you just right now mentioned, we are updating our standard operating procedure at the same time. Is there any sequencing, or is something should happen first, then we bring the AI automation, or how do you kind of look at that sequencing?

Great question. I think the work plan lays out a balanced approach and we did take into consideration kind of the change management associated with that as well as where would we maybe need to do a process improvement first, like the consolidated review pilot before we maybe institute that more broadly across all of the permits. So really doing like small scale pilot and that sort of thing. With the GovStream AI initiative is it's really an iterative process. So it's not a kind of one and done type of scenario. So we're looking at both process changes as well as implementing the technology kind of simultaneously and trying to understand where the challenges and then where the benefits and then how do we scale that over time.

So thank you. Can you go to a slide 19? I like that view a lot. And then I think my last AI question is on that. So we did permitting inquiries and you have to permit guide and some chat assistant. Then we are at the application completeness and document quality. How long does it take to finish the whole process for you all as of right now?

Great question. Currently, right now, in our partnership with Govstream, we've covered the permit inquiry bucket application and the plan review bucket. We do have aspirations to think about how do these tools benefit our inspection staff as well in the future. I would cast this as probably a two to three year transformation project. We will be rolling out these tools, the application completeness tool, and then hopefully the plan review tool maybe by the first part of next year. So it's going to be a very iterative process where we're rolling these out and then learning and adapting over time. Very similar to the way we approach paperless permitting. That particular initiative took 20 years from vision to actually realizing this is going to be much faster than that.

That's awesome. Everything is fast these days. If you, again, I am talking about the quality that we do everything in the city of Bellevue. if you wanted to keep that quality, doing it very well, is there anything that you think you can do, Vic as a council can do, the city staff can do, that these two or three years become one and a half to, again, I don't want to put numbers, but become faster?

Certainly we do need to balance quality as well as the community's capacity to handle change and also staff capacity to handle change. I think what you see before you in the work plan is an optimized work plan that takes into consideration both speed, quality, and then just the change management associated with so many initiatives. So we're moving at that optimal speed while also recognizing that we still need to have commitment to quality and the initiatives that we're moving forward. The council has been very supportive in the past as we go through the budget process. That's really the opportunity for kind of setting and providing us with the resources that we need. So as we move into that process, we're working with the city manager, of course, and developing preliminary budget recommendations that would be back before you later this year.

That was a very politically correct answer, but you didn't answer. So just think about it. My whole point is this council would love to see our permitting become number one in the whole country. So if there is anything that the council can do to expedite that, again, I understand change management, I understand quality that we have in Bellevue, I understand the whole responsibility that we have toward AI. What do we see that we stop even using AI? That could be something that you are considering. So all of that considered, if we can do anything to help expedite that, please let us know. My last comment is something that I think both Councilman Newhouse and Bar Galba mentioned. I also want to see on the small business program, we see some metrics that shows what are we doing after the lease is done, after our help is done, and see have we done the quality of work that we think we are doing. Like, was that list good or bad after it's done, after now the person is doing the lease? Is there was any permitting problem? Is there any costly delays? Like, what are some of those output metrics that shows that we are doing what we are intended to do? So if we can have those, that would be great. But again, overall, as I mentioned earlier, you guys make me proud whenever I go, wherever I go. So thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's 7.29, so we can come back 7.30, 7.40. Great, we are back and we have our second study session. City Manager, would you please introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council. Tonight's study session is on the Great Neighborhoods Program. That is a link between our comprehensive plan and neighborhood planning, and it allows the communities to engage in planning that helps shape their future. Staff is here tonight to ask you to initiate the next two neighborhood planning efforts for 26 and 27. And with us tonight, we have Tara Johnson, our Planning Director, and Zachary Lucan, our Senior Planner from Community Development. And I will hand it over to Tara.

Thank you, City Manager Carlson. Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. Community Development staff are very pleased to be here to present and start discussion with you on our next iteration of the Great Neighborhoods Program. So tonight, as City Manager Carlson mentioned, we're requesting Council to consider providing direction for us to initiate comprehensive plan amendments to update the next two neighborhoods based on prior Council direction. So that's Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish, as well as confirming future program iterations. So tonight we'll start off, provide some background on the green neighborhoods program. We'll also talk about the overall neighborhood planning process, which some of you are familiar with. We'll talk about the proposed scope included as part of the plan update, and then our approach to community engagement. And then finally conclude with requesting council direction tonight. So a little part, some additional context. So Bellevue's comprehensive plan is really divided into two volumes. Volume one, which covers citywide policies, really serves as our guiding document. It provides guidance for both capital facilities as well as general policies about how the city grows and develops over a long range timeline. IT ALSO REALLY REFLECTS THE COMMUNITY'S VALUES AND ALSO PROVIDES DIRECTION ON HOW WE PLAN FOR JOBS, HOUSING AND GROWTH. VOLUME TWO INCLUDES OUR NEIGHBORHOOD AREA PLANS AND THEY'RE REALLY INTENDED TO IMPLEMENT A LOT OF OUR POLICIES AND GOALS THAT ARE CONTAINED IN VOLUME ONE BUT AT A MORE LOCAL SCALE. So with that, I'm going to turn things over to Zach. He's going to walk through the majority of the presentation, and we're going to start off with talking about some of the program goals.

