City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. The City Council meeting of August 5th, 2026. As you can see, tonight's Council meeting is being held virtually. due to critical maintenance and upgrades underway in council chambers during the meeting we may take brief breaks as needed to address any technical issues and help ensure the meeting proceeds as smoothly as possible and council thank you so much please give me a little grace as we start out as i get the lay of the landscape here. I'm very appreciative to former Mayor Sweet having done this for quite a long time, but we'll get through it. So City Clerk, will you please ca

Here. All right. Our study session tonight is on two items. First, we'll have an update on the 2027-2028 utility rates. Second, we will have an update on the Kirkland Cares Low Income Support Program. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7.30. City Manager.

Jay? Thank you, Kurt, and thank you, Brooke. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about why sewer and water have different depreciation numbers, because it seems like that infrastructure would be similar to me. And if we don't have that information, it would be something that I would like some follow-up off on. Thank you.

Sorry, before you go on, question on the previous slide. Sure. So when you talk about customer growth, and this is my question is on all utilities, is the 0.9% per year, is that an industry standard? And my question really is, is that anticipated growth based on our comprehensive plan and our

That's helpful that just it's based on Kirkland, not an industry stand.

Let's pause for a second. I'll see if anybody has any questions. Absolutely.

Yeah, I wanted to actually, I apologize, I should have asked this question earlier, but I think it was two slides ago where you talk about the maintenance and the, yeah, this one here, the O&Ms. Can you just maybe, because it looks like that's one of the, you know, it is the largest expense that we have. So can you just walk us through very briefly, like,

I think that was a residual hand. Sorry. Sounds very prem.

Thank you, Brooke. Council, any questions? OK, we'll go ahead.

All right, I see no questions. Yeah, go ahead.

Council Member Prem, go ahead. Shilpa? There you go. Council Member Prem, go ahead.

Can you hear me? You're breaking up. I think she's frozen. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead.

So I was just looking back at the O&M expenses again, and I just wanted to understand, like, the King County... And that's through 2030. Or like, like, I guess that's one question. Like, how is that broken up? And then rate increases already.

Council Mayor Prim, you're you're breaking up and we're having trouble. Why don't you try to turn off your video and see if that helps? Try it again. No, we're having trouble hearing you. Okay.

No. No worries. I'll ask it at a later time.

Thank you. Anyone else have questions? Okay. Go ahead, Amanda.

Council, any questions? All right, go ahead.

the second two levers with guidance from council could help to ease those near-term rate pressures yes i see a question uh council member arnold uh thank you i look forward to seeing some of these options when you're looking at reserve targets can we get multiple options for replenishment um For some, I'm curious about what are the impacts if we close over a biennium or two instead of all the way out to 2032 and may want to look at options that treat different utilities differently.

Thank you. Question or and a couple of comments. One is it's really I really like the table at the beginning of the memo that kind of shows all the rate increases over the next six years for each of the individual utilities by percentage. Could you when when you come back could you just have an overall percentage increase by year when you look at all of them together. Sure. That would be helpful. And then my second comment is, I'd love to hear someone disagree with this, but it feels like these rate increases are going to be really impactful, really impacting cost of living, affordability, you

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, City Manager, for reminding us about Kirkland's efforts on the regional utility summit. I'm looking forward to the second summit and whether we can start making. More progress towards some concrete proposals from the larger group. I share the concern that customer Pascal raised. I think we all do. Acute concern. Which is why you know to put it, I think. To kind of add a plus one to account for Pascal. Everything that is in our control. One thing I appreciated was already in the proposals and the discussion are some suggestions for how to smooth the rate increas

Thank you. Council Member Prim, welcome back. Okay, let's see if this works. I hope you can hear me. Okay, perfect.

So I completely echo what others have said regarding just how impactful these rate increases potentially can be if they continue to be those rates in the future. And I think I'd just like to understand kind of what is our primary mechanism to now, now that we know what is going to be kind of the input into these potentially increases in rates. What are our next steps to, I don't know, assign individuals within the city to say, all right, you go and, you know, you're gonna go and work on kind of these regional efforts, and then you are gonna go work on potentially looking into our internal mech

And I would just add Councilmember Prim and your Public Issues Committee is another place too to advocate what we can do regionally on affordability. Councilmember Arnold, did I see your hand up?

You did, but City Manager covered what I was going to say about the regional representation by Councilmember Pascal at Cascade, myself at the Solid Waste Working Group and Capsule Program at Sound Cities. Thanks.

