City Council - Regular Meeting

This fourth meeting of the Bellevue City Council. Good evening and welcome. Thank you for being here and for participating in the work of the city. Before we get to our agenda, I want to start by noting that over the weekend in Spokane, three fires forced 65,000 people to evacuate and more than 700 homes were destroyed. We are heartbroken for those who have lost so much, many only able to escape with the clothes they wore and whatever was in their car at the time. The scale of loss is immense and our thoughts are with every Washingtonian facing the trauma and displacement and uncertainty. That

Okay, Councilmember Robinson, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

I pledge allegiance 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. Okay, we have three proclamations tonight. I want to welcome Billy Allen from our CARES team to the desk, please. And then we have, who's reading that one? Oh, you do? Oh, I think we maybe kind of got those. All right, well, here we go. So International Overdose Awareness Day, I will read this one. Whereas International Overdose Awareness Day is recognized globally on August 31st as an opportunity to remember those we hav

Thank you. If you would stick around, we would love to have you up for a picture afterwards. So thank you. I would like to invite Katoya Raquel Palmer to the desk and ask Council Member Breyer to read the Black Business Month Proclamation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Whereas August is recognized nationally as Black Business Month, a time to celebrate the innovation, entrepreneurship, and lasting contributions of Black-owned businesses that strengthen communities and expand economic opportunities, and whereas Black-owned businesses play an important role in Bellevue's dynamic economy, creating jobs, enriching the city's cultural fabric, and contributing to the innovation and entrepreneurship that help our community thrive, and whereas Bellevue is strengthened by the diversity of its residents, businesses, and entrepreneurs, and the

Thank you. If you would, too, just hang out with us. We'd love to get a picture with you. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to ask Tulika Dugar to come to the desk, and Council Member Newenhaus is going to read the India Day Proclamation. Welcome. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Whereas the city of Bellevue recognizes the historical significance of India's Independence Day, commemorating August 15, 1947, when the Republic of India achieved independence through a long and courageous struggle for freedom, bringing an end to more than two centuries of British colonial rule. And whereas India's journey from colonial rule to the world's largest democracy continues to inspire people around the globe, with the nation making significant contributions in science, technology, entrepreneurship, healthcare, education, and space exploration while strengthening its role as a global

Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Any discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed Okay, the motion passes. Thank you. All right, we can move on to oral communications and city clerk Do we have anyone signed up to speak tonight?

Yeah, Mr. Zimmerman, this has to do with council business. That's why you're here. So if you can speak to that, please continue. If not, please don't continue.

City business, sir. Please stick to city business. This is a city business.

So far you have not talked about anything that's with city business. So I'm going to give you one warning.

I'm not hearing it, sir. No, what is mean city business? I don't understand. That's for you to interpret. It's the same rules for everybody, Mr. Zimmerman. Exactly. Just follow the rules. That's all you need to do.

Mr. Zimmerman, that's your second warning. If you can get to the point and find a way to talk about city business, then please do so.

That's your final warning. Mr. Zimmerman, you're done. Good night. I'm talking about business. Someone would please give Mr. Zimmerman a little help getting out.

Great. Thank you. I appreciate most all of the comments made tonight, and where appropriate, we'll be following up. So thank you all. With that, City Manager, I understand you have a short report for us this evening.

Okay, great, thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? I move to approve the consent calendar. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right, the consent calendar is approved. We'll move on to the first study session item and ask the city manager to introduce it.

Great. Thank you, Bianca, Jake, Leticia. I appreciate the presentation. I think this is an exciting project and thrilled to see us considering it. And I'm really confident under your leadership in the direction of Bridge Housing, who certainly has a long proven track record. of producing and managing affordable housing projects. And with that, let's go around the dais. Council Member Sumida Wiria.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Congratulations. This is our first project with this type of partnership, right? So I think setting the ground and the framework is so important to know how to showcase the public benefit. Thank you for the hard work. Also, thank you, Bianca, for responding to my question so fast. Thank you so much. I felt this is just special because it's a transit-oriented project also that's focused on the 30 to 60 AMI. That's an area that's strongly needed. So thank you for making sure that's the, because Bianca actually explained to me it's 60%, and then they split between 50% 30

I'll start with the fact that I remember arguing with my parents about pursuing the arts and they told me the arts were just a hobby and I'll never be able to find a place to live. And I just feel so vindicated because I could be like, actually, the city of Bellevue is doing everything to create affordable housing and attract artists. So thank you so much for the work that you're doing. I appreciate that there's public benefits. I think it was slide 13. You don't have to go back, but it said in particular some of the conditions were public space dedicated to community building. The end goal of

Okay, very good. Council Member Robinson.