Thank you, Tara. So the primary objective of the Great Neighbors Program is to develop neighborhood area plans that are relevant, community driven, and reflect both citywide and local priorities. We conduct this planning process collaboratively, engaging residents in a meaningful way to ensure that their input shapes the outcomes. Beyond updating plans, this program seeks to expand community capacity for leadership, fostering a sense of ownership that extends beyond the planning process. By aligning these plans with the city's comprehensive plan, we ensure that they support broader citywide goals, as mentioned, like housing affordability, equitable growth, and enhanced public spaces. And just a couple examples of how these plans had resulted in some real world outcomes and are informing future projects is that They are informing our current parks and open space plan through our engagement through the Eastgate and Factorio process that we're conducting right now. And this is also supplementing some of that more citywide engagement that the Parks Department has been doing by getting these local insights through concept maps and policy. And then the neighborhood area plans also help Bellevue meet requirements for countywide center designations, strengthening the city's eligibility for regional transportation funding that supports future infrastructure investments. So as you know, Bellevue is made up of 16 neighborhood areas, each containing several smaller communities, creating a diverse and dynamic city fabric. In 2018, council initiated the Great Neighborhoods Program to enhance these areas through updated neighborhood plans. And strong neighborhoods are really the foundation of Bellevue's quality of life. They play a crucial role in building an engaged community and social capital. Since the program's inception, we have completed neighborhood plans for Northeast and Northwest Bellevue, Newport and Crossroads. And again, we look forward to bringing the draft Eastgate and Victoria neighborhood area plans to council this fall for review. So these plans will build on past successes and address new challenges identified through extensive community engagement. Through the previous plan iterations, staff have learned that community really wants more substantive outcomes in the neighborhood planning process and will continue to implement some of these improvements relating to urban design, through new mapping and visualization tools, through community engagement and enhanced collaboration with community groups, and through the plan development process and closer coordination with subject matter experts from across the city. And the neighborhood area planning process is divided into four phases, discover, define, refine, and adopt. In the discover phase, the team will establish the foundation for the planning process by engaging communities to identify neighborhood area values, priorities, opportunities, and challenges, while validating our understanding of existing conditions there. We will provide accessible engagement opportunities through interactive project kickoff, presentations to neighborhood groups, and participation at community events to build awareness and encourage broad participation early in the process. Then during our define phase, we will engage communities to identify and affirm the key policy envisioning elements that should be included in the draft plan. In the refine phase, we will have those complete draft plans for community and board and commissions review to provide feedback on. And then staff will incorporate this feedback into the final plans, which will return to planning commission once more for review before advancing to council for consideration and action during the adopt phase in the fall. So the scope of neighborhood area plans touch upon three major areas. The first is the full update to the neighborhood area plan and any remaining portions of former sub area plans to be consistent and supplement the city wide policies in volume one of the comprehensive plan around topics such as land use, transportation, parks, climate and the environment. The second is urban design, which focuses on shaping the physical environment of the community. And in the context of neighborhood area planning, this means identifying strategies to improve the design, function, and experience of public spaces so that they are welcoming, safe, and accessible, and really reflect the needs and character of the community. And then the third is land use. And this sets the direction for future growth as reflected by the comprehensive plans future land use map, whose designations broadly describe the buildings and uses that are envisioned for each type of land use. And the neighborhood area plans themselves are organized into subsections that provide updated policy on enhancing different neighborhood assets. Each subsection includes the overarching goal and related policies that align with the overall vision statement for the neighborhood. The first of these sections is neighborhood identity. This works to preserve and strengthen the unique character, culture, and history that defines each neighborhood. Then we have mixed use in neighborhood centers. This works to create vibrant, accessible destinations that provide housing, jobs, services, and community amenities. Community gathering spaces works to expand opportunities for people to connect by enhancing and creating welcoming indoor and outdoor gathering spaces. Then mobility and access works to improve safe, convenient, and connected travel options for people of all ages and abilities. And lastly, environment works to protect and enhance natural resources and open spaces that support healthy communities and Bellevue's city in a park identity. Then we have urban design. And again, this is about shaping neighborhoods so they are welcoming, connected, and enjoyable places to live. The neighborhood area plan will use community input to identify opportunities to improve public spaces, strengthen neighborhood identity, and guide future investments. And community members will help shape these ideas through interactive workshops so they can share their priorities, explore design concepts, and envision the future of the neighborhood. These are also helpful as they inform the city's functional plans, as I had mentioned. And together, we will work to develop two different types of concept maps. An example is here shown on the screen from Newport. The first of these is the gathering spaces map. This works to identify opportunities for parks, plazas, community hubs, and other welcoming places where people can meet, relax, and build community. And then the second is neighborhood connectivity, which is kind of our transportation element. And this works to identify opportunities to improve connections through the neighborhoods so that people can more easily and safely reach those everyday destinations. Then again, we have our land use element, which helps us plan for that future growth through evaluating and updating land use designations to reflect community conditions, community needs, and Bellevue's broader growth goals. And this also works to really enhance neighborhood vitality by considering land use changes that help create and strengthen third places where people can gather, connect, and build community. And throughout our process, inclusive and equitable engagement is really at the heart of everything we do. Ensuring that all community members, especially historically underrepresented groups, have meaningful opportunities to share their experiences, priorities, and ideas. And we do this by meeting people where they're at, using a range of outreach strategies, including community partnerships, events, surveys, and online tools to build relationships and gather input that reflects the true diversity of each neighborhood. So as we look ahead to planning for Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish, we recognize that these are very distinct communities with unique needs, opportunities, and challenges. We've already done some really informative early engagement and relationship building, which has taught us a lot about these areas. To start, Lake Hills is actually Bellevue's largest neighborhood area by population and has our largest percent of Spanish-speaking residents. It's known for its thriving neighborhood centers and third places, such as Lake Hills Village, shown on the slide here. It has a strong neighborhood identity with diverse and engaged residents and community organizations, and has exceptional parks and schools. At the same time, we've heard that there's challenges experienced there around pedestrian safety and flooding. And we really want to be aware of this and include this in our dialogue with community moving forward. When we look at West Lake Sammamish, this is predominantly a single family neighborhood and has a high percentage of residents 65 plus. It's known for its welcoming and connected community, a scenic residential character, and really wonderful parks and access to nature and especially the shoreline. Again, we've heard there's some challenges already around traffic and pedestrian connectivity. And we're excited to bring the Great Neighborhoods Program to these communities to work together to shape a future that is more livable, connected, and resilient for those who live, work, play, and go to school there. And as we begin our process for Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish, we do want to look ahead to our future iterations. We want to start by affirming the direction council provided last year to conduct updates in Woodridge and West Bellevue in 2027 and 28. And we are now seeking council direction to proceed with bridal trails in 2028 to 29. And as a note here, we're recommending updating only one neighborhood area plan that year to ensure that staff has capacity to conduct work necessary to comply with recent state and regional planning mandates. and I'll hand it back over to Tara.