Good segue. All I was going to do is add I'm thankful for the appointment to the Association of Washington City's Legislative Priorities Committee. There, I, on behalf of Kirkland, have been able to elevate this issue with all the members of the legislative priorities committee, and those are elected officials city statewide. And so we've gotten a really good response from those other elected officials. So this is becoming a topic that's getting elevated statewide. Thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Prim, did you have your hand up? Yeah, one more question. So the other thing is, I think given just how many factors there are that are going to be contributing to this rate increase across the board for all of our utilities, I think what would be helpful also is like understanding kind of the timing of when each of these individual factors would take and would become effective so that we're prioritizing like, OK, you know, like the King County is going to implement this rate increase by next month. OK, all of our efforts should go there and we should focus on that. S

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right, Jenny, Brooke, Amanda, thank you very much. We'll see you soon. Jenny, is there something you want to add?

Great, thank you. Perfect. Thank you, Walt, for your time. Thank you, Brooke and Amanda. We are now going to move on to our second study session item, which is a perfect segue based on the conversation we just had, which is the Kirkland Cares Low Income Support Program Update. City Manager.

Thank you, Quinn. I'm really proud of this program and I'm very impressed with the outreach and all the work that you've done to expand this program. There's obviously a clear need. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you, Quinn. First of all, I know this is a lot of work to administer this program. I can imagine a lot of details, right? Going through an income verification and all of that is not an easy process. So thank you for that. I'm happy to hear that we're signing more people up. I think that's a good thing. even based on static need, that's a good thing, right? But we know sadly that there's also growing need, right? Which is how this nicely ties into our former discussion, our last agenda item. And I really appreciate too in the memo where you talked about being

Yeah, that would be great for us to do that, to be able to, as I said, save both administrative cost and burden to them. So thank you. I appreciate being proactive. And I love the idea of a shared portal, but I would love that for as many of these different jurisdictions and entities as we possibly could, again, just to have more of an economy of scale savings there. So thank you.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation and the information that you shared. I'm going to kind of build off of a little bit of what Council Member Falcone was talking about. And, you know, the one thing I guess that surprised me a little bit wasn't, I mean, I wasn't surprised about the need and the fact that that's likely going to increase with some of the utility costs that we're forecasting. But I was a little surprised by the administrative costs. It looked like $357,000 between 2024 and 2026, which seemed to represent a pretty good chunk of the available funding. And so I know that you talked

Thank you. Anyone else? Quinn, you are doing an excellent job on this. I really appreciate it. You may have said this in your presentation, but are there, oh, Councillor Falcone, I'm sorry, I didn't see you, but I'll go ahead and finish. Are there other are you getting requests from applicants for other types of relief? Is there anything coming up that we're not capturing now?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the explanation, Quinn, and also city manager for your remarks about, you know, the cost driver being Quinn's position, right, which is really important. But I do think as we talked about the need continuing to grow, not only like, and you know, as Quindage you were talking about just the overall cost per customer or per resident, right? That that dollar value will likely increase, but also the number of residents who qualify may also likely increase. So I see this as a, you know, how to make your position as efficient as possible, right? And so as we grow

Thank you. Councillor Tim Chisholm, did I see your hand? okay all right anyone else all right quinn are you is that it that's all i've got thank you council awesome thanks so much okay we are concluding our study session a few minutes early um so we will be back at 7 30 for our regular meeting thanks everybody following an update on the 2027-2028 utility rates and an update on the Kirkland Cares Low Income Support Program. For those of us just joining us, I will note that tonight's council meeting is being held virtually due to critical maintenance and upgrades underway in council chamber. Dur

Welcome, Christy, and you can see the timer on the screen? I do, thank you. Thank you, go ahead.

Thank you for your passion on trees. And I know that Julie Underwood, our public works director, plans to come walk the site with you. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Next, we have Brady Nordstrom.

Thank you, Leigh Ann, and congratulations. I was going to say we would clap, but you can't hear us. So thank you so much. All right, next we have Erin.

Thank you, Erin. We sincerely appreciate you showing your appreciation. So thank you very much. Alicia's next, correct?

All right, I thought you were done. Thank you so much.

thank you all right city clerk does that end our public comments yes it does all right thank you we are now moving on to the consent calendar before we have a motion i'd like to ask the deputy mayor to present the audit of counts uh thank you mayor thank you mayor we are now move or sorry i always

Read from the wrong section there. Thank you. We had payroll in the amount of $10,432,835.26 and bills in the amount of $12,978,410.94. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? So moved. Oh, wow. I think that was Council Member Prim, seconded by Deputy Mayor. Is that right?

Council Mayor Prim, were you the motion maker? OK. All right, it's been moved by Council Mayor Prim, second by Deputy Mayor Black to move forward this consent calendar. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you. All right, we are now moving on to our regular business agenda. Our first item of business is on alternative delivery of the Peter Kirk Pool project, city manager. You're muted.

Thank you, Annika and Stacey. Council, any questions, comments? Deputy Mayor.

