Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

pledge allegiance to the plag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stand one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right and then getting into roll call commissioner Bole um as we mentioned maybe tardy um commissioner oler president commissioner Johnson pres present commissioner sweat here commissioner zaro here uh Vice chair whan called in and chair Elliot present and commissioner Bole present all righty one two three four all right uh with that we'll get into any additions deletions or corrections to tonight's agenda um I've got just one which is that item 7 C should be number eight and then from there down they say that again um just the item 7 C is actually its own oh no that's right that's right I for some reason I had it in my mind that that should be an eight but it's not okay no ignore that ignored yeah I motion to ignore my last [Laughter] comment all right so with that uh we'll get into public participation uh we don't have anyone in the crowd hopefully we'll get at least eight viewers I think is about what we average yeah wow um not live but it's probably just me replaying the minutes eight

times but they count um so with that we'll move into approval of minutes from February 12th um and and our packets I didn't check to see if our printed was the correction no okay so um there was just some minor corrections as far as roll call goes I emailed out a revised minutes hopefully everyone got that there was just some minor Corrections yeah H I didn't get it by email because I just picked up one and I didn't open email you didn't know open Emil but that's okay um it is corrected here though wasis I'll just pull it off um yeah so that everyone's aware um the revised minutes that came out just adjusted roll call so that present was chair Elliot Vice chair whan Commissioners Bole and zaro um as well as planning manager stall Neer so it just deleted like that Dustin wasn't here um and then what else trying to remember if there was any other comments I think that was the main double checked the roll call and that yeah I had Dustin I had pulled an old one okay so um and those were emailed out prior to the meeting so move to approve the amended minutes second all right perfect we have a motion to approve the amended minutes that's been seconded all those in favor I I all those opposed all right motion passes unanimous I forget which Tom and uh Susan Susan was second okay I was like I forget who was first and who was second but it was did I do I was writing I said yes yeah yeah and I should have said the February 12 minutes but yeah you're good we're close enough all right uh with

that we'll get into our public hearing agenda item 6A regarding co- living and let me get to that page all right so um this is the first um so this is the first public hearing I'll give a brief overview and then you want to open it at that point okay oh we didn't do public hearing signin oh well if anyone speaks we will just take their information um so basically this is um a requirement that all cities allow um what's called co-living buildings we went over this at the last meeting so BAS basically a co- living is the idea of one building where instead of renting a full apartment or Suite um you're actually just renting a room and then there would be a common shared um of kitchen bathroom laundry that kind of stuff and so um it's to be required in any multif family zone or any Zone that allows multi family so um so for us that is the town center mixed use the Uptown mixed use the Uptown or no sorry the urban residential multif family and the neighborhood commercial in certain circumstances so basically the draft code is simply to add a definition to Define what co- living dwell co-living dwelling unit is as well as just adding it to the table of uses as permitted in those four zones okay so with that um so for the public hearing I'll open it when I do the gvl um if you would like to speak you would step up to the podium speak your first and last name and your city of residents we no longer require your address um and with that we will take notes of that it is something where you speak and we're not allowed to respond to you but then we will take that into

consideration when we go into the agenda topic so with that said it is 6:06 p.m. and I open this public hearing yes please yep excuse me I apologize have to speak in the microphone we can't hear we can't hear we're all so young here turn on her microphone okay some more than others so just a side note where in our agenda does it say we're having a public hearing on the front um number yeah it's checked public hearing as far as oh because I read that it said in the minutes from I screwed up the minutes okay thank you that was the other Corrections that I had by the when I didn't have it's at home okay okay we you have to print it out to attach it all right I apologize for the disruption you may start again yes so first and last name can you hear me now yes oh okay my name is Sandy Hassel okay I live up in Sterling Heights at the top of the hill in Milton um my concern about this co- living Arrangement that is being proposed and if if it is a state mandate or something that we have no say over then my points are pretty mood at this juncture um but the development that I live in currently has a home that is got a co- living Arrangement um they have multiple cars that block the the road they don't move their cars they become come stagnant they've re have even had weeds growing around some of the tires and our Homeowner Association calls it in and they move it and you know eventually maybe and then they go right back to

parking again and using the spots that the people that are paying our taxes are supporting for the roads um the person who owns that particular resident and it is single family residential I believe um doesn't maintain the yard and it is a real struggle to get them to keep up with the aesthetic of the neighborhood now I understand that there's a new development um that's being proposed uh Gilbert's place I believe which is across 27th and that is part of another co- living Arrangement um proposal and my fear is that we are going to have so many cars and so many people trying to cram into such small places that it's really going to ruin the aesthetic of our Town um traffic is already pretty crazy on 27th and 28th and I don't think it's going to encourage um the the life and the community um atmosphere that we have enjoyed or that I've enjoyed for 28 years here so that is my concern right thank you that's it thank you can I ask a question though before I leave you can ask a question they can't answer at this time but when we go to our discussion I will try to answer and address as theander it in I so we try to meander a response in when we're allowed to speak later but feel fre free to ask a question yes okay well yes it's a good day today all right uh it is 610 so we will close this public hearing regard um 20202 00001 co- living buildings if you wouldn't mind actually writing your name if you didn't already