With that, that concludes our presentation.

We're requesting direction that council consider directing staff to initiate work on comprehensive plan amendments to update Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish neighborhood area plans, and also confirm our proposed future program iterations.

Thank you, both Tara and Zachary. Council Member Bargaba, we'll start with you.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So let me just first start by appreciating the work that community development does. You know, one of my favorite sayings is, you know, planning is a triumph of logic and engagement over dumb luck. And you make that happen. So, you know, it's really tremendous. I also really am excited for Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish's neighborhoods to go through this process and all of the great outcomes this will drive for those neighborhoods in the future and the opportunities and alignment with the comprehensive plan. So just gratitude to you and the full team and also the great work the Planning Commission continues to do in partnership with that. So shout out for them as well. I only have one question really. Based on all of the work that's been done for other neighborhood plans that we've built and what you're going to do here, already planned in terms of engagement as you laid out, How will we make sure that the inputs we get for this planning process go beyond the usual engaged set of residents and community members, but are truly reaching a much broader swath of people to collect that input and create that engagement? What are the mechanisms, tools, and processes you plan to put in place, and what are learnings from past experiences?

Yeah, I think we touched on a couple of those aspects as part of our presentation. There have been some really good lessons learned. Our first two neighborhoods were done during the COVID era, so a lot of virtual meetings. And we've really expanded our approach. I'll let Zach go into more details on some of the specifics of our various forms of engagement. We also have a cultural outreach assistance, and that's been really successful with really reaching those diverse communities and I'd say folks that don't typically participate. So those are some of our ongoing strategies. We've seen a lot more participation. We do both virtual or rather online surveys as well as workshops. Our urban design workshops are really exciting. With Eastgate and Factorio, we've actually did a number of smaller workshops and focus groups and went to different parts of Eastgate and Factorio and found those really successful. We also did business walks, and we'll talk more about that when we bring those Neighborhood plans back Zach, was there anything more you wanted to add on?

Yeah, so, I mean, I think our, our human services and housing folks are really a great way to get in tap with these communities. We've already had a couple of really good early conversations talking about partnerships, doing presentations and workshops at these places. Potentially a partnership with youth side services, they do a lot of really good work for in need youth and families specifically our Spanish speaking population. Similarly, Jubilee reach another fantastic organization, providing critical resources. We might be having an event. They're definitely ongoing partnerships and really getting the word out, making sure that we're doing things in language in a relevant way. It is appropriate. We have Hope Link. We've had an early conversation with them. And then I'm going to be in Sammamish High School. I'm going to be in Big Picture School doing planning workshops, doing stuff in language, really making sure that we're trying to hit the full swath of folks there. In addition, of course, to our important neighborhood associations and the big players, we want to make sure that all those other folks are really in on the ground floor as we build out the engagement plan. It's not an afterthought. It's not something we learned about halfway through. It's an integral foundational element of this process.

And I'll just touch on, I believe staff were at the Lake Hills picnic recently, and so we've really already started engaging with the neighborhood associations and really connecting with the community.

Yeah, no, I really appreciate that being in the picnic was actually a great, great idea and saw a lot of engagement as well there. So I appreciate that. And actually, I'd made some notes on ideas to share with you, but you are ahead of the game as students. And the idea of using community partners and organizations that actually work within the community seems like you've sort of laid out. So I have no better suggestions, but I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, Councillor Bargello.

Councillor Nunez. Thank you, Mayor.

As a proud Lake Hills resident, glad we could weigh in on this this evening. You know, this is an opportunity, I think, always to enhance existing neighbourhoods and maintain the unique characteristics of each neighborhood. And it's such a great opportunity to engage with the residents, hear directly from them. Because I think this goes beyond just what we take in in terms of comprehensive plan amendments, et cetera. It's really the kind of get in the weeds in terms of what's happening in every neighborhood. And speaking of that, I wanted to mention something that Steve brought up earlier during oral communications. It would be great if the Lake Hills Neighbor Association could play some kind of role as we move this out to identify and invite potential neighborhood leaders that would like to be a part of the neighborhood association. This is not unique to Lake Hills neighborhood association. Every neighborhood association at some point is gonna have turnover, right? So to help the neighborhood associates become stronger by identifying people who would like to that might be engaged with this, but hey, let's let them know that they can stay engaged. There's other ways to do that through a neighborhood association. So if there's a way to do that, I think that would be fantastic. going to go to a question about you mentioned about the capacity and I'd like to understand that just a little bit more in terms of we've been we've been in this kind of the sequence of two neighborhoods a year and now as I saw the memo and you mentioned the PowerPoint as well we're just going to go to one due to well that's what I want to know more about because it does feel a little maybe not as equitable as it could be that we've been going through two neighborhoods and now it's just going to be bridal trails. Not saying there would be, but there could be some apprehension about bridal trails getting all of staff's time and attention on their neighborhood, but we had to share that attention when it came to Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish Hills. Can you just dive into that a little bit and share what it is that's driving that, what the issues with staff or capacity is and how we can address that? And is there still an ability to change the maybe, you know, just bridal trails? Is that just a suggestion or is there still an opportunity to adjust to ensure two neighborhoods next year as well?

Actually, let me go back to that slide so we can talk through that a little bit. So for 28-29, staff's recommendation was bridal trails. And one of the reasons is we have the TOD legislation, so 1491. And that staff is just starting to scope what that entails with development services. as there'll be potentially comp plan amendments, definitely code amendments, and so a number of us sub areas could potentially be amended as part of that 1491 effort. So it'll be bridal trails, but there'll be a lot of other amendments citywide that are also happening just to respond to 1491. Just to respond to 1491, okay, okay.

