Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey, good evening everyone. We got an echo. Testing. Maybe that's an empty room.

All right, well, thank you, Amanda. Okay, welcome everyone to this evening's Planning Policy Commission. July 23rd, and we're gonna gavel this meeting into session. It's currently 6.31 p.m. Today's meeting is a hybrid meeting. The Planning Policy Commission is in person. Staff or members of the public may be attending virtually this evening. Kristen, do we have a quorum this evening?

Excellent. Okay. We're going to have a fun evening tonight. This is my nightmares are made of. So the great thing is this evening, you guys have seen this material probably three to four times now. So I think most of our responses are probably going to be baked in. The fun part of this evening, it's going to be very formal. We're going to make motions and amendments and have votes and we'll see how that goes. But we want to begin with the approval of minutes, and before you, you have the July 9th PPC meeting minutes. Are there any questions, concerns, anything to point out to staff? Okay, hear

Okay. And it's worth mentioning to those who are watching us online that again, we'll have separate time during this session to have public comments for the actual public hearing that is about the regular business. So again, we're just right now, it's just for the good of the order, the planning policy commission, the city, anything you'd like to mention, but having no hands and having no audience this evening, we're going to move along to our public hearing. So this is the first item of business, which is to hold that public hearing and provide a formal opportunity for public comment regardin

Thank you. Okay, this is where the formality begins. Commissioners, do you have any questions regarding the presentation? on natural context areas. Any questions at all? Commissioner Adair.

In the case of a street, it would just be specifically the drive aisles, the parking, et cetera. You would still be prohibiting dumpsters and storage. Is that correct? Yes.

Any other questions? OK. So now we're going to formally open the public hearing, which we will close after all the presentations. But we would like to open the public hearing this evening at 6.43 PM. This is a team effort tonight. So Amanda, has anyone signed up to speak? Amanda?

Okay. Thanks, Amanda. Taking bets, which is going to be the big topic this evening. I'm going with parking. I think parking is going to be the one. All my chips are in for parking. Okay. All right. So we are now going to move along to transparency. It looks like Emily is up. So Emily Medina, please go ahead.

All right. Great. Thank you, Emily. question from the commissioners regarding transparency. Everybody knows their stuff. Commissioner Holmstrom.

Would a developer have to apply for that deviation or is it granted?

And somebody else has to approve that then at that point.

I think wouldn't it be easier if that was just code? It could be good. We're hearing that the deviations are. Troublesome and I'm just in. This is kind of a new one and it seems like. Maybe we could consider just making that part of the code rather than a deviation. I think it just brings up a lot of question marks for somebody trying to develop something. That's just my thoughts on that.

I would actually like to say in support of Commissioner Holmstrom's proposal to include the deviations, I mean, to avoid deviations and to include all of this into the code.

Okay, we want to deliberate when you guys can make all of those things during amendments. Right now, we just want to ask questions. But you are more than welcome to in about a half hour. Questions, questions? Commissioner Adair.

So for the sake of clarity and questions, how onerous would you say the deviation request process is in your experience?

just to follow up so however to what holmstrom is saying do you think deviation like would you say it would add a significant amount of time to the permit process or to the application process to request a deviation

So this would be any what would count as like a level form.

Maybe can I add something? So if I tell me if I'm wrong, if I'm simplifying this wrong way, basically, like you said, deviation it's in the code. They just have to follow the menu of items. So they know exactly if they're looking for the deviation, what they need to do in order to get it. A variance would be more to your point. You have some type of troubled lot topography. That's going to be a little bit more, I think to Emily's point, you know, they're going to look at it. They might be able to give you some initial guidance, but ultimately, And if you're doing a level four anyway, it doesn'

Okay. So Commissioner Kress, and then we'll go Vice Chair Patterson.

This is more of a clarifying question. So it relates to this and probably other things like parking, which we'll have a lot of time with. This is for new construction only, or is this also like a remodel? And if it's a remodel, at what level does this get implemented? Because that could have an unintended consequence. I'm just trying to understand when are these rules implemented?

So it's 50% of the entire property value?

Is that the same threshold for everything, even like parking?

And have we found in the past when you do that, it stops people from wanting to, if they know they have a different set of rules... Has that been a barrier for them to actually say, I'm going to redevelop this because now it's made some of these new rules impossible for me to do what I need to do? Or is this?

All right. I would assume every city has some type of threshold. And I'm going to piggyback off to John for a moment. Didn't I read in the packet there's also like a 10% of the size also? Does that also trigger? bringing those up to code? Is that parking, 10%?

I thought I saw it in the packet. So the thing that made me think of this, and once again, it's all about our own selves. There's a building down the street from me that's being redone, which looks really nice. It's at the corner of where the trolley goes by on Dogwood. And they're redoing the facade and putting new windows in and all of that. And it's a commercial building of some sort. It's an office building. So with this trigger, I have no idea that, oh, they have to put bigger windows in because of this. Or I'm not sure what the rule changes would be for that example. And I'm just wonderi

Great. Thank you, Commissioner Kras. Vice Chair Patterson.

Thank you, Chair. I want to go back, circle back and try and close the loop on the conversation we just had about the deviation variance code. Because I think the missing link that we're still not quite at, and maybe you two can give me a head nod, is that we talked about deviation variance, but I think your question was more about do we actually put code in for that specific scenario of the multi street-street natural context, is that correct? It wouldn't be a deviation or a variance, it would actually be code specifically addressing, is kind of what you were getting at, correct? Or at least

I made a back pocket going to the appendix.

Perfect. Is that helpful? A little bit. Okay, thank you.