If there were no questions, I was going to get us started with a motion. It looks like Council Member Falcone does have a question for staff.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to mention thank you for, I don't remember who mentioned, but mentioned the kudos that we got on establishing a network of peer agencies. And I just wanted to call out and thank Ryan Buck of the Lake Washington School District in particular for their work on that, because that's something that I know we've learned a lot from their expertise. And we really value our partnership with the school district.

That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, back to you.

Well thank you. So I'll make the motion. I move to authorize and direct the City Manager or designee to proceed with the Progressive Design Build procurement process for the Peter Kirk Poole project and return to Council for approval of the contract with the selected Progressive Design Builder.

Second. It's been moved by Deputy Mayor Black second by Councilor Falcone to move forward with the Progressive Design Build. Any further discussion. All right. Well, I just want to thank everybody for the good work. And I'm excited to start this project. So all those in favor in the motion on the table, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. All right. We are moving on to our next item, which is the Draft Tool Library Implementation Plan, City Manager.

Sorry. Council, any questions on process? Andrea, go ahead.

Thank you, Andreana. So Council, the first bullet is, does the proposal provide enough information as a draft implementation plan to start negotiating agreement? And if not, what specific information do you need?

Council member Arnold. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to comment. I don't have any information that I need here. I really did appreciate the amount of research in detail in the Eastside Tool Collective proposal, including the work that they've done to learn from and coordinate with existing tool libraries. The fact that they're matching a lot of this will allow for economies of scale and both for how they coordinate a Kirkland tool library with these others, or perhaps expand throughout the east side. So I was impressed and believe that this draft implementation plan provides a level of detai

Great, thank you. Council Mayor Paschall, I had you next. Did you lower your hand? Yes, that's a yes. Council Mayor Prim.

Yeah, I just want to say also just thank you to the team that initiated this initiative, I think, and for working so hard in trying to get a tool library into our community. I think the ETC proposal actually had a lot of really good information and details. And so I honestly don't think I need any more information. I think the ETC proposal is sufficient to begin negotiations. and i think negotiations at this stage will really provide and refine a lot of the details identify any risks and really ensure this that the city interests are fully protected including um because i just want to comment

So Councillor Pascal, we will be deciding whether to move forward with negotiations.

Yeah, so maybe I'll just save my comments for the discussion on that. You know, once we have a motion there.

Thank you for that clarification. Any more comments on information needed for the draft implementation plan? Councillor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I was just raising my hand because I was ready to move on to the next question if we were.

It looks like everybody else is, so go ahead.

Great, thank you. Well, first, I agree with my council colleagues' comments. Thank you to staff that have been working on this to community members who have expressed just so much interest in this project and also to the Eastside Tool Collective. I know it took a lot of work and I also agree in response to the first question that there was a lot of really detailed information. You can tell they did their homework and obviously we'll make sure as a city that we do our due diligence to make sure every T is crossed and I dotted to make sure that this is a successful facility. Reading the memo, it

Yeah, just a discussion on this particular item. I really appreciate the description in the implementation plan of the advantages of using the fire station. This is a facility right now currently that's simply being used for storage. And I support examining whether it could be used on a temporary basis for the tool library. But um want more staff input on the impacts of that and uh information on how long that temporary could be given the city's medium and long-term plans for this particular building so you know i'd like to i see the value in keeping both tracks in consideration but unless sta

THANK YOU. DEPUTY MAYOR, BEFORE I CALL ON YOU, I'M GOING TO LET CITY MANAGER RESPOND.

City Manager just said, but I do want a plus one, Council Member Arnold, that I think track B might be the right direction to go, but before I make that final decision, I definitely want as much information as I possibly can from staff. And it sounds like City Manager is prepared to provide us that as part of next steps and the negotiation. There is one more bullet point, which is, is there anything else Council wants to see in the agreement? It's not so much what I want to see in the agreement, but you know, I did want to, I assume that as part of any proceeding to the next step and further n

Great. I don't have anything else to add. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question for the city manager just about next steps. So obviously, I think we're hearing that the strong preferences for track A and track B kind of as a last resort, if nothing else can work out. So my question is, what are the planned next steps? If we approve, adopted a motion tonight to ask staff to go back with both options still on the table, are you then coming back to check in to say, this is more information on the two options and which one do you wanna pick? And then we make another motion to say, bring us back in a final agreement with one of those,

I guess I guess my my follow question related to that is. At what point is it a Council versus staff decision to pivot to option B if we give you authority to go to both right? Because I could imagine there could be a situation where You know, you may think that it's not feasible to move forward with track A, but council may want to say, well, we do want to concede on that thing and we do want to make it happen for track A. I guess that's my question is how will we navigate that? Is it that if we move forward with track A, you don't need another check-in point? But if you think that you need t

are you done okay city manager so would it help you to follow up on councilman falcon would it help you if we were clear on what our preference is okay Okay. Thank you. Council Member Prim.