But certainly, you know, defer to Council if Council wants to provide direction for us to... Well, it could be just a follow-up in terms of the staff requirements, what staff would be for as it relates to 14, was it 91? 1491, that's the TOD transit order. To have just a greater understanding of that, I think, and you can follow up on that would be great. But I'd love to say in that cadence too, in terms of to each time. Versus it's just gonna take us longer to get through all of the neighborhoods right in the city. So So, you know every neighborhood as I said is unique with unique characteristics, but Given that neighborhood plans right cannot conflict with city-wide policy or our growth strategy for example what boundaries or maybe expectations are you kind of, I guess, making folks aware of when shaping this plan and this direction and the type of feedback that we are looking for or you will be looking for?

Zach, do you want to answer that?

Sure. I mean, the focus of these plans are really neighborhood entity public spaces, things that the city has control over or that we can use partnerships that we can build and leverage to influence. So certainly, we don't look at things around private property. There's certainly a lot of other going programs, some of our functional plans that already have influence or control to kind of more of those niche topic areas. And we don't want to provide direction that would conflict with that or have really entertain conversations that are going to lend themselves kind of going in the rabbit hole of things that just are kind of not within scope. So I think just really outlining upfront what it is that we can and can't do. I think giving a nod, it's helpful to provide examples of things that we've done in the past. But, I mean, I think that's, it's always a really tough conversation because we hear from people early on. We have some open ended questions, especially in our visioning process, and people are going to say a lot of different things. But I think the other thing is that we're able to, because we're, you know, have a one city approach here, the city of Bellevue. really pass along some of the input that we get, things that are out of our control, out of our scope to other departments, other working groups, other partners within the city who do have work programs that can truly align with and address various challenges that we hear.

Well, I think it's also just an opportunity, right, to educate and to help people understand, you know, how we, you know, develop policy at the city level, why certain decisions were made or why they weren't. You know, I'd be prepared to answer middle housing-type questions as well as you're doing all your engagement. But that's a good thing. So the memo mentioned a successful community-led urban design pilot in Eastgate. Can you go into some depth on that a little bit in terms of how that model might be able to be replicated or scaled in some way?

Are you speaking to the one with the Eastgate Community Association that led the event? Yeah. So we have an urban design consultant that comes in. And we have a larger citywide workshop that they help facilitate. But we've been trying to build on some of these experiences to do what we call a workshop in a box. How can we work with our neighborhood leaders and we build these relationships throughout the planning process and gives them something they can hand on and take ownership of it so that they can inform their own groups and do it on their own time in a way that is accessible and familiar to the groups that they work with. So we had a really good example last year in Eastgate. And as I was scoping our urban design contract that we've renewed this year, we've really built up that workshop in a box idea. So not only do we have that, but we have a train the trainer. So our urban design consultant within scope is going to be able to offer up to three workshops with community organizations to train one of their neighborhood leaders to then do a self-guided event. as well as just building on our own internal expertise, institutional knowledge on how to work these things over time. So I think we want to see more of that. We've scoped more of that. And just through some of the partnerships we've already talked about, engaged community groups, I think we've got a real opportunity to build on those successes.

I really appreciate all the community groups that you've already met with and engaged with and will be working with as you move forward. One of my questions, as well as Council Member Bhargava, was just about how we're going to reach out to some of those underserved communities and others that we don't hear from as much. Lake Hills is probably... At least the last time I checked, it was the most diverse neighborhood in all the city of Bellevue, so we want to make sure that all voices are equally heard and we want to hear everything they have to share. Last question, and it kind of goes to the previous study session as well, is the metrics that we're going to be tracking to know that we're successful in this endeavor. Talk to me a little bit more about what that feedback loop will look like in terms of, did we get it right? I know when we've done some of these in the past, the final product didn't quite meet. Not that we can please everybody, of course, but it did not meet what residents felt that they were contributing or their vision for their neighborhood. So what does that feedback look like? What does success look like that, you know, for the most part that we have gotten this right, that we have heard from the residents of this neighborhood, this is what they want to see, and we've properly kind of documented that? How are we going to know?

There are multiple ways we've been doing that. I think with our first iteration, as I mentioned before, that was during the COVID timeline and a lot of our events were virtual. Our schedule was a little compressed too because we were transitioning. So we really learned from that experience to provide additional opportunity in terms of timeline to go back to the community once we've developed the policies and then ask them for that feedback. And then we have several discussions and dialogue with the planning commission as well, where we go through a pretty detailed kind of matrix, if you must. that documents what we heard from the community. And then even our workshops were kind of asking for feedback on specific policy areas. And then that goes back to the Planning Commission and then we document how we've addressed the comments specifically in terms of policy direction. And then quite often we get additional feedback from the Planning Commission to make further changes. So all of that gets documented pretty consistently through the process.

We're able to follow back up with those that have provided feedback to us and then we reach out to them Hey, here's the initial plan or it's going to the Planning Commission. We want you to okay. Yes good.

We do a number of emails and social media posts and different ways of communication.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you Council Member Nieuwenhuis. Council Member Brouillard.

Thank you, Mayor. To Council Member Bhargava's point about making sure that we're engaging a good portion of our community, considering we have roughly 100,050 residents, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. am likely but I'd love to leverage social media here across the city just because I had in my personal capacity written some thoughts that I had about non-business city related items and folks had reached out that were in my neighborhood and so I think you had mentioned that bringing in the neighborhood associations to really engage with the community is fantastic I personally had the pleasure of helping Lake Hills rebuild their website because Steve showed up to my front door and said fix this website and I said yes sir because I'm dedicated to serving. But jokes aside, oral comms today had provided an example of some of these neighborhood associations seeking to gather more community involvement. So if we're relying on partners that are also simultaneously seeking new engagement, I think we have to develop a much more, not develop a much more, but be a little bit more systemic in our reach, I guess, or more broad in our reach, rather. So that's just one point that I wanted to bring up from there as well. And then besides community sentiment, which is very critical, what are the other inputs that are helping inform the design strategies? Or is that the sole contention?

Um, Zach, uh, Zach touched on it with our urban design concepts. So we have a urban design consultant that we bring on. Um, so gathering spaces are a big component of public, uh, third, third spaces are a big component, um, the concept maps that we presented. So that's a very tangible product of the great neighborhoods program and something fairly new that we've done with this, with all these updates.