I just want to make sure you're done with your presentation. Okay. I think that was the last slide I saw. There it is. There it was. Okay. Any questions for Emily regarding transparency or deviations or any of the above? All right. Well, thank you, Emily. Okay, that is two of four. Oh, thank you. That was a little mistake. Just wait till later. Amanda, do we have anyone signed up that would like to make public comment regarding transparency?

All right. All right. We're going to continue to the next proposed amendment regarding multifamily uses in the urban urban village, commercial and retail zones. And Andrew Love will be presenting on that. So Andrew, when you are ready, please go ahead.

Nonsensical question. So you're going to be presenting parking? Yes. Lucky you. Okay. Questions as far as the UV RET zone? Anybody? Commissioner Zachroff, that's in your neighborhood.

All right. Amanda, has anyone signed up to speak regarding the Andrew's first presentation. You'll be a comrade. Okay. All right. Okay, Andrew, this is the big one. This is the Super Bowl. Yes.

Great. Thank you, Andrew. Questions? Okay. We'll start. We'll cruise around.

Commissioner Krause. Thank you. This is actually something I saw in the packet. And I was in here two weeks ago, so you may have covered this. So this is regarding maximums and maximums related to single families. So I saw we break out detached single family. I think it was four, if I remember correctly. Um, but townhouse was, uh, only one which I, my question is how did we get to that? Because a lot of townhouses are built with a two car garage. So are we going to say now you can't build a two car wide garage? Like a lot of them are being built right now in this new, and I wonder why we got t

That was already existing, that there's only one? I'm curious how they built all the ones off Newport that have two-car garages, because those are townhouses, and then they have two-car garages. I'm looking at you, Kristen.

Because I do feel, so I'm going to throw this one out there. You look at ones that are what people want, and that is something that is a more desirable thing they want to have. If you're buying a million dollar townhouse, you're probably going to have two cars. I would like us to revisit that or at least understand, I'm not sure if we're opening things now as part of that or is this only things that you want to change versus what's already there as part of this discussion?

Could we, especially on single, I mean, I understand with retail and all that, I mean, a lot of times we have, you know, a lot of things are overbuilt in parking and all that, but I think residential hits an emotional chord when someone is looking for a home and it has to match their needs. So, Kristen's about to.

I really forgot my question. Well, the question was, it's actually, it's a clarification. So during all of the changes of use, any change of use does not require the change in parking. Is that correct? Or are there any changes of use that would require change in parking, especially increase in parking spaces?

If you look at the things that don't sell or tandem, it's a little deliberate.

Yeah. You could be parked in the back. That sucks.

Just a clarifying question, Andrew. So the idea, I mean, really the intent of that law was to be able to take commercial buildings and turn them into residential. That was the whole heart of it, right? They didn't want to put a burden on converting those.

So just for fun, an example is city hall is going to be, they bought the edetics building. They just bought on Newport. Yes. Now, because on, is it new? Maple is a maple, but the use isn't changing. It's just office to office. Correct.

I was just trying to get to an example of maybe, again, something converting. Again, it's really more about what's going to be used within the structure.

Right. And again, maybe it's just because it's mostly the conversations we hear. The idea was really to help convert commercial buildings into residential for more housing. But obviously, on the flip side, it has to do like if the school district was to buy an office space, then they would have to conform with parking. Correct. OK. I do have just two small questions. And this one kind of bothered me. So there's like half a parking spot. Yes. And then there's this whole spiel in the packet that talks about rounding down, decimals round down. Is the half a parking spot, it's based on the size of

Okay. No, you see it in the table. I mean, again, everything like single family, it's very clearly one or zero, no minimums. And then you get to these weird decimals. And again, to your point, no one's going to build a multifamily with one half of a unit. So obviously it's based on the square footage or the GFA, GMA, probably getting the acronym wrong.

I had it written down much more elegantly than I proposed. Anyway, okay, that was my question. Any other questions regarding parking? All right. Amanda, one more time, has anyone signed up to speak?

Okay. Well, that concludes the presentation question and public comment portion of our public hearing. So we will close the public hearing this evening at 7 24 PM. All right. This is where we earn our money. This is deliberation and voting, which we're going to move into this process. And we're going to, again, address each amendment one by one. This evening, our alternate commissioner, Commissioner Adair, will also be a voting member. And we'd like to begin with, and again, please note, all commissioners can deliberate. Just voting is a little bit different. So we'll begin with the natural co

Vice Chair Patterson. I'll get the party started. I would like to move to recommend the approval of the Title 18 Land Use Code Amendment regarding natural context areas in Central Issaquah as presented.

Is there a second? Thank you, Commissioner Adair.

Perfect. And staff has been kind enough to help us with some prompts. You guys will see those throughout the rest of the evening. OK. The motion to recommend approval of the proposed Title 18 amendments related to requirements for natural context areas in central Issaquah as presented has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or someone would like to make an amendment regarding them? And you can begin discussions. I mean, like I said, if you get to a point where we're starting to move towards an amendment, staff will be friendly. They'll prompt us to make the amendment. So, again, j

I just want to say I do think this is a really fair amendment. I appreciate the way it's written. And I think it kind of addresses the concerns of the whole facade being too much while still maintaining a level of aesthetic appeal to the natural context areas. And I think that it does allow some flexibility as well. So I appreciate it. I like it.

Thank you, Commissioner Adair. anyone else like to comment okay chair voice i i would agree with commissioner adair i think there's a little bit of give and take here again if the street separates the natural context area builders and developers are able to do more but if it is adjacent or budding up to then again we want our developers to take that into consideration is a qua is a unique city with a lot of wonderful outdoor attributes, and we'd like them to take advantage of it. And I think we gave them an out by offering a couple different things, whether it's the two streets, three streets,

No, Chair, I think we've said what we need to say on this one. Thank you.