That sounded like a radio show. I'm so happy with this. This is everything I love. It's about the people. It's about art. It's about affordable housing. It's about small business. I'm really pleased. Plus, I love a good DA. I love getting... good outcomes for all the permitting that we do. I just want to give kudos to Maria Huey who spoke at public comment. You know, I often brag about our community and what an educated and gifted community we have in Bellevue and people who really care and get involved. And here we have somebody who is the former chair of the Bellevue Arts Commission She's a

Thank you. Council Member Newenhouse. Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor. Yeah, exciting opportunity. Just got a couple of questions, but, you know, this is something that... is just perfect for the Bell Reds Arts District. And my first question is just about, obviously it's not exclusively for artists, but how are we gonna track that, what is developed will meet artists' needs, whatever that might be. I know we talked about this a little bit during our briefing, Could you speak to a little bit in terms of what the requirements might be, what special steps we're taking to attract artists to this

Okay. But the city, and I'm assuming tapping the Bell Red Arts District, they could get the word out as well, right? That's right. Okay, great. If I read the memo correctly, it states that bridge must secure the financing and finalize the affordability levels before the ground lease is signed. So what specific enforcement mechanisms does the city have to If Bridge cannot deliver the targeted, what is it, the 140, 172 affordable units, and then it's 24 units, right? You mentioned that was a correction of the persons with disabilities, not 40. So what mechanisms do we have if things go sideways?

So if there is any last minute shifts or change of direction, what is the mechanism for bridge to alert the city of Bellevue?

Okay, great. That was the only other question I had then. Thank you so much. Excited to move this project forward.

I am also very excited about this project. We are making Bellevue more affordable for folks. So very exciting. Thank you. Uh, yes, the whole department, beyond coverage, housing and everyone. Uh, I have just kind of maybe a follow up on councilman your house question. Uh, we are, uh, giving all of these kind of, um. Design and land use flexibility. Uh, right now. But, for example, the minimum affordable units is not finalized. I think it mentioned from 140 to 172 or 24 units, at least 24 units kind of for people with disabilities. Uh, so not even the project goes sideways that maybe that was a

So you come back with more accurate final product that we sign.

Great, thank you. Okay, yeah, I mean, I really like this project and I think what's contemplated here is the perfect use of surplus land. Advancing the city's affordable housing goals and supporting the vision of the Bell Red Arts District are critically important goals for the city and this project helps us achieve both. There are no more important projects than those that support the creation of family size units, so I'm especially pleased to see them focused on with this project. And considering the critical need for family size units and housing generally in the city, I hope we do everythi

Okay, great. I mean, obviously we're in a big hurry, so please do all you can and let us know whenever there is anything we can do to help speed things up. I do think having the city's A team, Development Services, the Office of Housing, Jake and Bianca, Leticia, working with one of our premier affordable housing suppliers and managers certainly gives me a lot of confidence. Again, I think this is just really an amazing project and one that the city can really be proud of. i think the list of public benefits that come with the project are amazing certainly as i mentioned the family size units

Negotiations with bridge housing for the Bell Ridge Arts transit oriented development site and prepared the development agreement for a public hearing at a future meeting second Any discussion?

Can I just add one more thing? I remember was remiss and not commending bridge housing for being such a good partner Really have a good history with them and excited to do this project.

So Okay, all those in favor say aye aye Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. We are at 7.12.

Do we want to do a break now or go for another one?

Okay, with that, we will take a break and be back here in 10 minutes at 7.22. Thank you. Our back and city manager, please, if you would, with our next study session item.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Wong, Lucy, Matt, Dwight. I appreciate the presentation. In line with current trends, this effort strikes me as another example of city streamlining processes that increase transparency, efficiency, and equity. Certainly anxious to hear from my colleagues, and we'll start with Councilmember Newenhouse.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yeah, just I think incredible effort by utilities, by the Environmental Services Commission. In fact, I'm not sure there's ever been a year in which the Environmental Services Commission has done so much to advance transparency, to advance affordability and fairness. So I'm just incredibly proud of this commission for all the work that you have done here with the great guidance and great reporting and data collecting and just overall incredible job by staff. And I don't say that lightly just because I think we're in a time where we need this more than ever, you know, w

