Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

My name is Jerry Cochran. I'd like to call the City of Pasco Planning Commission meeting to order. I'd like to welcome all those in attendance this evening and ask you to join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Excellent. To begin tonight's meeting, I'd like to ask the clerk to call the roll.

Thank you very much. The Planning Commission is an advisory board made up of volunteers appointed by City Council. The purpose of the Planning Commission is to provide recommendations to City Council regarding changes to the city's comprehensive plan, land use updates, block grant allocations, and zoning code. The Planning Commission is tasked with considering the long-term growth and the development of the community, the impact of land use decisions on the community, livability, economic opportunity, housing affordability, public services, and the environment. I'd like to remind the audience

Mr. Chairman, I'll move to approve the minutes. All right.

Commissioner Jones has moved. Second. All right. And Commissioner Crawford, right? Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? All right. The meeting minutes have been unanimously approved. We have no old business or no public hearing, so we will jump right to workshop mode. And the first item on the agenda is the commercial land capacity. And I assume I will turn that over to Director Mattson. Okay.

It's not a question, but it's just a commendation or an agreement with what you've presented. I think once the commercial is given up, it's obviously difficult to get back. I think you pointed out that we have abundant housing going up all over. I think that As you mentioned, the commercial development is representing usage for all in the form of you made the mention of an aquatic center or those kind of things, not just a particular individual who wants to make money off of a particular piece of property by converting it into residential that we already have an abundance of. So I support what

Thank you, Commissioner Kressfield. Commissioner Jones, I see you.

Thank you very much. Cities planning groups have an obligation to plan for now, tomorrow, and the future. And that can be very difficult. As was said, people don't want land to be held back or this and that to be done because there's a short-term vision to make money. But there's an obligation that groups have such as ours and the city council to look to the future and I think this addresses that very well. When I was reading this over, there's some things I marked and stuff I'd like to just point out you want to look that these highlights that I highlighted I think you'll find that they're ve

Well, so far you're three out of seven. So any other commissioners want to comment or weigh in with their feedback?

Great, yeah, no, I think, I don't know that the commissioners are always in a complete agreement, but it sounds like we're in complete agreement in supporting you and your position to limit or create hurdles for commercial to residential conversion. The other thing that hasn't been mentioned that you might emphasize with others is that it's also a fiscal issue, right, is the more commercial and industrial generate much needed sales tax revenue for PASCO that we desperately need. Residential doesn't. It generates property tax for the state and the county. And so it actually makes the problem wo

Well, it might be something for future consideration to try to have some sort of guideline about the percentage mix.

All right, any more comments or feedback for staff? Sounds like you have good support and alignment with you and the council on this issue. Go ahead.

All right, if there's no other feedback on this issue, we can move on to the Unified Code Development presentation.

I remember how hot the arguments were about that Argent corner store, so you have to be really careful, but like you said, you've got to be, if the state's pushing it, then we've got to figure out the lightest possible compliance.

Thank you. Just two things. The changing of all of the low density residential zoning, all that stuff, combining into just a NR, a new zone, my only, hesitation seeing something like that is somewhere along the line, groups before us, both staff and council members, elected or appointed, saw a need to have separate zones to address specific things, whether it be low income, high income, and all points in between. My concern is when these kinds of things get consolidated, the upper level and middle level get a lot of attention paid to them, the needs of the low income areas and those kinds of t

Yes, thank you, Director Madsen, because I, I think it's important that you are considering that, as you mentioned, the lower density, the bigger setbacks, to the development that's there, that's been there, their neighborhoods. And then again, you're focusing more on the apartments that are up in the north end. It kind of fits. It fits that area, but I don't see that it has a have or a have not. I don't see it that way. I just see it as development that meets the existing and maybe the future vision for Pasco. Thank you for that.

Well, I applaud the approach and ambitious kind of thing to simplify, make the permitting, simplify the code, simplify the zones. I think those are really great efforts that developers and citizens will really appreciate. One thing we can talk about offline, you may consider whether it's through consultants or your own internal city IT staff is, I'm familiar with a project with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission where permitting for nuclear plants, power plants, is a pretty complex code and permitting process. And they're using AI acceleration to not only help with filing and applying for the p

Yeah, I imagine that in February you wanted to get this through as fast as possible for the moratorium, so I get it. Well, I think it's great that we're taking a proactive approach. It's kind of like Kennewick's, what happened in Kennewick was almost fortuitous for us because it allowed us to actually plan ahead before it happens to us. That's really great. Go ahead.

What did happen in Kennewick as far as, I mean, I know what happened, but did they ask for a moratorium then after all of the uproar and the or what happened exactly with that?

So when this talks about the cities, does that apply to county too, that they can?

I know the county, and this was probably definitely before you were here and maybe, I don't know if any other commissioners, but there was a proposal for, it was a girls' ranch, I believe. It was in North Franklin, and it was for troubled, you know, that had, I believe, been in trouble legally. I'm not sure of that. There was quite a pushback on that, and it just kind of, went away, kind of like the thing in Kennewick that I remember, it's been a while ago, probably more than 10 years ago.

Gotcha. It's very lucrative. The state gives them grants to buy the property, and they give them grants to operate the property.

So Tuesday it will be released. You could either provide your comments or all of the commissioners can certainly go to the city council meeting and testify. When's the council meeting?

All right. Other items, structure, business, no commission, no planning commission meetings and anything else you want to tell us about?

So welcome, Sharon. We're kind of a little weird from the wacky Island County folks.

Excellent. Well, we also wish you the best for the birth of your child next month. I'm sure you're wishing it was this month, but you've got a couple of weeks to go.

All right, if nothing else, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Second? I second. It's been moved and seconded. We're adjourned at 7.52 p.m. Thank you, everyone.