Okay. We will move to the vote. So if there is no further discussion on the motion to recommend approval of the proposed Title 18 amendments related to requirements for natural context areas in Central Issaquah as presented, let's take a vote. All in favor, please raise your hand and say, yay. Okay, that's a unanimous vote. One, two, three.

There's a lot of words in here, right? But one, two, three, four, five, six. Yeah, seven or seven, right? Yeah. One, two, three, four, five. A lot of stuff going on. OK, that was unanimous. Seven voting to confirm. All right. We're going to move to transparency.

Oh, that's right. OK. So the city council, I believe it's the city council, has asked us to help them understand our reasoning. And we're going to do this after the vote every time, just give them a brief understanding of our thinking why.

So I think I alluded to this as showing our homework.

I think Commissioner Adair and myself kind of mentioned the way we felt. Would anyone like to add as to why you voted this particular way? Commissioner Crafts.

I mean, straightforward common sense. I think it was well thought out. And the fact that we didn't have huge deliberations shows that it was common sense and not everything has to be hard.

We'll save that for parking. We'll save that for parking. Agreed. No, agreed. And again, the other thing I would say is we've had, you know, three, this is our fourth meeting on this particular topic. So I think we've kind of fleshed it out. Obviously staff has taken a lot of what we've had to say. turned it into those proposals. So there really isn't as much deliberation. Like John said, this is pretty straightforward. As Commissioner Adair stated this, I mean, I feel like we're giving a little and we're still keeping our context area, you know, the way we want it to. And again, having a stre

Wow. Yeah. Interesting. Anyone want to add? Yeah.

This is new to me too. Vice Chair Patterson. Absolutely. Personally speaking on, I think the reason to not maintain the current code is that this process has allowed us to accept feedback from many stakeholders in the process, whether it be builders, and developers, us as a commission and the city staff and the public. And I think it was apparent that a change was needed. And I think that while still maintaining the community expectation that we have, we found kind of a happy medium, if you will, that gave some flexibility. So it didn't make sense to maintain the current code because it wasn't

Yeah, that's a great summary. Fantastic job by Chair Patterson. Yeah. I mean, a lot of hard work went into those design standards previously and again, but in all fairness, the most vocal people that came here were developers and they cited plenty of reasons they felt that these, some of their projects weren't feasible. So again, trying to meet people halfway. Commissioner Adair.

I'll also say that I did a lot of physical breakdowns myself in drawing, and I felt that looking at it, 50% was looking like an onerous amount of transparency. So that's why I did feel like it was OK to move forward. I also think, realistically, the marketplace is going to demand balconies and windows that overlook natural context areas on its own right that's something that developers will sell and one reason i don't want to relax the regulations entirely is i do think our context areas are community spaces and that we want to enhance the beauty of those and So I don't want to see dumpsters l

I was trying to put my place in the script. There's got to be something after this, right? Okay. Moving on to transparency. Is there a willing commissioner out there to make this motion? Commissioner Kras.

So I make a motion to recommend approval of the proposed Title 18 amendments related to the requirements of transparency as presented.

Is there a willing commissioner to make a second? Commissioner Zakharoff.

Okay. The motion to recommend approval of the Title 18 Land use code amendments regarding transparency as presented has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or amendments? But we'll start with discussion. Is there any discussion regarding transparency? Commissioner Holmstrom.

One thing is we kind of went from a zero to five foot measurement in the beginning to two to eight. And that's a 20% increase because we went from five feet to six feet. And there were some examples that that's helpful in some cases. But it's also essentially for a newer building that's adding more windows, more window square footage. Now you need 40% or 45% of six feet compared to 40% to 45% of five feet. Is anybody following? Yeah. I'm just wondering if we want to talk about that, and that's...

The whole wall? Can I? I think I'm following what you're about to say.

I follow what you're saying, yeah, thanks.

I would assume that would help the builder. Achieve their numbers. even though we've lowered the threshold in a lot of circumstances with the exception of urban core and front street, which still have a very high transparency rate. But for the majority, we actually dropped it a lot. And again, I think going from two to eight, we helped them achieve those numbers.

What do you mean? Wasn't a lot of windows at zero feet. No, no. I don't think.

Well, I mean, Commissioner Holmes from your builder, it'd be a lot more difficult to have those windows without any type of curb. So to actually have them start at two feet, again, you saw those numbers that Emily was kind enough to go tape all of Front Street. They actually grew, so it helped their numbers. Okay. More comments? Please, Commissioner Zakharoff.

Well, it's the time. for deviations. I would still be on a position. I understand staff's position on this, but there are several different reasons why predictability is really needed for developers. And at this point, we really needed development in Issaquah to move on. So I would still like to see a possibility of including all of the possible design standards that can be used by developers into the code rather than use the deviation process. Because deviation process can make permitting or going through all of these processes longer. and take more money. And there is also several things tha

Do you want to make a separate amendment to see if any of your fellow commissioners feel the same way? Oh, I'm sorry. Did I miss Emily? You're fine. I don't know what I'm doing. Or do you want to feel out the commissioners? You don't have to make it formal. I mean, I guess is anyone kind of feeling the same way to codify deviations? Absolutely, Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I think I've weaved through this thought process throughout this meeting. I commend Commissioner Holmstrom for kind of addressing it and the staff for explaining it, but I think ultimately what I've understood is that the deviation as it's documented currently in the amended amendments, amended code, actually provides flexibility while also providing clarity of what they can do. So I think it's saying like we understand that there is a scenario that exists where you could run into having multiple you know, facades that require this, but we're giving you these options. T