Okay. And I think I can answer that question directly now. So I do support keeping both options on the table, but definitely prefer Track A. I think it's just a cleaner look, easier access points. And I think overall it just seems more straightforward. So I definitely would prefer Track A, but definitely open to both depending on where the negotiations land. And then the last question of just what the final agreement, just things that we would want in the agreement, I would say just clear performance expectations, a payment schedule also based on milestones. So I don't think the intent is that

Thank you. Councilor Pascal, we are going to negotiations. So did you have some things you wanted to share?

Sure, I mean, I have a problem. I have overall comments on waiting for the motion.

OK, Councilor Prem your hand is still up. OK, Councilor Tim Chisholm, did you have something you want to say?

I'll go back to Council Member Falcone for the motion.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And bear with me as I try to modify language on the fly to... Wait.

Before we get to a motion, I had a quick comment responding to Council Member Prim's comments.

Okay. Council Member Prim has asked about... whether the city's contribution is delivered as a lump sum or some form of progress payments. And that's something I would like some more information about versus giving direction for One Direction or not. We've had some previous experience in seeding some nonprofits like the Kirkland Community Foundation and And more recently, East Trail Partners, where Kirkland and other East Trail members made contributions to start that organization. Both organizations have been successfully launched and are now self-sufficient and provide more value than the in

OK, thank you city manager. I think that addresses my objections and would support whatever comes forward through negotiations in the agreement with. What you see is fit for protecting the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move to authorize staff to proceed with negotiations based on the tool library implementation plan and to return to Council with either a proposed contract for consideration of track A or a check-in with Council to consider proceeding with track B if track A seems infeasible.

Second. thank you and good job pulling that together um and city manager agrees it's been moved by council member falcone i'm not going to repeat that second by council member prim council mayor paschal all right yeah yeah i have um some thoughts on on the discussion that we've had so far and i want to speak to this motion um but first i just wanted to thank

staff for all the work you put into this and I want to start by also emphasizing that you know I do think a tool library does seem like a good idea and but the concerns I want to talk about regarding this concept really are how the cities roll in it and so the first thing is I honestly don't wasn't convinced that it was a financially sustainable proposal we only received one proposal and and its financial plan relies heavily on a variety of unsubstantiated assumptions. I don't see evidence that outside funding has been secured. And before investing taxpayer dollars, I really do think we need g

Thank you Madam Mayor. I want to speak up on just two things. One I realize I misspoke earlier. I think my comments were clear. I meant track A and I meant that my comments were you know I do want to make sure that as we evaluate track A as perhaps the the primary track that we do get as much information as we possibly can from staff about what that will mean. I don't think I don't think a full review of our space needs is realistic. That would delay implementation for a very long time to do a full some kind of full strategic plan on all the city space needs. But we all I think we're I think s

COUNCIL MAYOR ARNOLD. THANK YOU, MAYOR. FIRST RESPONSE TO ONE OF THE POINTS THAT COUNCIL MAYOR PASCHAL BROUGHT UP. THE WHOLE PROCESS OF STARTING A NEW 501C3 It's fairly common. I was involved in this with another organization where there is an existing 501c3 that provides the fiscal sponsorship. And what that allows is for tax-deductible contributions to go to the new organization as it gets set up with its own approved 501c3 status. It is in the Eastside Tool Collective's interest in ensuring that their fiscal sponsor is in good standing because that allows them to do fundraising, private fun

Um, in evaluating this proposal, I looked at three factors. One was community support. The second was financial sustainability, and the third was the process. I was told months ago that neighborhood organizations in the Kirkland Association of Neighborhoods. We're going to be supportive of this and offer. Letters of support. I haven't seen that materialize. On May 5th, I also received an email from the chair of the Kirkland Community Foundation. That email was in his official capacity. And represented that. In his official capacity that there was support for the tool library. The subject of th

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to speak up one more time in support of the motion and address some of the comments from my colleagues. I appreciate this conversation. I do want to note that if you are planning to form a 501c3 corporation, it's not going to become a surprise that you are not going to raise money until you have your 501c3 status, and those contributions are indeed tax deductible. I'm not overly concerned about funding a position within a A project like this. We did that with the Community Foundation. We supported the executive director salary, so we've done this kind of s

Councillor Primm. Yeah, I just had a very quick question for city manager or legal. So in the agreement that we have, and I just want to address this whole financial sustainability issue that Council Member Pascal and Tim Chisholm have brought to light. Is there a way to tie the tie the milestone payments, for an example, or have some arrangement within the agreement itself so that we are only paying out funds when we know or have some confidence that the entity will be financially viable or that we're getting external support or that they are getting external support.