Have we worked with this consultant before?

Yes.

Okay. And the pillars or values that are driving this consultant and what they develop is what was mentioned in the slides as well, right? The open spaces. Okay. Okay. That sounds great. Thank you so much. And thank you again for your work. Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the presentation. I was going to ask the engagement question, just like my colleague. But thank you for answering it, because we know that they have the highest spend speaking, as you mentioned. So I really love the way that you're going out to the community, to the schools, and also to Drupal Reach, the community partners. One question I had, there's a mention about the racial equity toolkit. But it's in the process, right? Can you tell me more about it? Absolutely.

Do you want to go into detail?

Yeah. So the racial equity toolkit is an internal tool we use. And we do that really right from the outset as we are scoping and chartering the process for each of the neighborhoods. And that's a really tool that helps us, A, document Who are all the various stakeholder groups? Who do we know? Who do we not know about? When we know who we have to hear from we haven't heard from before, that analysis helps inform that, which directly translates into the development of our community engagement strategy, as well as our comm strategy. Not just the materials, but how we get in touch with people. Something that I've been trying to work on as I've refined this over the last couple years, because I did the racial equity toolkit for Eastgate and Factoria, is that there's a lot of equity considerations just outside of racial equity. We have socioeconomic considerations, we have environmental considerations. So trying to create a more holistic view of what equity is, how that impacts different people, Ways of life throughout the city, and then trying to tailor different engagement approaches, different partnerships that we can kind of touch each 1 of those distinct, unique pieces and perspective. And this is a living document after, like, partway through each phase we reflect. Did we hit our mark? Is there anybody we're missing at the end of each phase? We have an official reflection and we're going to meet with our team. and internally like what worked, what didn't work, and then the end we have a larger reflection and be like, okay, moving into our next iteration of great neighborhoods, what are those lessons learned? Is there anyone that we still haven't heard from or what are other some opportunities that we can leverage other initiatives throughout the city who did have success reaching those people? Because we want to make sure that you know, we're gonna do our best to do it this time, check back midway through, try to, you know, attenuate, amend, do better, and then at the end, you know, really take a hard look and say, okay, there's always an opportunity to improve, and what does that look like?

That's really helpful, because I think, like, when you're thinking, like, even, you know, council members, we are a different age group, right? Different things could be different way to targeting to reach the audience. So I think, is there any room when this tool is created that we can use that to engage the, like, the neighborhood? neighborhood and neighbors and actually having them into that same conversation, talk about like, okay, we see these data points. Maybe these are the family that we are not able to reach out and then find, like reach, and then is there a way that you can connect us? Is there any room for that?

Yeah, I would say so in our kickoff meeting, we have like a neighborhood kind of identity data board where we have some of the really key demographic information just so that even if you live in the neighborhood, you might not be fully aware of the types of demographics or the challenges or lived experiences of people who live there. And I think that also really comes to play when we develop the neighborhood vision statement and that supporting narrative, because that's where we can get in that fine grain detail of like, okay, there's different experiences, different people living all within the same geographical area, but we really want to kind of suss that out through our process. And it's a two-way street. We're being educated by the community, but we're also educating them at the same time.

I have two questions, but I emailed, and so you can answer me later. So one last question is kind of looping this together about the format of the survey. As we know, Bellevue is the most, I mean, to my heart, I think it's the safest city, right? And then so public safety, any safety in general is very important. So I'm looking at the Eastgate and Victoria. You know, safety is always the first value in those neighborhoods, and I believe that's the same for every neighborhood. And on the survey of those two neighborhoods, I didn't see the list of the questions. Safety was listed in there. It was other. And I think that goes to other aspect. I'm just wondering for, is there going to be a room for that category? I mean, to clarify, I think if... apparent they don't feel safe, their kiddos are crossing the street, or they might need extra lighting, a sightseeing, and things like that make them feel safe. Like, what area would that land on the survey in this new neighborhood?

I mean, in a number of places. And it was interesting because we had, you know, learned about there was a growing public safety need throughout partway into our last process. We engaged with a lot of conversations with various stakeholders who had a part in that. Again, engaging with other city departments who are really taking the lead on some of the public safety things. I've already been working to implement some improvements within that very survey really early on. I think part of it is, what is your neighborhood known for? What do you want it to be known for? So kind of those, what is now, what are those aspirational things? I think safety is a big piece of that. Again, understanding it's a lens through which we do all of our planning. So for instance, there's the kind of transportation related question. I've added things around crosswalks, lighting. Lighting is a big one of those things. So just understand within our scope, again, understanding that is limited. What do we have control over to create a more inviting, safer pedestrian realm for people, public spaces? People, they want to gather and build that community. So I think it's both in policies and urban design. But just kind of improving some of the questions and the framing in those early conversations will get us a long way.

Thank you, because I do agree with you. And I think that everybody's definition is safe. Safety could be very different. Even the different culture could be different, right? So one culture could be, I feel safe when I can talk to my police officer or my firefighter directly. To other culture, it could be completely different. So I would advocate to be, I guess, culturally sensitive about more inclusive about their needs and how do they define safety. Because sometimes it's not only the physical things that matters. It's, I think, the mental and other elements, too. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Council Member Robinson.

Thank you. I appreciate hearing my colleagues' comments. And I really love this Great Neighborhoods program. I just think it's such an amazing opportunity for the community. So I support what you've laid out here. I do like the idea of emphasizing the public safety conversations. I think that's really important. I also wonder, when we talk about mobility, it doesn't look to me like we're it looks like you're describing public spaces and connectivity, but I would really like more emphasis on travel. So multimodal travel, love to hear what sidewalks are problematic or what bike lanes and just kind of understand the pain points for mobility in those neighborhoods. So I hope there's a space for that, for people to discuss that.

Absolutely.

I think we presented just one of the concept maps, but we have another that really goes into that. I figured you did.

Okay. So the only thing I wanted to ask is, you know, outside of this program, we have neighborhoods who right now are trying to navigate the missing middle housing. House Bill is 1110. And there's not really a forum for them to talk to the city, what's possible, what's not possible, and helping neighborhoods navigate through these changes. So I wonder how you think we can be having those conversations outside of this neighborhoods program, because people shouldn't have to wait until their neighborhood comes up in the queue.