Yeah, so, well, I completely understand the Vice Chair Patterson's position. The problem that I see here is this staff, this commission, probably this council, support this position on deviation. But we're trying to create a rule that will work for, not only for today, tomorrow, but 20 years from now, possibly. It will be a different staff, different commission, different council by that time, probably. And the rule should be working no matter what we are guaranteeing today. So it's kind of like, it feels like it's our promise that deviation will be looked at from this point of view. But, so f

Yeah, I see deviations as being a trouble spot. The biggest killer of projects for developers is time. And if you don't know exactly what you're going to get in the review process, that's just going to add time. I know personally there's been review stuff I thought was going to be real straightforward, and it gets shot down. And so I could see a developer thinking they're going to get a deviation. The city thinks otherwise. Now the developer has to redesign the whole building and resubmit. And the carrying costs, the cost of that redesign and the carrying costs of paying for the land and all t

Okay. I definitely want to let other commissioners get in here. So commission, Do you guys want to make a motion to, does someone want to make a motion to change that? Got to be careful with questions because we can't really. Oh yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. So, um, we talking about something broader or something very specific because I think the motion should be based on something very specific of the thing that we're talking about not that we think code should be more specific and have less things which sure we should have things be as specific as possible but that's not something that I would say is a motion to put in something very specific of what we're talking about so that's why I'm confused by that and I would rather just have that more of a guiding principle of when we look at things that are code related, how do you, and you guys a

Would someone like to answer Commissioner Krause?

i would think this is a kind of a topic in between transparency and the natural context context area so we have a lot of kind of buildings or projects that might be built in the area that will require deviations for their development and rather than currently requiring, rather than give it as a deviation, we should probably give an exact kind of development decision.

Sorry. I saw Commissioner Matthews. Commissioner Matthews.

I think, to me, it feels like we're overcomplicating the issue because earlier, I'm sorry, I forgot your name, but you stated that it doesn't take any additional time or money to do a deviation and that normally when a when a developer is going through the deviation process, you've already supported that. You're not going to go, OK, just do your deviation. I don't think it'll get approved. But I don't think that's exactly what's happening. Is that correct, that you typically believe that they've met all the criteria or they can meet all the criteria before they even go in for a deviation. I do

Yeah, I'll just do very quickly. I'll just say to me, I mean, if a developer is looking at a piece of land, he clearly sees the natural context area. It doesn't, it didn't just come into being from the time he purchased the plot. So he's going to know exactly what's going on with that part of land, and then when he looks in the code, he's going to see, oh, I'm required to do this, this, and this. The deviations are actually a flexibility tool for the developer. We're just saying that if you do happen to be on a parcel that has two streets and a natural context area, here's the list of menu opt

I mean, I think what we have here, and maybe Emily, if you go on a little bit more on the difference between a variation and deviation, because I think we're kind of coming up against semantics from my perspective, where it feels like the deviation is in fact baked into the code. If they have an issue, then it's like, oh, if a then be if it's kind of like a flow chart, right? So if you're in this situation, then you can go do this and pick one of these things versus a variation, which is where the uncertainty is introduced.

I, and again, I, I'm, I know we're not really asking the staff questions right now. It's really more for us to deliberate. So I mean, again, let me, let me know if, if anyone thinks otherwise, but to me it gives them more flexibility because they can choose different things to do. If we tell them, okay, you have, These three areas that you're buttressed, you have to do this. Well, OK, that's fine. I mean, I guess you get more clarity, but you're also limiting what they can do. With a deviation, they can go, OK, I'm going to design everything because they bought their lot, they know what they'r

I'm comfortable, but again, this is our time. Commissioner Adair.

Yeah, I'm comfortable doing it with the deviation as well.

I also, I was going to say more fond of, I actually really like the language for the deviation. I think it does give a bit more flexibility because you definitely don't want to just pigeonhole people into doing, okay, you have to do this and this and this. If you have a deviation and your site has a little, you know, a different approach, you might want to have a different way of doing it and not have to do it just like it's in code. Because that's a little more simplistic. Every site's going to be a bit different.

Yeah. No, and that's true. And I think that's true to Commissioner Olmstrom's point is, again, when you're building, every site has a saying. But to me, that's more of like a variance. Like, oh, I didn't know I had an aquifer down here. Like, you know, the city didn't map it. That, to me, is probably more of like a variance thing. You're starting to go down that road if you are surprised. The deviation is just it's part of the design standard you're setting when you're coming up with the blueprints and everything on the land that you've purchased or are looking to buy. And again, it seems pret

Yes, you get to speak first. I get to speak first. So the one thing I liked is it starts putting, like the way we measure things is the way reality is now. Building windows to five feet, I mean, You know, look at anything new that's been built in the last 30 years. You have taller floors, taller buildings, taller windows, and all of that. So it just takes into consideration not only the way buildings are being built, but the way we want them to be built. So I think that kind of lines up. I think you mentioned earlier, I'm not sure, does it help the numbers? That's probably an output of it, but

No, that's great. Thank you, Commissioner Kras. Anyone like to contribute? Commissioner Matthews.

I like to say that I really appreciate the work that has gone into this because the original code was convoluted and difficult to go through. And now it's very simple and I feel like it's easier to read and to understand what you're required to do. And I would not be a fan of going and completely going down to 15% or getting rid of the requirements because I believe that having transparency at it at the rate that we've agreed on is going to be a benefit for the city and for residents that live here.