Fantastic. Yeah, no surprises is always a great thing. But I also think repetition is also really important in this case. Not everybody always gravitates to what's happening in their utilities department or changes with that when they get a mailer or they see something. So I think, you know, multiple... instances where we can share these changes and how it's going to benefit parties across the board, I think is going to be really, really, really helpful. So I can't say enough good things about this. Again, at the right time where it aligns with our goals and it aligns with hopefully making an

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Thank you for making this simplified because we know that a simplified process always making the goal more focused to helping the community. And I'm really grateful for the chair to spending time and making it so efficient just in two meetings. Thank you. That's amazing. I just have a few clarified questions. I sent you a long list of questions. I'm very nerd about these things. You don't have to come back to all of them. But there is two questions I just kind of want to clarify because we are making a motion tonight. One of them is about, I think it's on slide, let's

Thank you. And is there room to work with the small business concierge services? And so when the group is helping somebody to plan a business in Bellevue, they can actually have a full picture, like, you know, since this is the process we're going to make and how it's going to become different. Because I think the last thing I would want is when people want to start a business, they evaluate the cost, the initial cost. And then that, when they compare with other cities, it scares them away. And I think having the small business concierge, having a full picture of them, what's the long-term ben

Thank you. And my last question is, let's see. I think my next question is more about the option of paying upfront for the lump sum in the beginning or paying over 10 years. Did I get it wrong? Because right now, you're paying overtime for 10 years for the lump sum. How, when we're doing the public awareness, how can we communicate effectively with the people who are already paying for the lump sum or their neighbors or their future planning thinking about? How can we share the differences, the benefit of paying the lump sum? Because I'm just thinking off my head, what if somebody don't have t

Oh, that's great. I love that the developers are thinking ahead of that. Thank you so much for everything.

Thank you, Vice City Mayor. So this looks great. I really appreciate the thoughtful work on this. And Chair Wan, thank you for your and the commission's work as well. I just had one question. Have we run this by, actually, I guess, two questions. Have we run it by the master builders to get their opinion on this?

Perfect. And then how does this impact developments like the horse farm? Can you, do you know off the top of your head?

Because they're the development on, I think it's 140th and right across from the golf course.

Thank you, Lucy. That was exactly what I was asking. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I'll keep my comments brief and just begin with extending my gratitude. Conducting this complex and cross-functional collaborative work is not easy. And moreover, building predictable, scalable, and reproducible systems is not, I wouldn't say it's native to government, but I think we here in Bellevue are set aside regionally and are beating even national standards because of the work that you're conducting. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I also wanted to echo my colleagues and show my appreciation to the Commission, to the Chair, to the Lucy and all of the staff. Great work. I have one quick question. If you are looking at the slide nine, that is comparing the second proposal change between current and proposed for some examples, single family, multifamily. Do we have the same slide, but we can see all of the three changes and see what would happen between current and proposed for some of the examples that you have there?

The third proposal, does that change anything between proposed and current for these examples?

There is no change for these examples for the third proposal?

But yeah, I understand this is just CRC versus CRC based on the second proposal. I think it would be great if we have a big table that shows all of the payment that people are paying between current, not just for CRC, for everything, and proposed, and then see all of the three proposal impact in one table. I think that would be great. I also would like to... I'm not really understand how much of the differences comes from moving to this meter-based method that we are seeing instead of the previous method, and how much of that comes from adding the remaining of that DFCC cost into the whole sys

Okay, great. Thank you. I'm just going to echo some of the comments that were already made and just appreciate you taking a complicated and acronym-rich subject and distilling it down, making it understandable. I appreciate your email from last week as well. just kind of setting up the discussion tonight. So I really do think this is kind of just a textbook approach in helping the council to work through something that's kind of complicated and at least for me, gets even more complicated when there's a lot of acronyms to consider. So great work. Thank you. And with that, I'd appreciate a motio

I move to direct staff to prepare an ordinance to implement the commission's recommendations to amend Bellevue City Code chapters 24.02, 24.04, and 24.06 to improve affordability, increase transparency, and preserve equity in the city's connection charges for water, sewer, and storm, and surface water utilities as part of the upcoming biennial budget process.

Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any opposed? Okay, the motion carries. So, all right, good. With that, I think we can move on. Thank you so much again. We can move on to our next study session item, and City Manager, if you would.