That's certainly something we can talk with development services about and bring back to council, perhaps when we come back with Eastgate and Factorio. Just provide a response to you via email.

Yeah, I'd like your response before that. Yeah. That's perfect. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. I'm a big fan of the Great Neighborhoods Program, updating the comp plan in neighborhoods around the city to better reflect current citywide and neighborhood priorities and address issues of opportunities I think is a big boost for the city. The objectives and scope of the Great Neighborhoods Program are well-defined and ensure that we achieve impactful outcomes. I think our focus on social connectivity and our neighborhood's core needs is especially important. The work program and specifically the engagement plan are very solid. I really like the focus on managing... I know it's turned off. Managing my device. managing the equitable and informed dialogue about the community's vision at the neighborhood level. And I'm very excited to see the program come to Lake Hills and West Lakes Mammish next year. I hope you'll keep us posted on ways that we can engage in that process. And I certainly appreciate Council Member Newenhouse's comments earlier. And so I'll be curious to know how we do move forward in 28-29. But as of now, I think the staff recommendation is... to limit to the Great Neighborhoods Program to bridle trails for the reasons mentioned in the agenda memo makes sense. So thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much.

I think managing my device is the sentence of the night.

Yeah. Again, thank you so much, Zachary, Tara. I saw Dr. Nessie on the back and Emil King and everyone else in the community development team. I just have a wish list, and I think I mentioned that yesterday also. If there would be a dashboard, we love dashboards, from great neighborhood programs to track all of this, and I think everyone kind of maybe say some of that, what we've heard from residents. what are some of the tangible outcomes, programs, project delivered directly because of this program and engagement, otherwise we wouldn't hear them, we wouldn't do them, we wouldn't do anything. And then I'm sure there are going to be some of them that we need to put in the, transportation budget and transportation department and like all of those transparency I think would be great if we can show all of that neighborhood by neighborhood and track them and that would be my wish list. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all. Can I get a motion?

I move to direct staff to initiate work on the comprehensive plan amendments to update the Lake Hills and Westlake Spanish neighborhood area plans in 2026, 2027, and provide direction on the recommendation for bridal trails neighborhood area planning to occur in 28 and 29, consistent with Bellevue land use code section 20.301.130.B.3. Second.

It has been moved by Deputy Mayor Hamilton and seconded by Councillor Newhouse. Any discussion? All those in favour, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. Thank you so much. We go to our other ordinance and there are a bunch of them, City Manager.

There are, Mayor. They are all located, however, in one package. So what you have before you is work that was initiated by the council earlier this year. And that work contained technical amendments and corrections and clarifications to the city's land use code. It's aptly named the Omnibus Land Use Code Amendment. It also includes some amendments to the Bellevue City Code. This covers a variety of topics and issues and codes. And tonight you have that package all wrapped up in five ordinances. Nick will go through those, review them, and then seek your direction and approval tonight on those. So with that I'll turn it over to Nick.

Great, thank you, and good evening again. So as mentioned, we are here tonight seeking action from Council on the 2026 omnibus code amendments. It's a number of ordinances, as noted, five in total. Also want to share, this is, one of those examples of the feedback loop. So we use this as an opportunity where we're evaluating how implementation is going, where might there be rubs or areas that we didn't quite hit the mark with policy. And then this is how we would then incorporate some of those changes. The omnibus code amendments are small enough where they don't necessarily warrant their own standalone process. So this is a really efficient way for us to address some of the challenges that really impact multiple areas of our code. We have organized the ordinances though by subject area. So with that, we have five ordinances that we'll ask for you to take action on separately. For our agenda, we'll recap what the Omnibus 2026 project is, the scope, our outreach approach for this and timeline, and then we'll be turning it back to you all for action. First, as a refresher of what's in this Omnibus package, there's really kind of three categories of changes that we're bringing forward here. Our first is cleanup. This is about 30% of the changes we would say in the package are under this category of cleanup. State law is where we're seeing most of the changes. These are items where the legislature passed a number of bills over the 2024, 2025, and even the 2026 session that are pretty minor in nature and we're just looking to obtain minimum compliance with those. So there's a big portion of this package that is trying to provide direct compliance with state law. And then there was a small category that did require some policy consideration. I would say this is where the planning commission spent most of their time. And then you heard from the chair at that June 9th meeting, some of the considerations that they worked through as part of that review. First, with the cleanup, these are generally scrivener's errors, clarifications, some formatting issues, pretty simple, straightforward items for us to address. State law compliance, wanted to just highlight, this is a repeat slide from June 9th, but these are the different bills that we are aiming to comply with as part of this omnibus package. So they really range from simple things like what type of building cladding is the state telling us we can allow versus not allow, and where do we need to allow for childcare uses, and clarifications on ways that you can subdivide land, both through the unit lot subdivision process, lot splitting. There's also one on binding site plans. We also have some areas around streamlining. These were amendments that were specific to our process requirements. And then there were items that were trying to support retrofits of existing buildings by allowing a little more flexibility in the building envelope when they're trying to repurpose those buildings. Then we move to the category of small policy scope amendments. So these were amendments that didn't require or that do require rather some minor policy direction to make sure that we're aligning with what Council had established as that initial policy direction. So we went through this list at the June 9th meeting, but the ordinances do include these provisions. One of them is the single family exclusion from high density areas. We have a huge portion of the city where we do allow single family development to happen. This is looking at our high density multifamily areas where we really would like to see denser development happen. Those are closer to transit. They're near our growth centers. So that's where we'd want to see that development. There's also some tree code adjustments and this one was really important as the Council probably recalls. There was a major overhaul of our tree code in 2024. We've had about a year and a half of implementation experience with the tree code. Now, the tree code rewrite, it was really bringing about a significant change to how we are requiring properties to contribute to our canopy. We moved away from a strictly retention based approach. to a tree credit system and with that tree credit system it was really aimed at trying to provide more flexibility for how folks are going to be able to achieve the canopy that the city is targeting at the time that it was adopted it was understood that this was a substantial change and refinements were likely going to be needed as we gained experience implementing the new codes So, 1 of the changes that was really central to the planning commission discussion that we've heard some public comment around was the change for the district. That's the suburban residential 1 district. That was 1 of those areas that stood out as having some frequent challenges and accommodating the required credits. relative to other land use districts. So this was not a case of projects simply not wanting to provide tree canopy. It's a case more of projects facing requirements that are physically impossible to accommodate on a site without over planting trees and creating a really unhealthy kind of way for trees to grow. So in recommending the change, the Planning Commission took a look at the groupings and made the determination that we have better evidence now that we're working with, and it would make sense to group the SR 1 district with the other suburban residential districts. So take it away from the large lot districts. Since SR 1, as a reminder, is a 13,500 square foot lot, our large lot districts are looking at 20,000 to 35,000 square feet. So I'm changing the requirements based on they're more comparable in size to these other SR districts. We also had some exciting process changes. We developed a new chapter for binding site plans as well as our departure processes. So this required a lot of pulling amendments from different overlay districts and consolidating to a single chapter, which really helps both the planners reviewing that as well as the public. We also added a fee in lieu option for East Main for residential development. And then simplified some of our utility connection requirements so that middle housing projects weren't subject to the same utility connection requirements that a much denser multi-family project would be subject to. Our engagement approach is to consult and review with staff. We often will be collecting issues that we're hearing through our customer experience program, through the Bellevue Development Committee, and just through our experience in implementing code. We compile a list. We keep that list pretty updated. And we look forward to these omnibus code changes so that we can start to address the issues that are known. We took that list, shared it with the public to elicit any other feedback from these groups and then presented those recommendations to the Planning Commission and then to you all. So it was primarily an information only type of outreach approach since a lot of this was not really getting into policy shifts or changes. As a reminder of our timeline, Council did initiate this back in February. That kicked off our formal outreach process and co-drafting phase. The Planning Commission did review this over two meetings and a hearing, and then offered their recommendation to you all on June 9th, at which point you directed us to come back for final action, which brings us to tonight. And so, Mayor, we have five ordinances. We'll turn it back to you.