Yeah, great comment. Thank you. Commissioner Derrick?

Yeah I think one thing I like about the current amendment is one reason I voted for it is it's very common sense to measure between two and eight feet because that is our eye level and we want transparency at eye level and it accounts for the fact that buildings need foundation you don't want windows flush to the ground so that and one reason I am not in favor of relaxing the regulations beyond what is proposed. If we look at Emily's wonderful photos that she took of Front Street, I think it really epitomizes the difference between buildings with high, low, medium transparency levels. And the

I want to make sure I capture everybody. Vice Chair Patterson.

Just make sure we do our homework here. Yeah. Option one, I think for a lot of reasons it conflicts with the energy code. Obviously the measurement of the wrong zone of the facade was a big one. And I think staff's analysis showed us, you know, why it's unachievable in a lot of ways. Option two is I think what we landed on with the amendment and then option three, I think we saw and agreed that there was no true identified benefit, maybe a little bit of cost savings for developers, but overall I think it would have traded away the pedestrian experience that we were trying to maintain by not go

Does everyone that's spoken want to speak? I want to make sure Commissioner Millinder Irwin, Commissioner Zachroff, Commissioner Holmstrom. Want to make sure I get you guys in the conversation too.

I had an earlier comment, Chair Boyce. I just wanted to echo my agreement and thank everyone for the very engaging points that I was certainly thinking of and were made way before I could make them. So thank you. I'm in full agreement. And I want to thank staff for all the hard work in making this make a lot of sense for us this evening.

I'll second that. Yeah, not really a whole lot to add. I think the Commissioner's summed it up pretty well as to why we landed on that particular one. We listened to the developers who came in and made their case that these windows were everything from inefficient to costly. To Vice Chair Patterson's point, we're actually a little bit lower than our peer cities, yet in our very high thoroughfares, we've kept it up to 70. We've changed the way that we're measuring So that is a boon to the developers. And again, I don't think we want to go lower or relax in the regulations further. We're trying

I think it's my turn. I make a motion to recommend approval of the proposed title. It's an amendment related to permitted uses for the UV commercial retail zone as presented.

Great. Thank you, Commissioner Zakharoff. Is there a second? Great. Thank you, Commissioner Millinder-Irwin. Okay. The motion to recommend approval of the Title 18 land use code amendments regarding the change in permitted uses to the urban village commercial retail zones as presented has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or amendments to this particular topic? Commissioner Zakharov.

I can just, just for the start of it. This motion is actually follows the, all of the new rule changes from that, I mean, from the state. So it's basically gives us no real room until we go. And we have on some of the slows, we're trying to go ahead and just makes, makes sense.

Well, that's summed up very well. Further comments regarding this particular topic? Compliance. I guess the only thing that will probably be asked by staff is why now? Why not wait? We've got time. Yeah, I don't know. Get used to it early. OK, I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of commentary on this particular topic. So if there is no further discussion, and I want to make sure everybody got the opportunity to speak. Okay. There being no further discussion on the motion to recommend approval of the Title 18 Land Use Code Amendments regarding the change in permitted uses to the urban

Well, I think I've already kind of said why we've started it, and I probably can answer the question, like, why now? Because everything takes time, and we only have, we only had, by what, like, 18 months or so in several cases. So, and anyways, development takes a lot of time, way more than 18 months, so why not now?

Why not now? I think December 11th, 2017 is the date. Whoa, whoa. Sorry, everybody. Sorry, just gave everybody a little bit of, whoa. 2027. Okay.

Vice Chair Patterson. Yeah, just to once again address our three options. We land on option two. I think the reason option one or three wouldn't work is because it would put us out of compliance, as Chair Boyce called out. We do have a little bit of time to do it, but I think it's a why wait situation. So choosing option two put us in compliance and the amendment looked great to me, to us.

Agreed. Anyone else like to add on? Okay. Hopefully you got what you needed. Okay. All right. Here we go. Moving on to the final proposed changes regarding parking. Is a commissioner willing to make the motion for parking? Commissioner Millinder-Irwin. I make the motion to recommend approval of the . Oh, sorry. Leslie, you're going to have to do it all over again.

See? It came out all clear to you. So I'd like to make a motion to recommend approval of the proposed Title 18 amendments related to requirements for parking as presented.

Even better the second time. Is there a second? Commissioner Zakharoff.

I would like to second this motion. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you both. So the motion to recommend approval of the Title 18 Land Use Code Amendments regarding parking as presented has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion or amendments? And we'll start, I'm gonna start by ignoring this rule. Commissioner Millinder-Irwin, would you like to kick it off? You don't have to, I just, I've been ignoring this little note that says, ask them first.

So this may end up in an amendment, but let me throw out my thought. And I'm kind of cracking open something that was not originally asked, which is when I go back, I mentioned this earlier, is maximums for single-family townhouse. Right now it says one or a tandem. I would like to look at that to be... Maybe matching what we do with single-family detached, because if you have a townhouse that has a two-car garage and maybe there's a driveway, it just allows you to have that flexibility. And I think we would be too limited to do what we have in our current code. And I'm not sure, I'm looking a

The maximum doesn't, it's not because of state law. It's not because of state law. Okay.