All right, I'm gonna take a shot at this. I will be supporting the motion. As Council Mayor Arnold was clear, there is a lot of public enthusiasm for this and we have been talking about it for years and I think it'll serve the community well. I am in support of, I have a preference for Fire Station 27. I agree with Deputy Mayor that we do not wanna slow down this project while we do a strategic, plan for long-term use of our public buildings, but I do feel like we need a plan. We have a number of buildings that we are bringing online, and I would like to see how all that space is going to be u

Well, you don't get the last word on this. If you want to retort, you don't get a retort. You don't get to use your own order in as chair to retort.

Council Member Tim Chisholm. I have waited until I spoke last. Councilmember Tim Chisholm. So I have finished my remarks and if Councilmember Tim Chisholm, I see Councilmember Prim would like to raise her hand. Thank you, Councilmember Prim. Councilmember Prim, did you have your hand up? All right. OK, the question is on the motion made by Council Member Falcone, second by Council Member Prim. Council Member Falcone, will you do us the favor of repeating your motion?

Thank you. Yes, City Attorney, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, City Attorney. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye.

Thank you, everyone. It is now 9-17. So we're going to take a break and we will be back at 9-30.

Thank you, Allison. You did a great job. So alright, Council any any questions, comments, response to the questions.

Councilman Arnold. Thank you mayor and thank you Ali for the presentation. It you always are so good at. Presenting some very complex topics very easily. I want to make sure I understand some things that I was confused When I first read the memo. When you're talking about the exchange ratios, that's separate from an independent from the additional height bonus for different affordability. That's just something that you're allowing to change the the mix of affordable housing within the development and it would those offer no additional height. Is that how I? Is that correct?

Yeah, I support that. On the additional height bonus, that's an area where I didn't fully understand. Have you set a standard of what you do to qualify for the additional height bonus or are you asking for feedback on the concept and the upper limits?

OK, great. So I appreciate the answers. um offer my uh feedback overall um i really appreciate the model of zone equivalences versus coming up with some new standards and specifying this is much simpler to understand i appreciate that i appreciate the focus on development by right in the administrative approvals i support what you're suggesting on allowing for the exchange ratios um through uh As part of the affordable housing and I support and not necessarily just as part of a height bonus and I support the upper limits of the height bonuses that you're suggesting and look forward to further

Thank you and thank you Allison. Where in the process are we on this? And does this was designed to comply with the state law, but does this go back to the Planning Commission now?

OK. Thank you. I do agree with and support most of this. I think it is logical because this would take into consideration the underlying zoning of the surrounding neighborhood or the surrounding location, right?

Thank you. Anybody else? Oh, Councillor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Nothing really new to add. Just wanted to share that I support staff's recommendation and including the exchange ratios applying to all of the affordable housing requirements. And I really appreciate not only its simplicity, but its responsiveness to the stakeholder engagement. So thank you for that. And I'm looking forward to hopefully adopting this in the near future. Thanks.

Hi, I just wanted to say that I agree with the overall plan here and don't have really anything to add, which is which is rare. Thank you.

Thank you anyone else? Alright, I'm saying I think this is really well done. I think that we've worked really hard to simplify the process as much as possible, both in the zoning and being able to handhold and support the faith based properties. This is very thoughtful. Yeah, it's great. So take it to public hearing. Oh, I did have one question. I appreciate that you brought the faith based property owners in to get their feedback. Did we... Did that include this code? Did they look at this code recognizing that it's not usually they don't read code usually, but did they have a chance to provi

and i when we but let's do invite them to participate in the public hearing so thank you deputy mayor thank you madam mayor um kind of related to that allison um making sure that we're i was going to ask the same question that that council member arnold asked about sort of the mathematical bridge between the additional affordable housing units pursuant to the ratio or otherwise and the additional height bonus. So when it sounds like we're going to be refining that and when we do, I think it would make sense if we haven't already to get feedback from the development community that does affordab

Thank you. Anyone else? right allison do you feel like you have what you need from us i believe we have what we need thank you for the feedback great thanks so much all right we are going to move on to um briefing on potential affordable housing agreement related to the arete apartment city manager okay thank you this is a potential project uh to create some affordable housing in kirkland that's been going on for several years and we finally have to place that we want to

Uh, thank you Adam. So my question is on the terms of the loan. I understand the value of this project and I'm generally supportive. The loan terms are 0% interest and my question for staff. Is, uh, You know why isn't this loan at 6% interest or the prevailing rate or whatever a normal loan would be at from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or the federal government? And I would note that 20 years of interest or 40 years of interest at 6%. Would be maybe 350,000 over 20 years, or if the loan is over 40 years. You know. 800,000 or more. And why are we foregoing that interest at some sort of a reasonabl

okay i mean i understand the reasons to support this but um and i understand not having a high or exorbitantly high interest rate but um zero seems uh concerning and i i would i would ask that different options be brought back at the prevailing rate or or that that be investigated thank you thank you

No, I was going to tell you to go ahead. So you're good.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have another question?