on that sheet sign in sheet that way I have the spelling of it and I can do it correctly so just the it doesn't specifically say public caring but there's the sign in that would really help me when I do the minutes me to wait to address any of those and do the other um so our agenda was up that we do our two public hearings first I think our second public hearing will be pretty quick and then we can get right into okay so um with that we're going to get into our second public hearing which is regarding unit lot subdivisions and binding site plans the time is 611 and I'll go ahead and open it up for public hearing okay thank you oh do you want me to intro it oh yes let me take that back do you want to introduce that and then I'll I'll announce the time yeah um so the second one that we're taking a public hearing on and again we will follow up the public hearings with some discussion and possible action um is the um again this is part of this is tied to a state mandate um so part when tied to the um middle housing is that um cities need to have the option of allowing what they're calling unit lot subdivisions for things like adus so we kind of discussed it previously there's some examples the idea that you are kind of condomin ising the actual house so you could have a single family house with two adus and you could allow them to be sold with the idea that they would have joint ownership of the common areas um so we just have to have a process for that and so the first half of this is um us using creating the unit lot subdivision process it's tight it's very similar to our short plat

subdivision um as well as using the state kind of example template with that as I started looking at that um so unit lot subdivision is only for um at the most up to nine units it can it's for again it's for adus Middle housing kind of thing we also have what's called a binding site plan that's already in our code that has been used um um for basically bigger things things that are multif family things that are commercial things that are non-residential and I felt like since those are very similar nature again the idea that you are making one big site plan but you're letting individual ownerships with common area it seemed like a good time to update that process as well since they're very similar so the second one isn't a mandate but it seemed like it was very logical to do them both at the same time so that's the um draft that is here today Perfect all right so with that we will um have our public hearing for item uh pln 20252 unit lot subdivisions and binding site plan time is 6:13 if we have any public comment all right and with that we will close it at 613 all right so now getting to agenda item 7A which is now our group discussion on on co- living going back to page five of our packets okay so just to kind of rehash and expand a little bit is that um it is a state mandate to allow co-living housing options in multif family zones um so it would not it does not apply to to our single family zones which are now um neighborhood um residential one and neighborhood residential 2 um but it um and it so that's the one

part um there is what's called adult family homes that are licensed from the state as a separate thing so if it's Adult Family Home that is supposed to be an assistance um care for City kind of thing then those are licens from the state and those are allowed anywhere in the city but the specific co-living which is sort of um which we had talked about which is you know kind of like that uh boarding house lodging house kind of historic things that have been allowed in cities um would that is what thises specifically so there's no um there's no specific medical or care tied to it it's simply that you would um it's providing different options for people who can who maybe can't afford a full apartment but they can afford a room and so but again it's not going to be in the single family residential areas okay um and then real quick Gilberts was mentioned Gilberts is actually an apartment complex so it is not a um co- living project yeah um and then with those were we'd be looking at traffic studies and all of that that nor we normally would with any multif family home or commercial development so it would be allowed but yes if um it gets approved I mean we have to require but yes if one came in and they were wanting to build something or convert something they would still have to go through all of the normal procedures um when we go through the parking requirements we will um there's a state limit which that we don't have to do until closer to the end of the year so right now we would probably compare it we would use our existing for different apartments and stuff for parking so there would be a parking requirement um for this there would be Landscaping requirements uh light fencing anything similar to what you would for an

apartment complex or something it would just be the idea that instead of like I said instead of full kitchens full bathrooms in each unit they're just um shared of those okay great but it the normal process perfect we'll open up for discussion commissioner Johnson Co living um you know it's interesting can you can you all hear me yeah um I find it interesting because I think there's single family homes in our city that are already doing this and I know of a couple already that some somebody owns the property lives there and they rent out their rooms to other people so for and I want to backtrack for a minute I wish we could get out of the urban growth area but we can't and we have to abide by the state rules and the state legisl who needs some training on what it's like for a city to survive and keep its personality I think some of this stuff uh breaks the social fabric of neighborhoods down in our city um I understand the need for for co- living the question I have is how do we if we allow it here then we are allowing it also in residentials because they are happening I don't know how we stop that definition because there are people that are running out the rooms we had one on 11th for a while and I think that one's not there anymore I know a couple on I mean on Laural and uh I know there's some around and some people rent their rooms out because of income they don't have enough money with the interest and their loan payments on a house so they will rent out their rooms that's co- living they're not family members and they're not you know they're just people running a room the other question I have on co- living is is there a time period what would make it could a person who

builds a co- living dwelling make it a short-term rental instead and say oh I low as a co-living these people only want to stay here maybe 15 days instead of a permanent is there a time frame so we don't get caught with short-term rentals and co- Living Spaces if the purpose is to provide housing for people who can't afford an apartment um I it's not that I'm against it in that way but I think there's things we have to protect and again we as our one of our our person who came to tonight uh it is happening in the residential areas and we're just saying it's in these four and so there is a discrepancy there also I don't understand may not treat a sleeping unit as more than 1/4 of a dwelling unit so does that mean there are four bedrooms what does it mean by 1/4 of a dwelling unit because 1/4 means there's three uses so if if the density was 12 unit per acre um it would be theoretically 48 um co- living units per acre so the equivalent of four bedrooms okay so if there were to build these it would not look like a residential home we're looking at something that would be structured um like we're because we see the adult family homes are looking in their residential neighborhoods a single family home these aren't to look like that um I can they're going to be more like a little comp apartment type you know with a a board what you think of an old boarding house or a rooming house