So I'm curious. So 50% of your facade on a townhome may need to be rethought. I mean, I think... Garage door, double car is 16 feet. A townhouse is not going to be 32 feet wide by most of them. But I think if you have, I'll use the ones, the example I gave earlier that are off of Newport. You kind of drive through. You're not even seeing it from the street. It makes it a more usable setup than the tandem. I was a little flip earlier on the tandem comment about the person who gets stuck in the back is not very good. um so i just want to make sure that we have the flexibility for people to have

I think because, and maybe we wouldn't have predicted this, you know, 10 years ago, but townhomes is the thing getting built and that's the people don't want to build condo style, um, like stacked condos for all the reasons of insurance and all of that. Townhouses are more affordable than single family, detached. And if you look at what's going through at least the areas in Central or Isco Valley and all of that, there's a lot of townhouse developments. So I think having something well thought out on townhouses is a great idea. I would ask maybe in the interim on this one, we have some flexibi

Because it's sitting in code as of now. Commissioner Adair?

Yeah, just to Kristen's point, I would like to see us dive into townhomes in the future because that was actually something I really thought about with regards to the transparency and when we were asked to exclude them from transparency standards. And I realized that middle housing and single family didn't have transparency standards the same way multifamily did. And I was like, OK, so ultimately townhomes are closer in my mind to multifamily and single family. So, yeah, I think we should, there's a lot of them going up everywhere and might be worth revisiting.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're going to see consensus from everybody, but Commissioner Holmstrom.

I certainly understand what you're saying about the two spots. It may not apply as much as we think because I believe a parking spot space in Issaquah has to be 18 feet to be considered a parking space. So, the town home at a driveway that was 16 feet, that would just be considered a driveway. So you wouldn't use any parking spot requirements for that. Now you could still park a smaller car there, but I agree. First, many are getting built in the future. We should have some standards go along with this.

Yeah, I'm gonna make a point of order here. Uh, this is all great discussion. Very important. I think it would be best at this point to make an amendment if that's okay.

Yeah, so I'd like to make an amendment to this motion for city staff and council to explore townhome standards in the future. I think at this point, may I deliberate now?

Yeah, so we'll make the recommendation then. But the reason why... But you do need agreement. Okay, right now. Would you like me to state my case?

It's so hard to go between formal and formal. I know, right? Like, oh, I didn't need to be that formal. Okay. No, ultimately, because I think we're all making great points here, but this conversation is going to go in a deep place that I don't think we're ready to go yet, and this particular topic is too far gone to go back. I think that we need to take the townhouse standards seriously. through this process from the beginning and incorporate it more formally in the future. I just don't think, I think we're opening up a can of worms that maybe we hadn't considered up to this point. So I think

I would concur 100%, Vice Chair Patterson. So having said that, yeah, we'll ask for that recommendation to be put in towards city council. I don't think there's anybody who disagrees that we should be looking at town homes more closely. And if I understood vice chair Patterson point, basically what you're mentioning is let's keep the motion as it is in terms of the one parking spot has been that way since 2017 or whatever year I mentioned. So it's not going to hurt anybody moving forward. And then let me ask you this, and hopefully I can ask this type of question. How long do you think it woul

That's pretty quick. So even if you guys did have a, staff had a big workload, I mean, waiting a year, I think we can all live with that for the one parking spot. At least I can, as of now for tonight's discussion. And I want to thank Vice Chair for roping us back into the actual discussion, so.

I'm still confused. There's three developments. They're all pretty big that have two-car garages that are all being built, like the Front Street ones next to Jerry Gold. You've got the ones off Newport, and then you have the ones that are near the Vail Apartments. All have two-car garages. So if it's a standard, I'm just surprised that that's the case. Either they've got variance for them, which means that's what people want to buy and build, And if that's the case, I think we may want to do something even before a year or two that keeps the momentum and not has this thing, which I see as a pr

I would like to not wait a year or two to make that change. So what are my options? What are our options?

So like I said, no, no, no. Here is an option. Can I make it? Can we make an amendment? to change that from one to a different number than one to two yes you can okay

Those three, none of them you can see, the garages.

So I think I agree with that. But I think, yeah, so I think the table didn't say that the table to said, yeah, the tables.

So if I'm understanding correctly, then we could amend the maximum number of parking spots, but to prevent it from being all along the street as a garage front, would that be a different portion of the code that would then have to be addressed later? Or could it be addressed at this time?

What you guys are doing is basically we're making a formal recommendation. Ultimately it's going to be council's decision to make, but what you're doing is what we're taking as our formal recommendation. If Commissioner Kras would like to, you can make an amendment to this parking saying, hey, we caught this during the presentation. We don't like it. We're sending this along with our formal recommendation.

Is this even a recommendation or we're just like, we're essentially just writing down what we're already doing. Well, you deliberate.

Right. But it is a public hearing in the sense that this is all formal. But you can make the amendment if you'd like. or anyone can make any amendment. But you'd be making an amendment to the proposed title, and again, that's fine. If you want it to be specific, yeah, state your case. Yeah, for sure.

I will even do this without a cheat sheet. We'll see how this goes. I would like to make an amendment to clarify single family townhouse to allow a maximum of two parking spots if not facing a public street.

I would like to make an, okay, are you just messing with me? No, I'm actually trying to write it down. Okay.

Vice Chair Patterson was filming. Okay. When not facing a public hearing. I have to repeat it too. Okay. No, you're fine. Okay, is there a second for Commissioner Krasa's amendment? Commissioner Zakharoff has.

Okay, so now we get to go on John's tangent, which is now we're going to wrap this one up before we move on to the whole package. So any comments, deliberations? Commissioner Crafts, you get to go first. You put it on the floor. Defend.

I mean, we're essentially putting into the code the thing we're already doing. And it establishes the ability to have the parking that people need and what people will build at the same time preserving the public road with the code that already exists.

So it's just really clarifying what we're already doing. Any other comments? Commissioner Zakharoff.