Thank you. A couple questions. So this, so maybe I'm getting this development confused with the other one next door. So the other one had multifamily tax exemption and this one didn't. Is that what is that what you're saying? Correct, yeah. OK. And then on You know, I guess what I heard from the presentation was that the eco flats, you know, many of them currently rent less than 60% AMI. It's just that there's no income restrictions on renting to folks that meet that today, right?

I guess what market information do we have that would say that the current rents would exceed 60% AMI in the future? Is it just kind of just more back of the envelope? calculations or estimates? Or is there more there to kind of substantiate that?

I'd be interested in just a little bit more. focus on that, I'd like to be assured that at least we gave it a good due diligence. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Arnold. Thank you. To Council Member Pascoe's question, I am wondering, you know, it's not just the rent of this, it's the risk of losing these affordable units. And I see that we have Robert Penley and Angela Rosman of Sustainable Kirkland here. I'm wondering if they are able to share, like, from what they have had is what's what's the interest in any alternatives that they have had for this property that um to compare to compared to this to the eco flats if they're prepared to discuss if not um that is fine too i think robert has his hand raised mayor You wanted him to respond

Thank you for that answer to my question. The Just overall, my comments and answers to the staff questions. First, I really appreciate the work of Mr. Pantley and Sustainable Kirkland. Arte's innovative and award-winning approach provided eco flats that are affordable to renters at 60% AMI without subsidy. I was on the Planning Commission when this concept first moved forward, and the original zoning made this possible with parking flexibility. Moving forward, there is the risk of these rents going up or even reconfiguring units to market rate housing. The city in sustainable Kirkland has work

YEAH, I JUST HAD A COUPLE QUESTIONS AFTER LISTENING TO ROBERT SPEAK. THANKS FOR COMING TONIGHT WITH ROBERT AND ANGELA. I APPRECIATE IT. You know, one of the bullets up here is the unit types, number one to three bedroom units aren't included. Could you talk a little bit more about that? And how would the deal need to change to include those?

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, thank you for this conversation. Thank you, Sustainable Kirkland, Mr. Pantley. Thank you for the work you've done in our community to help us create the greater mix of housing types that we need. Some of which, like the Eagle Flats, uh can be naturally occurring affordable housing as we've seen so uh really appreciate your work um I do have a couple of things um I want I you know I want to sort of highlight for for staff I I support us moving forward with this I I appreciate um I appreciate the the value of this project or um this idea the idea of preserving units of na

Thank you. Councillor Falcone, Councillor Primm, we haven't heard from you yet.

Well, there you go. Councillor Falcone. thank you madam mayor i was um intently listening to the conversation so that i would have things to respond to and to see if you know to be able to share my thoughts on um the great ideas from coming from my fellow council members well first um thank you um mr pantley ms rosman and all the partners involved for bringing this to us you know we heard from the community loud and clear during the comprehensive plan process that they want us to prioritize preserving affordable housing And to me, this is just a no brainer. It's a great opportunity that you're

Great, thank you. That's really helpful. I mean, my lens on this is that I have like two goals here. One, I want to make sure we get the largest community benefit that would actually be helpful to community members most in need. And two, that we don't kill the deal by any changes that we want to see, right? That I want to make sure this goes through and that we don't over squeeze to try to get so much out of it that some potential partners walk away from the table, right? So those are kind of my two check marks that I wanna make sure in any of these proposed guidance that we give to stop to ne

all right thanks uh yeah so first i i just want to recognize and really thank you all and everyone involved in bringing this proposal forward to us i i genuinely respect the goal of preserving affordability and i appreciate the effort to find really creative ways to keep these units accessible to lower income residents i've seen the units myself and was thoroughly impressed by the creativity of the design of the units and completely understand why you have such a low vacancy rate right now across the board. So I thank you for also for thinking of potentially implementing a covenant to keep the

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. I also want to thank you both for bringing this. And you've been good partners with the city. A couple things I'm hearing from my council members. I do support looking at an earlier payment option if it can happen. And again, any payment that we get, we can reinvest in other projects. And I did appreciate Deputy Mayor's idea of swapping some larger units for some eco flats, because we do know that we have a need for larger units within the city. So I would like to explore those two. My comment or my question is really to the city manager and that we haven't t

Just the $500,000. And again, I'm looking at opportunity costs. You know, there's going to be another project in six months, a year, five years. So how quickly will that account replenish?

OK, thank you. It's like a bird in the hand, right? So OK, alright, that was all for me. So do you feel like you have what you need to take the next steps?

OK, alright, thank you Robert and Angela for staying late with us. We'll see you soon.

All right, we are moving on to nine E, which is briefing on the total like southern industrial sub area visioning city manager and i'm guessing Adam staying.

