Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. I'd like to call this September 3rd, 2026, the Planning Commission meeting to order. And we'll start with a roll call. John Bachman. Here. Syed Safavian. Here. Mazi Ponwala. Present. Hesham Al-Khawad? Here. Mike Bresco, I'm here. Two of our members who we expected to be here haven't yet, so Suda and Ajay, so hopefully they'll be able to show up in a little bit. But in the interest of time, we'd like to get started. First, we'd like to check the agenda. Are there any changes to this evening's agenda? Okay, seeing none, consider the agenda approved by common consent. And the minutes f

So that'll close our non-agenda public comments. And we'll move into old business. So the housing capacity strategy.

is there anything else you think the council should consider or know about this topic okay thank you um what i'd like is uh just to go around once starting with john and syed and mazian with any questions or responses you have to the questions that evans presented and then we'll open up so john would you like to start please sure um

I'm gonna do this so that we really focus our conversation on the questions at hand. So I move that we adopt the alternative balance center's approach as presented by staff.

Let me clarify with you. So you're looking for direction, not necessarily decisions today, right?

Would you like to modify your comments then, John?

I'll withdraw my motion and start with just straightforward. My position is the alternative. And I don't really have any questions because we beat this horse into the ground a couple times. And it's the approach that most closely aligns with what we were visioning in the comp plan. And a big concern of mine is kicking the can down the road too far to the other commercial centers. Subarea plans are expensive and time consuming and the outcomes are very uncertain. If we do not do something in the town center, according to what we've heard from staff, we're going to end up with town homes because

So maybe David, yeah. So there's a number up there, 2,200.

I was suggesting the second alternative to maximize the potential of the town center because we don't know what might or might not happen in the other commercial centers after going through lengthy sub area. And it has the greatest potential in short term to help the city's budget, meet the state requirements, and follow what we visioned in the comprehensive plan.

I'll make a couple of comments and then we'll open it up. So if you could share the two work streams, the project with the work streams, and about feedback. So update the town center sub area plan development code. So that's clear. We do not comply with state law right now. So that's a work plan to fix non-compliance, right? I see nods, yes. Partly yeah, and then the second part which I'm not sure and this is part of the feedback is clear to me Because it talks about Existing conference plan a little bit update There's there's a second call a problem to solve which is where does the affordable

Is there like an item three that says, here's how we're going to demonstrate the capacity to meet our allocation requirements?

Thank you it's still And it could be just me, but I'm thinking about yes, for feedback for what will get presented to council and what other people will be seeing. And if this confuses me, it may confuse others. And it's still confusing me. So it feels like there needs to be something that is explicit, can't be missed about the affordable housing capacity.

And I get it that it's wrapped up with the code changes and zoning, you know, all those kinds of things. But it feels like demonstrating that we have that capacity in a way that people can kind of separate that in their mind and say, Yep, I get that. And I have a sense of the impact that that's going to have on the city and transportation, all of those things might be helpful.

makes a ton of sense yeah it's hidden and sure it's really so yeah and that's why we that's our coded little asterisks there of selected scope of work will drive what happens in number two you're you're right it's confusing we'll work on trying to clarify this let's open up i don't know if jonathan said others if you have other feedback and you know responding to the questions that the staff has asked us so

Just sort of technical process question. I understand updating the comp plan one way or the other. Will we have to concurrently run the subarea studies as well and have that all wrapped up? Or is doing the work in the comp plan enough to say that we're going to do the subarea plans in the future?

Yeah. And so what I would suggest, because you asked for feedback for the presentation and how to prepare for council, is what Syed brought up, and we've talked, you know, has been a hot button issue. So somewhere maybe in the presentation or in the comments that you're making should touch on some of the infrastructure that, you know, it's covered in the comprehensive plan or we've done studies or whatever, just anticipating the questions that would come up and addressing them ahead of time in the presentation. That's good feedback. Yep.

Mazira, do you have a couple? Yeah, I would like to have some kind of focusing kind of conversation, too. So go ahead, please.