Well, I myself did not notice this in the code as Commissioner Cross noticed, but it completely makes sense to me because I think all of the arguments were kind of correct, in my opinion, regarding the town homes getting into probably the most popular new way of property. And tandem parking is not the most comfortable way to park, definitely. People mostly have two cars or more if they're living in a million-dollar townhomes that are currently on the market. And I think this is something that is needed. I think it has a purpose. And that's why I completely seconded it, and I'm in favor.

So I don't disagree with any of the points made. I agree with them. I only just wonder if we could have an example of the text or the table, how it might appear. That would be great because I just want to be very clear that it's too provided it's not on the front street. If that is the case, if it's not on the publicly facing street, I am in support. I just want to make sure it's very clear.

Vice Chair Patterson. I'm kind of in the same boat. I think I accept the idea of this, but I think right now I need to understand what's changing the most. Didn't we just all say that it's happening today? Like they are building two car garages? Is it just that that's a market change, not a requirement? I'm just trying to understand it the right way.

It sounds like there was a parking update in 2025 in those permits that have already been through the pipeline.

Gotcha. And now it's down to one, and we want to put it back to two. OK.

Someone from staff want to make sure that I've covered that?

I just want to make sure we're all discussing the right thing. You know he asks a good question when they're all on their computers.

OK, but I did get that right, Kate. Basically, the ones that have been built prior were already through the pipeline before that parking reduction happened in 2025.

Perfect. Yeah, just a little bit of context. While they're looking, would anyone else like to continue to comment? We'll take a formal vote on Commissioner Kras's amendment, but definitely keep taking comments. Yeah, just John's amendment right now. I'll just say for my part, Commissioner Kras brings up a great point. This is the popular building trend at the moment, and I appreciate the fact that we are explicitly saying not on public facing roads. I think there's a bigger responsibility when you're taking up public facing public pedestrian facing common areas. But having some flexibility in

I was checking with current planners, sorry.

It is. It is. No, like I said, it's a good catch. Okay. Now we've got to vote on the amendment, correct? Okay. Now I have to state it, correct?

Great. Thank you, Kristen. Okay. All in favor of the current amendment on the table, please vote and say, yay. Yay. So that amendment passes unanimously. All right. With that, having said that, going back to the original conversation, just as parking as a whole and minimums, we'll pick it up with somebody who wants to begin. Commissioner Zachroff.

I would like to kind of follow up a little bit on my question regarding parking and change of use that we have discussed. We did not discuss much a change of use except for commercial into non-commercial. I would like to propose, I don't know if it's going to be an amendment or at least a recommendation, to make sure that the change of use from one type of commercial to another type of commercial will not trigger any change in parking laws unless it's required by the state law.

Okay. How does everyone feel about that? Strongly? Passionately? Because I think if there's not a strong feeling either way, that can be more of a recommendation, correct? Does it have to be an amendment? We can recommend anything to council.

Vice Chair Patterson? Yeah, general, yeah. Okay, I'll put this out to the Commission. I'm considering making an amendment to this motion to divide it into two, like an A and a B, three A, three B. And the reason why is because I think part of this amendment is a requirement for compliance with state laws. I think there's a big section of it that we basically have to do. But there also is a section about removing parking minimums in the UC and MUCI zones. And I think that should be considered almost like two separate recommendations. Because I think that there's different reasons why we might r

Yeah, Commissioner Kraus. I know I talked about maximums for, so let's go to minimums. And I totally agree that we need to be super thoughtful before we go above and beyond on things that are already probably pretty hard. And And I would support holding off on getting rid of minimums. And maybe we get there eventually. But I agree that having that be a specific thing that we look at or maybe just postpone is probably a good idea.

So when you, when you guys mentioned getting rid of minimums, we're not talking about the state pieces. So like affordable housing, it's none of that. That's just, you're above and beyond meaning, what is it? It is central.

urban core and central mixed use is a quad. Those are the areas being proposed to completely eliminate parking standards. So it sounds like Commissioner Kras and Vice Chair Patterson are against removing those minimums. But let's keep going down the dais. Commissioner Adair.

So I'm of the opinion I would like more discussion regarding the minimums and I would almost go further and say I would like to see it split into commercial and residential because personally I feel more comfortable reducing or eliminating minimums I mean, like apart separately from the state requirements for residential, but I have different feelings about commercials. So I agree that I would like maybe more time to discuss and dig in and see rather than just, hey, let's get rid of all parking minimums required, period.

Yeah, all valid points. I think last meeting we were discussing it, and I think originally the first time we discussed parking, we all kind of came to that Let's not go above and beyond. We don't need to. I think the idea was, I think one of the committees came back and that was the idea was maybe to get rid of the minimums in these areas and see how it worked as almost like a sample size and let the market drive them. And again, I could be, like I said last meeting, I could probably be convinced either way. But again, looking for more commentary and then we'll let Vice Chair Patterson put an

have the same thought process I just in that zone I don't see a ton of available street parking right now there's tons of private parking lots mm-hmm but we can't assume people are just gonna be allowed to park in those so if they have to park in the street it's just there's I mean you look at north of Gilman there are no streets that's a huge strip of land that could get redeveloped and if there's no minimums I don't know where people

would park a car so i'm totally in favor of retaining yeah retaining the minimum for the urban core central okay um well i think everyone's kind of had their piece do you want to put that amendment out there mr patterson yeah absolutely um cool so i would like to amend motion three to divide it into two separate motions

Motion 3A, the amendments required for compliance with SB 5184 and HB 1183. And then motion 3B, regarding elimination of parking minimums in UC and MUCI zones. You get that okay?