Thank you, Martha. And I also echo your thanks to Blocks Hub. I really enjoyed participating in the first stakeholder group. It was really great. And I'm very hungry. And you started talking about cookies and tortillas. So stop. All right. Council Member Paschall.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for all the effort on this, Martha. Yeah, I mean, it's fun to see Great to see that kind of the policy, the comp plan policy come to life, so to speak, right? Kind of moving that policy forward to implementation. And like the mayor got and the deputy mayor got to participate in the workshop with Block Sub and the other community members that participated. And it was, I participated in a number of workshops and, you know, things like that over the years. And it was something different and unique. And Well, well done. So impressed by the team as well. I just want to ju

Well, I'm just wondering if, did we learn something through that where staff's now recommending us to do what the Planning Commission chair is suggesting, which is just not do the sub-area plan?

Yeah, I guess it was always my impression that the sub-area plan would consider how and if the area transitions over time, right, that it's, you know, that it might not stay intact even with some of these changes that over time it could change over to housing and more density and things like that and what infrastructure would be necessary to support that, you know, is what I'm hoping that that planning effort would, you know, evaluate. So I was just, I guess I was just a little surprised to read in that email that it made it sound like we'd already made a decision that we just target residenti

Okay. but you don't feel like you've received direction from us on that yet, right? Correct. Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I just had a question on kind of the timeline for these studies. So for this phase two study, like what is the approximate amount of time it will take from start to finish? And then let's just start there.

And is there a way to like speed that up by any chance? Or like, you know, I guess what are the main factors and determine, so you said the main, one of the main factors is how many, how many potential areas you would have to evaluate for housing that could increase the overall timing. Is there, is there anything else that could increase the time or decrease the time to be able to finish this phase two?

Thanks, Mayor. I just wanted to make sure I gave my guidance to council or to staff that I do like the direction we're going. I want to proceed with phase two. I do recall why I supported this from the very get go in the connection with the approval of the comp plan. I did want us to try to take a thoughtful approach to this area, look at it district wide through district wide planning and see if there was a way to protect the existing light industrial, foster some really creative commercial uses while encouraging sort of innovative housing in this area. So that's the direction I feel like we'

ELLIE WILSON- Thank you. Councillor Arnold.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Martha, and planning team on this. I came into this where reading the Blocks Hub report was the first I'd seen of this, and I was impressed at the scale of their vision and how to talk about large transformation in this area. There were some intriguing ideas there. That said, I'm not ready for wholesale complete change across the entire southern industrial sub area. My feedback would be to look for options for a narrowed scope for phase two. It's going to be important to preserve the light industrial, especially between 112th and 116th. And then, as was mention

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, first, oh, Deputy Mayor. Deputy Mayor, are you raising your hand?

I did, yeah. And I apologize for interrupting you. You certainly feel welcome to make your remarks. I was just going to highlight that as I listen to us, I think this is one of those examples where we may not be giving staff as clear direction as we need to. And so I do think one question I have for staff is, is whether they've gotten what they really need from us. I feel like there's a, we're a little bit all over the, not all over the map, but we're a little bit, we've covered some territory on the map in our feedback.

Great. As long as staff is getting what they need, that's great. Thank you.

Council Member Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wasn't going to speak, but Deputy Mayor raises a good point. So I just wanted to share one of my thoughts that may be helpful for staff and the direction is that I support Council Member Arnold's thoughts on seeing if there's ways to break this into smaller parts to be more efficient in doing the work. So a plus one to that, please.

Thank you. Anyone else? Going once. Going twice. All right, Martha, good job. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness that went behind this. I really appreciated the work that everyone put into reaching out to the existing businesses and getting their input. I think that's super important and it's not something we usually do. And what's really clear about this is this is a very unique area. This is unlike anything else that we have within the city both in where it resides within the totem lake regional center and the kinds of businesses it's in so i am not interested in cutting this up in litt

I don't object, but I have some policies and procedure amendments that I'll be bringing at the next meeting, so I do want to address the issue at some point. Thank you.

Alright, so do I have a thumbs up from everybody? OK, we will postpone 9F and we'll decide figure out when it can be on the Council calendar again. So we're going to move into Council.

reports and i will start with deputy mayor and let's keep them short folks okay um just quick note that the mayor and i got to visit the south county recycling and transfer station in algona last friday i want to thank the staff of the city and of the county for that tour it's the latest most advanced version of a recycling and transfer station that the county's built. So that was really informative. I wanted to highlight that next Wednesday I'm going to be attending a convening by Challenge Seattle and Greater Seattle Partners to discuss economic development priorities with our mayors. The ma

LRMs happen during city manager reports, not council reports.

Sorry, I'll leave it to them to bring it up during city manager reports.