Thank you. Before I go around, I just wanted to say as a council, we often receive compliments because of the success and achievements of our city. But the truth is the main contributor to the success is our staff. And Nick, you are a prime example of that. Not only just your ability to... make very, very hard topics that development services department deals with and making it very easy and digestible for us to understand. What is your attitude and the way that you calmly, with professionalism, answer all of the comments that we hear from public, all of the hard questions? You constantly go above and beyond of your job description, in my opinion, to drive the community engagement and bringing clarity to some of the most challenging topics that your department is handling. So just want to say thank you. On that note, Council Member Bargawa, we'll start with you again.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So I would say first thing, plus one to the mayor's comments, and I would extend that to the larger team. I think it's really remarkable and strong team and does a very, very good job. And I've seen that in difficult planning commission meetings with a lot of feedback coming from many different directions to react in real time and sometimes react with a lot of poise and consideration. So definitely plus one to that. Overall, let me just start by saying that I'm really supportive of this LUCA and the components of the LUCA. I think they're thoughtful. I think they're needed. You know, going back to the conversation we had with the development services team, one of the core components, and I think this question came up on the dais today as well as what are we going to do to really go to the inputs that are going to drive this improvement in productivity? And clarity in code is really fundamental to us making any of those changes. I don't remember which of my peers asked this question, but it was about making sure that... We're measuring the inputs. I was going to try to say it exactly how it was said, but I don't remember the exact words now. So that, I think, is really, really important. I would be remiss not to thank the members of the Planning Commission and the work that they do. They're very, very rigorous and very thoughtful in bringing these together. The tree code changes is a really good example where the amount of debate and thought that went into putting that together You know, standing so far away from this can seem trivial, but it was not. There was a lot of community input and a lot of output into this process. So I am very supportive of these recommendations. I also think the retention to a tree credit-based approach and the recategorization of SR1 is a really good move in the right direction. It's a simplification and a reclassification that's appropriate for that. The one thing I would ask you maybe to illustrate, it's an illustrative question really, is to explain the rationale behind the fee and loot change for East Main. Why?

Yeah, so the fee and loot change was an item that was brought forward by stakeholders as part of the Planning Commission review process. It was a public comment. There was a project in particular that's moved through their entitlement process. And as we all know, we've gotten feedback that this is a really challenging market. In East Main, the Council policy decision in 2021 was to require on-site performance for affordable housing. And what we have learned from some of the development community is that that's really poses some feasibility challenges in this current market and absent other changes to perhaps or other ways to support on site performance, which was not put in place in 2021. this was the solution that they had offered forward. We have a fee in lieu option that's available for commercial development. For the sake of simplicity, they had asked that that same fee rate apply to residential. That fee amount is higher than what we would have charged elsewhere. For example, downtown, the fee is not as high as what these main feet will be. So that was the rationale was really to support kind of in the interim this project. I would also just flag as Tara mentioned in the previous presentation, we're looking ahead at the TOD bill implementation, House Bill 1491. We will likely need to revisit East Main. In just a year and a half to 2 years, and so that would be an opportunity to evaluate what's a more effective approach. If the council feels there might be some disagreement there on supporting affordable housing. Once we get to that point.

Yeah, I really appreciate the context for the for. Sort of everyone, but the heart of my question is still the issue of. the trade off on making affordability outcomes happen versus a fee in lieu and how we would think about this going forward and measure those outcomes and what is our chance to make sure we're doing this right. The second consideration for me on that is equity across different parts of the city. in terms of the landowners and development opportunities, those would be the two lenses with which I would suggest we think about this, at least from my perspective. And if you have any guidance on how you're thinking about the trade-offs, I think that would be helpful too. That's really it. But we appreciate if you have a response to the trade-offs, but it's definitely something in the back of my mind to keep in consideration.