Great. Jeremy, Chris, thank you. I'm glad to see us moving forward with the shared micromobility program. I've seen them in other cities and they generally work very well. We've been talking a lot about transportation investments as we focus on the upcoming budget and have highlighted how we can maximize the value of our limited resources by investing in improving our connections to existing transportation infrastructure. And our shared micromobility program helps us do that by enhancing residents, workers, and visitors' last mile connections to appointments, shopping, jobs, and fun. And the m

Addressing first mile and last mile are very, very important to encourage folks to use public transportation and light rail. We just expanded bellhop recently. With the help of Amazon, visit Bellevue city of Bellevue and sound transit and. This line is also going to. Help us to do that the same thing that they'll have expansion doing connecting people with and help them with the last mile and. Fair smile. I just have a two quick question. I think slide 11 had several metrics that you were showing to us. And I love that. And then for one of them, you said maybe, I think it was parking complianc

Okay, thank you. Again, it would be awesome if we have a plan for if they don't hit targets, what our plan is. But let me maybe ask my next question, and I think that's maybe one of my kind of concern is, so what level of parking, like noncompliance, or what level of the people blocked sidewalk and they are causing issues? or repeated problems at some of the location that we will see there are some issues. How are we fixing them? How fast we are fixing them? And how quickly Lyme is required to respond when basically some of we are seeing repeated issues?

Thank you for the response and I think I'm going to end on this note that, uh, the, the agenda and your slides are all great and says that we are going to. We are going to monitor parking compliance and line response time. But I think what I didn't see, and I'm sure you have, I didn't see the standards, the thresholds, what are the response requirements are. So I think if we all have that and make that available for people, I think it shows that we have done all of our due diligence. And not only we are monitoring, not only we have targets, but we know the standards, the thresholds, the conseq

Thank you so much for this incredible work. I too am excited alongside all of my colleagues that have spoken. For the safety KPI, safety as a term is a bit vague. I just wanted to understand what specifically is being measured. For instance, the number of accidents or what were, I think you had mentioned that all of these contentions have benchmarks that we're measuring against. I just wanted to get some further information on that if it is available.

I see. If WSDOT is not providing that data, or it's not a part of the funnel that goes through WSDOT and FIRE is providing that data instead, are the two ultimately going to be reconciled?

Okay. Okay. So we're doing it in-house. That's good. Okay. And then the other question I had is I know that there are some portions that were blocked out on the geofencing of the scooters, and that includes the downtown park, according to the map that I saw. I'm forgetting which slide it was, but just wanted a quick yes or no on that. Okay. So Bellevue Downtown Park will be...

Okay. I think this makes sense. All right. I'm excited. Thank you so much for the incredible work that you've conducted. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yes.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I am excited, even though I'm very scared to get on a scooter. I'm not going to lie. I'm different from the mayor. Actually, on one trip, he was trying to, I was like, no, I'm not getting a scooter no matter what, because I am scared. And I, last time I rode a bike, I almost killed myself. So I think for me, even though I'm really excited about the transit, the last mile and first mile, I do think there's a lot of I think it's going to take a lot of convincing for me to understand the safety side of it. So sharing the data would be super helpful. So plus one to Council

I like that. I have a helmet. Hopefully I can wear that helmet on the scooter at the same time. I'll be brave enough one day. And then I sent you a few questions to clarify because it's just information. But I did have one last question about, I think, Old Main Street. So when you define narrow street and there's a lot of pedestrian, is that Old Main? Is the low speed or no parking zone for this?

OK. And I guess my question about how do you define, because when there's incentive versus penalty, try to track this, right? Does LIME have information about sharing which way of regulating is more attractive, incentive versus penalty?

Yeah, let me know. And I would love to know the data just because there's one part I think the presentation talk about, you know, parking within the corral zone is not required, but incentivized if you park within it. Right. So I'm just wondering, it's I mean, from the psychology behind it, which one's more effective?

so but uh the the mandatory versus encouraging through incentives uh we'll have to i'll follow up with them on that i think that's great and again i'm still very excited even though i'm scared but i think but the big difference would be when when you find a really great partner have the data to support so make our work more successful in the beginning that's a great partnership thank you so much councilmember robinson

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So I love using Lime in Seattle and other cities. And the thing I really like about it, I mean, I'm all for that last mile and for multimodal Transportation, the thing I like about in Seattle is it tells me where the preferred route is, where the protected lanes are. And so if I'm going north-south, I got a choice of at least two routes. Or if I'm going east-west, I have at least two in downtown that I know about that I've used. And so I feel safer doing it. When you came to us whenever it was, earlier in the year or last year, and suggested making this code change, I

Well, if we could focus on preferred routes, because that will be faster than building the infrastructure. I know a lot of volunteers who would love to help you choose two north, south, and two east-west routes in downtown. So I would really love to see that. Let's see. Really happy to know not allowed in parks. I don't think you should allow it on any unpaved surface except East Trail. So I think about like that little path on 12th, the unpaved part versus the wider sidewalk. So I'd like to encourage that. I know you're talking with Kemper Development on... how they want to treat it on their

Oh, perfect. Okay. I thought you said no. Okay. Seven. Eight. Okay. I think that was it. Thank you. Thank you.