I don't have anything to report that can't be reported via email. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone. Thank you. Yes, since it's late, I'm only going to mention one thing, and that is thank you to everyone who's come out to watch the amazing young athletes at this week's Junior League Softball World Series in Everest Park. It's been so fun. I know I've been out there every day. I know I saw Deputy City Manager Lopez out there. I know that Council Member Arnold's been out there. So if you haven't been out there, definitely check it out. It's so much fun. There's a lot of great energy. And the games run through Saturday morning. Thank you. Thank you. Council Me

Yeah, nothing to report. I'll be sending an email.

thank you my report i will send but i do want to take a moment to thank city staff and everyone that worked behind the scenes to make sure that this meeting went smoothly um really really appreciate it so thank you everyone city manager i'm handing it over to you okay thank you have one short update and then i'll call for the calendar and lrm question the short update um

Thank you Madam Mayor. So just a little bit of just quick background for those that might be watching. I think several of us were approached some time ago by representatives of Lyme. and indicating that they're in our adjoining cities and agencies surrounding Kirkland, Bothell, Woodinville, Redmond, and now are just starting a program in Bellevue. And saying that now Kirkland is kind of in a donut hole, right? And so they'd like to start conversations with us about introducing micromobility options here to our city. And then they followed that up with a letter to the council believe yesterday

I don't know who that was. I'm going to give it to Black, just because he was loudest. Motion's been made by Councilmember Paschall, second by Deputy Mayor Black. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, gentlemen. All right, next.

Okay, I want to give some background on this. So I'm proposing this LRM to explore helmet requirements for high speed micro mobility devices, such as e-bikes, because our responsibility is really to protect public safety, especially for our children and teens. E-bikes are, as everyone knows, e-bikes are becoming very common in our community. And the data is speaking quite loudly. A mid-2026 national analysis by Trovita, which is a Very legitimate data set governed by the major U.S. health systems across the country found that emergency room visits for e-bike and e-scooter injuries among childr

I HEARD COUNCILMEMBER TIM CHIZEN ON THE SECOND. SO IT'S BEEN MOVED BY COUNCILMEMBER PRIM, SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER TIM CHIZEN TO MOVE FORWARD. The Helmet LRM, is there any discussion? Deputy Mayor.

Just one quick comment. I really appreciate Councilmember Prem bringing this forward and it is a topic that was discussed by me and Councilmember Arnold and Councilmember Paschall in connection with the E, the shared E micromobility as well. Just know that we were thinking about this topic, too, and one of the reasons we worded that LRM the way we did is we were hoping that that might, that LRM might come back with some suggestions for how we might look at helmets, too. But this is the more, this is the clearer, more direct way to do it, and I think it makes a ton of sense, and I'm going to su

I'll support that sport this lrm I think one of the interesting legal questions that will emerge is if a civil infraction a non criminal civil infraction is issued whether that civil infraction is issued to the writer or the parents. Thank you.

Just a quick comment generally on LRMs, we've been pretty open to these because it's just starting the conversation. But for helmets, and while there should be no argument about wearing a helmet when you're riding a bicycle, e-bike, e-scooter, et cetera, the question on requiring this and enforcing it and all this gets very complicated very fast, and I am conscious of staff capacity even in looking at this for an LRM. And so while I think it's an important issue, I'm not sure it's one that I'm supportive of moving on immediately. And so in the interest of prioritization, I'm going to be voting

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Questions on the motion to move forward the helmet LRM made by Councilmember Prim, seconded by Councilmember Tim Chisholm. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries 6-1. All right. Holmes Point overlay. Councilmember Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Since Councillor Paschal presented the other LRM, I hope he doesn't mind if I present this one just to share the workload. This is a joint proposed LRM by Councillor Paschal and I. I won't go into much detail about it because I think we're all fairly familiar with these issues. There's two issues in here. You've probably all read the language, but just for those watching at home, These both relate to the Holmes Point Overlay, which is a part of the neighborhood in the Finn Hill neighborhood, right? It's a portion of the Finn Hill neighborhood for those who may not be fa

Thank you. It's been moved by Council Member Falcone, seconded by Council Member Paschall to move forward the Holmes Point Overlay LRM. Council Member Paschall.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone did a great job of explaining that. The only couple of things I just want to add or emphasize is that these things are issues that we've heard from the community members. These aren't just wild ideas that both of us came up with, but these are things, conversations I've been having over the years. I'm sure you've heard too from other community members about this. And then second, we were very specific with staff that we wanted these to be very targeted and really want to, and that's why that last sentence is there, is to try to find a way to see if we're targe

I do appreciate that you recognize the potential impact to the planning work program. I thought that was a nice add to the LRM, so thank you for that. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. All right, well done everyone. City Manager, anything else from you? You're muted.

So thank you. Thank you everyone. Enjoy your recess and we are adjourned.