Okay, I'll argue my own case here. I don't know that I'm necessarily against minimums. I just don't know enough to make a decision for now. And so I guess that does mean I'm against it for now. So if it makes sense, we can move forward with approving the state requirement ones and recommending further discussion.

Question for you Kristen was it appropriate Would something appropriate, and again, this is not my strong suit, would it be appropriate for the amendment to say to basically break out that, maintain minimums in these areas, or is just an informal recommendation okay? Because that's the proposal that's technically out there, is we're saying no, we're okay with getting rid of the minimums.

To remove the proposal, to remove minimums, just remove the proposal, remove minimums.

Okay. From, yeah. But we do need to formally do it because technically we've... We didn't vote on anything. It hasn't been seconded.

Pretend I never said anything. So yeah, I would like to amend motion three to move forward with the amendments reviewed for compliance with State Bill 5184. in House Bill 1183 and remove the elimination of parking minimums. That's good, that's good, that's enough? That works. Okay.

And a little sticky pad so I know what to say here in a couple seconds. I'm gonna buy myself a few seconds by pretending to cough or something, I don't know. Okay, so now we need a second for Vice Chair Patterson's motion.

So Commissioner Adair. I second Vice Chair Patterson's motion. Do I need to say what it is again?

No, you don't. Great. Second's perfect. Thank you, Genevieve. Okay, it's been seconded. So now we have time to deliberate and discuss what Jesse put out there. How does everybody feel about that? Because we are going to vote on it. before we get back to the general topic. Would anyone like to discuss it? Now is your time. And again, we're just talking about Vice Chair Patterson's motion. Commissioner Matthews.

Yeah, I think it's actually a good idea because I'm not very comfortable with removing minimums at this time either. Just because, again, we don't have parking on streets. We don't have side streets to have people loading their cars.

No. And the only thing I would say to the commissioners is remember about two meetings, two parking meetings ago, this is where we all kind of landed. And I think last meeting, you know, we might've got to convince maybe we can do this. So, or maybe I did, but ultimately this is, this is why we're all here. So again, everybody's opinions valid. I want to do commissioner Holmes from brings up a good point about Gilman. So again, very thoughtful. I'm sure there.

Yeah, and I'm, you know, I'll probably wound in getting rid of parking minimums. But at this point, I do want to see more research and I want to know what kind of safeguards we can put in place, for example, for people who live in neighborhoods. Like we had a public comment brought up and she's saying everyone's parking on streets and we don't know when or where. So if we need to set up a permit system or something like that, I'd rather have a good idea of what kind of administrative cost does that come with, that sort of thing.

No, thank you, Commissioner Adair. That's a great point. We did receive public comment, and we received a lot from the developers, clearly, and that's great. They're a part of our community, but we also did receive public comment of people that made that exact comment. Yeah, and to your point, I agree. I think I could see myself getting rid of them and let it be market-driven completely in the future, but, you know, it never hurts to have more information. All these things can always be revisited. Okay. I think my sticky notes are getting ready. Perfect. Okay. Okay. Oh, there it is in the note

Okay. Now I'm going to have to put the regular motion with the amendments. Amendments are voted on. Don't have to worry about them. Isn't there some magic formula I'm supposed to say?

No, we don't have to take a... Because it was already... We initially began the deliberation.

Okay, move to recommend the parking amendments as amended.

Okay, I like that. Okay, the motion to recommend approval of the proposed Title 18 amendments related to requirements for parking as amended. All in favor? Say aye. Aye. Unanimous. Seven for seven. There's a lot of formality this evening. That's good. That's what I get for not bringing my Robert's Rules. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, before we move on, planners, do you have what you need? I know we kind of debated that one more than any of them, so is that enough homework shown?

Thank you. Okay. We talked that one to death. Yes. Okay. Well, I'll stop here real quickly. I want to thank staff. It's been great to have Yi and Andrew and Emily with us. I hope to see all of you again. Thank you for all of your hard work, your fantastic presentations. And, yes, thank you again. And of course, we want to thank Kate and Amanda, Manny and Kristen, who are regular, wonderful staff that are always with us. All right. We are going to move on to the end of this evening. Let's start with City Council updates.

Oh, it is late. It is late. Okay. Any other business or announcements?

Excellent. Well, thank you, Kristen. Yeah, I noticed that, too. So just everybody knows August, our meetings will actually be a week apart. So August 13th, August 20th. So not, it'll be the second and third Thursday of that month.

Okay. All right. Any other announcements from the commission staff? Anyone. I did notice there is a cool festival going on, August 13th, our next meeting, Thursday, the aircraft. Is that new?

I saw the banner go up over Front Street. August 13th through 16th? Yes. You said clown, right?

My kids took clown lessons from him. He's great. He's a great clown. He knows what he's doing. My kids are much better jugglers for it.

Excellent. Okay. Well, our summer of fun has not ended. We still have a little bit longer to go. Commissioner Zakharov.

Every weekend in August, the front street will be closed. Oh, for the... For Saturday and Sunday, and there will be different activities. Oh, that's right.

I know every weekend in August because I was asked if anybody from dance community can participate and they probably will and you might see me or not see me.

Yeah, and what else do we have? Tuesday's Concerts in the Green is back, so what was Tuesday I went? Stonesie, Rolling Stones cover band, it was great. If you could survive the 90-some degree weather.

Okay, I think that wraps it up. Again, I want to thank staff for all their hard work and thank everybody here. We're going to adjourn this meeting of the Planning Policy Commission at 8.52. Night, everyone.