You know... Part of the, we haven't talked about yet, is that Line was a great partner when they did a pilot back, what year was that? 2018. 2018, right. I remember numerous council members actually on that first day and getting on there. But that was exclusively bikes, if I recall, at that point. But they were a good partner. There were a lot of concerns in terms of bikes being left in inappropriate places all around the city and And to Lime's credit, I think they were very responsive. They alleviated a lot of concerns and a lot of the fears that folks had and concerns really didn't come to f

Yeah, for sure. I'm going to agree with the mayor talking about the metrics and the KPIs. I think you've identified the right ones. However, kind of that threshold concerns me. It feels like really squishy to me. And I think you might follow up with some more specifics. But I want to make sure that there are some consequences Um, and I want to know exactly when those consequences, um, kick in. Um, you know, for, for me, just we're monitoring it is not, is not good enough. Um, because inevitably we will get some folks that will not park in the right place or, um, the reconfiguring of, of bikes

uh revenue is we do anticipate we'll cover all our costs with with what we collect so but it could be anywhere from a hundred thousand a year to two hundred thousand a year depending on what the ridership is okay okay um going back to the uh comment about within two hours if a complaint comes in first of all how is a complaint how is that logged is it through the app or it sounds like it's coming to the city and then we notified lime how can you explain how that works exactly

But if it comes through the LIME app, do we see it?

But how does that impact the data collection that we're doing? Will LIME then share that with us? We can, yeah, we can ask.

Well, give me more comfort if we can get to a place where we're going to get like daily reports from Lyme or weekly reports, whatever cadence we need in order to track that, in order to correct anything that we might notice because, you know, Well, it'll be interesting to see. I don't want to make or be presumptuous that it'll all come through the app, but probably a fair amount will. But I'm also concerned with that two-hour time frame. For example, some of our small businesses You know, maybe a whole bunch of kids were out using that scooters, and then they decided to park them all right in

Okay. Yeah, that's going to be a tricky one going forward. But I'm glad it's top of mind. So... But excited about it. I'm excited that Lime's the partner once again here. I have a lot of confidence in them, especially with partnering with our great staff. That's going to be a successful launch and a well-needed one to solve all the last mile, first mile issues that were already discussed. So I'm excited that they'll be back in our city, and I'm excited to use Lime in my own city and not in another one. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay, great. Really appreciate the conversation and especially surrounding KPIs and how we circle back on those. So just want to add my support to that. So I know, you know, other municipalities close by have shared micro mobility devices. Just kind of curious if you could talk briefly about how we're approaching our shared micro mobility program and how it's different. going to be different here than in Seattle, Redmond, Woodinville.

Okay. We've talked about tools that we're going to use to manage and evaluate the micromobility program performance and the opportunities that community members are going to have to provide feedback and for us to make some adjustments if and when needed. And as has already been mentioned, Lime's going to be working directly with with community members. Their contact information is on the devices. It's on our website. So community members can contact them directly when they see issues, which I think is great, but also could create a gap in our knowledge of what's going on on our streets. I thin

Okay. So then also, too, there is, you know, we talk about some incentives, some things that can be required, that Lime can kind of turn some incentives into requirements. And I'm just kind of curious, you know, what those might be. We've heard about parking, but what are maybe some other incentives that they could turn into requirements if needed?

okay i mean i can certainly understand kind of the dynamic between incentive and mandatory but i just really hope that we keep a focus on that and if some of the incentives aren't working then we look uh to increase requirements um but with that i'm i'm satisfied the that the demand and the need is certainly there i think the planning has been extensive and i'm confident that the program will be closely monitored and adjustments made quickly when warranted. So it's important we get it right, and I'm confident we will. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, we're almost there. So after tonight's meeting, the council will be on recess for the month of August. So we look forward to being back here in September and having the community return with us. And though it is the mayor's birthday tonight, he did request that we not make a point of it. So out of respect for the mayor, I will not say anything about it. We will not say that. Exactly. And with that, we are adjourned. So thank you.