Yeah, and happy to give that some thought too. I don't know if I'm quite prepared to provide a response if that works.

Thank you so much. Council Member Robinson.

Well, since Council Member Bhargava brought that up, I just want to add that we did give increased height to that property in exchange for onsite performance. And so now that we've removed that condition and they get to keep the increased height, if we revisit it with the other bill, are we going to have to give another incentive? in order to put in a requirement for affordable housing.

So the on-site performance is still an option to achieve compliance with the land use code. So we're not removing that from the table. So I think what we were hearing as feedback is what's a creative incentive to ensure that they can provide on-site performance. And so that might be a look at if there's additional height or FAR potentially. But there's also other tools that the council has at their disposal that you might want to have us explore as well. to really incentivize that onsite performance.

I'll definitely want you to explore other incentives. Sure. Thank you. Really appreciate the work here. And I do think that you, Nick, and your staff have gone above and beyond what is typical of staff members. You've done site visits, you've had multiple conversations with individual property owners, and you've done what I think everything you can to be available to answer people's questions and concerns. I just want to thank you for doing that. I am very supportive of this work. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Council Member Brouillard.

I'll be redundant by thanking you for the incredible work that you do. I hope you do get a raise at some point. Not speaking on behalf of the council there. I am also interested in seeing what other incentive tools and levers we can pull for that change. And I'll wrap my comments up by saying I'm absolutely supportive of the work. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Council Member Newenhouse.

Thank you, Mayor. Great presentation. Thank you, Nick. I just want to dive just a little bit more into that tree just to make sure I understand the tree candidate. So we pivoted from the retention model to a tree credit model, correct? Is the confusion stemming from some of the emails that we've received about the conditions in a neighborhood that that ascertains how many credits they could have per square foot, or how does that, where is the confusion coming from, or I guess folks concerned that we are relaxing our tree canopy code that we've now made. I think there are always gonna be some tension, right, between getting to the amount of housing that we wanna create while maintaining our city in a park, and specifically a tree canopy, Can you just dive into that a little bit more?

Sure. Yeah. So we've been in pretty frequent communication with some of the folks that are raising these concerns, particularly in the SR1 district. There's at least two neighborhoods that have raised some concerns. At the same time, we're also responding to two other neighborhoods' concerns that are on the other side of the equation that are looking for some of that relief. And so in trying to understand those concerns that the SR1 folks have been communicating, we did actually go out today. We spent about three hours, walked over to three different sites with a group. We're able to understand some of the characteristics of their neighborhood that they really value and then the threat that they felt that this change might be having on their quality of neighborhood. Right. So, a lot of what we understood in those conversations was. Kelsey Creek golf Creek as really important, both the East tributary and West tributary of Kelsey Creek as really important assets for their community that have provided expansive tree canopy. We had some good conversation around what the critical areas code will do in terms of protecting those trees from being removed. And we're very clear with them that we have very strict requirements in place, especially on the sites that they took us to that are pretty pristine stream buffers. Those areas, you're not going to be able to remove trees. And we can feel pretty confident in telling them that.

So the critical areas code kind of trumps the tree.

It does. And we also explain the tree code is a great supplement to the critical areas code. that will help address some of the trees outside of the buffer areas. And in fact, the way we've defined and the way that the Planning Commission discussed how should we determine what the canopy area is that we're assigning credits to, they didn't want someone to be able to clear their entire lot because they've got a critical area on their site and all the trees are going to be over in that critical area. Nothing is going to be where the building and the driveway are. And so they were very intentional in saying, you don't get to count the trees that are in the critical areas. Those are protected by another code. You need to provide other trees outside of those critical areas. So that clarification, I think, was also really helpful for them to understand there is still a level of protection here. And just knowing kind of the practical effect of assigning this higher credit, we've got those examples of a person in Newport Shores that was having to plant around 90 trees in their backyard. And they had shared they don't want a Christmas tree farm in their backyard or have to pay a pretty significant fee. And so I think that resonated with them as well. And they understood that's not kind of the outcome we're driving towards either. So I would say it was a beneficial conversation to help each other here, kind of what what the concerns were.

Okay, okay, great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that further clarification. And I also appreciate the passion that people have for our tree canopy and want to maintain that in our city. So thanks for going that extra step and going out and meeting with them and walking through that. I think that's very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Smotiverio.

Thank you. I plus one to all my colleagues, and I don't have any questions, and I just want to show my gratitude for your patience, and also I love the thoughtfulness of the response, because, I mean, this code is very, like any kind of code, any policy we talk about is super complicated, and the fact that you and the team can go out to meet the neighbors, explain them in real person, that shows a lot. It shows a lot of commitment our team, our staff has for our residents, so I'm just grateful for that. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor. Not really a lot to add. I like this omnibus amendment process. Helps us to accomplish relatively insignificant code changes all at once. So this seems like a very effective and efficient way to do that. Certainly agree with the praise and recognition that's been expressed by my colleagues tonight to DS at large, but specifically to you, Nick. So plus one to all those comments and fully supportive of moving forward. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much. Nick, my only question was the three code, SR1, and you already, Council Member Nguyenhouse asked that, you clarified that, and I think the visit today may be safe, some of our residents trip to council member, to the council chamber and not to any public comments, so I appreciate that you initiated the conversation, you went there and you clarified some of the topics. We have five of them, am I right? So, Deputy Mayor, can we go one by one and then hopefully we voted them very efficiently and we move on? They recommended we don't need to read all of the land use code, just read the box.

All right. Well, I practiced all of those, so I'm a little disappointed, but nevertheless, I move to adopt ordinance number 6930 relating to the clarification of known errors contained in and cleanup of the land use code.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The first one passed.

I move to adopt ordinance number 6931 relating to development regulations.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. There is no opposed, passed.

I move to adopt ordinance number 6932 relating to environmental regulations.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes.

I move to adopt ordinance number 6933 relating to land use review procedures. Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes.

I move to adopt ordinance number 6934 relating to development. Second. Any discussion?

All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? The motion passes. Thank you, Nick, again. And at this note, we can adjourn the meeting and see you all next week. Thank you so much.