Back to the set of questions you had for us and the feedback. And one thing I want to be clear about, so the work plan, the two work streams that you've presented, you're looking for feedback so you could get going on these so they can be completed by, what was it, June next year. And there's a fair bit of work. Some of that work is going to be coming back to the Commission. There's a lot of detail to work through that to affect the code changes, to figure out the allocation of affordable housing in Town Center and therefore elsewhere, right? so our role this evening isn't to try to solve thos

So when you play back the video, mark that right there, because that summarized exactly how this presentation should have been put together. OK. We wanna keep it really simple. And one of the things that we have to do is fix the code compliance in town center. That was the first thing you said. Then we're gonna determine how much capacity there is in town center for affordable housing. And from that, we're gonna figure out how to allocate it elsewhere. That's three things, very simple. and it's i'm sorry i just really when i went through this i was i had a sense of that i mean we met earlier i

So in the mind of keeping things simple, is there consensus among the commission as to the two alternatives for the town center that, Evan, can you go back to the boxes? I'll just call them 1,922 just because that keeps it simple. Is there consensus between these two? Because picking one of these two then drives what happens elsewhere. So if we can give our feedback informally to council that we prefer this option, then that helps council and staff.

since you're looking at me you know i um i'd need to know better uh how those two numbers like what's what factors in to get to the 1900 and the 2200 and the implications of the 2200 given that there was the community feedback against the 4 000 with an assumption that Why don't we stay with 2,000? So John, to answer your question, I'm not sure I could say one way or the other without a little bit more discussion and information.

Well, I think David said that the 1,900 is kind of where we landed. The 2,200 is to accommodate and think about what the state's requirements are.

But doesn't commerce grow? Sorry. We're starting to drive down really deeply into things like transportation and infrastructure that isn't providing the feedback that staff needs from this. No, I'm responding. I know there's challenges. I'm sure you know there's challenges like this. So it will help you in terms of next steps in preparing for the council to get direction on the 1,922, like alternative or...

come to a consensus or settled on which approach they make they think makes sense and we can continue to talk about it well hearing just to say and provide that and then maybe talk a little bit about commercial space in a few minutes but hearing the discussion i said earlier i didn't have enough information but i think directionally that the 2200 in anticipating the kind of questions and challenges that the city residents would have, that may be a better way to go. And when I said earlier about not really having the information to provide good guidance, part of that is also saying in your pres

Just a quick note on the infrastructure is we don't know where things are going to get built or when they're going to get built, so we can't just throw it in the budget. And then the secondary thing, if there are impacts, development has to mitigate those impacts. So money would be flowing to mitigate stuff. We don't know where it's going to go on the ground. You would hope so.

In terms of direction, what I just, yes. For the town center?

I like, and that's how I interpret it because what I also heard was for the, I hate to say, the 1900, more or less, that pushes more capacity elsewhere.

And although I think it's good to disperse that capacity, It just doesn't get so much stuff so centered.

yeah moving on um so why wouldn't you why wouldn't we do that analysis is there cost associated with it or and what is the issue with the current allocation say in town center for commercial space i mean we recommend

kind of pulled out of the air originally. And so to take a look now under current conditions and analyze and, you know, be a little bit more intentional about it seems to make sense if there's capacity and staff to be able to do that.

So I think, David, what you're saying is if we shift from the commercial allocation model to an FAR model, then the market can respond in whatever way the market wants to respond, where the allocation model could end up unintentionally restricting someone to put in a donut shop.

so i think unless somebody else would say that they there shouldn't be the analysis to potentially make the changes then you're recommending uh john you clarified really nicely why it's important i think it makes sense uh and if if you just think about currently how we've got tca and b and sub a and sub and you know all of those various allocations it's freaking complex So if you can analyze it and simplify it, it makes a ton of sense. so part of that keep it simple you know so unless anybody else has different feedback for the evaluate the commercial space question that staff was asking so ar

Also, I think I think so, at least from my perspective, there was some of the comments about useful information all that would be beneficial for council to hear. So it kind of has been wrapped up. So any other questions that you all have for us? Clarifications?

So then we should go to public comment agenda.

All right. So we have five minutes for agenda related public comment. I see Mary standing up. Did you? Mary, did you get the the nod between you and Paul for this? Okay. coordinated, coordinated, not not. Okay.

Thank you, Mary. I see Paul Stickney here. I've got a wee bit.

Thank you, Paul. Evan, anybody online? All right.

All right. Is there anybody who does not want to adjourn the meeting? All right. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. A little bit early. This is two in a row.