and we will have um um design specifics ahead for them so we don't get a mismatch I mean part of me wants to say if we allow these maybe we should start looking for a pattern of design and this is what we accept as design so it's designated as a co-living place in these areas and it's not for short-term rentals I mean I really you just don't know because what happens is hedge funds are buying up property and Building Things and so what if they say oh we want to we're GNA like Black Rock Let's Build A co- living place you know and they write it off on taxes and stuff like that I just want to protect some stuff yeah and would we just get property tax from a co- living place because it's a business if they're letting people live there the only thing you don't get property tax for is government and certain nonprofits okay so but it's a business if it's run by somebody other than a person living there it would be a business and there so it would it would be just we would treat it the same as we would at any apartment complex okay that's so I mean we don't currently require apartment complexes to have special design any you know we let them sort of decide so it would be treated the same as that but why couldn't we why couldn't a city set up a sign a a a design category and say this is how we want our city to be viewed we want to control how things look so there's consistency in the city I mean is that wrong to want to say because a lot of Apartments sort of look alike you know is it would it be casting saying oh that's what you are I'm not talking about that it's like when you look in some small cities there's a pattern for development it just adds a beauty I

think yeah we can look at design standards for her Zone talking about design standards later in the year so those are things that we can talk about do we want design standards for those kind of um for multif family there are certain cities that do have ener design standards or do we I mean and technically if you look at our Uptown design standards those cover those kind of things so yeah why don't we um so if I can I'll kind of reiterate some of the stuff from last meeting so co- living um I don't know if you guys watch say by the Bell the new class but it's almost how where um my my son's going to be going into a a co- living lease next year um in Pullman and what it is is you've got anyone ranging from two to five bedrooms sharing an apartment but then each bedroom within that apartment has its own locking door and they have their own individual leases so that they have a shared space but if one of those kids bail um the other roommates aren't liable for trying to make up the difference and then there's some agreements on what how that apartment complex can then Rel or lease out that bedroom that got vacated um so that and then I know in you dub I've been working on a property where it's 250s 200 to 250 square foot micro units um where they each each unit has basically a kitchenet that is a mini fridge and a a hot plate and a microwave your bedroom and a bathroom and and a shower so I don't even know if that really counts as co- living but they're and then shared like big TV spaces and stuff like that so it's just another way of finding affordable housing that's not driving people into what you're talking about which are I'm going to sublet out bedrooms of my house and that's really

more of a roommate situation we don't really have anything we can as far as I know to prevent people from having roommates um but this is a way of being able set standards like you're talking about as far as now we're limited to we can only do so much if it's within a major Transit stop and that was one of our discussions last time was if we can get a better definition of what a major Transit stop is does that mean a train station or a Transit Center or does that mean every individual bus stop well I I find it interesting in that they say you can't require standards more restrictive than other multifam buildings in the same Zone and I'm wondering why the state required are saying that what are they afraid of that a city would try to put standards above a multif family building um I think that you can't intentionally make it so prohibitive that developers won't do it to say that I'm technically meeting right I understand why why do they feel that fear what would a city would a city purposely try to do that yeah they have historically tried to make things more difficult and part of it is because it's something new it's something different people aren't comfortable with something that they're not used to that they don't have examples of so the idea is to treat it simply that's the same as multif family and so again if at this point this is it's allowed elsewhere if there are group homes in res single family residential there are some that are allowed there and there are some that are not so it would just be if that becomes an issue is determining is it one that's a legal one or if it's not a legal one and so is there also a distance like you can only so it means you couldn't put a standard saying you can only have a code living dwelling within so many feet of each other like what if um on um there's an area and

they want to put five in that would be allowed in these areas same as you would allow five Apartments okay I'll wait till later that everybody else have a chance thank you yeah commissioner boo okay uh few things I have a couple questions and then some statements uh first of all I view this as another um just to get this out there once I once I I can't say how much I appreciate people coming in for the public hearings yeah um thank you for that uh we all think along the same lines uh this is to me uh and maybe others view this too is just another big city house bill that's being imposed on smaller cities and so we are required to deal with this uh and in doing so trying to protect our community so uh I understand your grief and frustration um couple things there is nothing in here that mentions who is responsible for complying with code enforcement as far as if this house that is going to have co- living is already rented the homeowner does not live on site and the renter is renting out the rooms I'm concerned about who is going to be uh responsible for the the code enforcement and what uh if there was some teeth in the code for the city uh to take action to solve the problems uh it's you know obviously there's going to be some frustrations uh specifically I'd like to go over over the parking situation

um in more ways than one uh I didn't do the survey so I didn't get my two cents in but I think uh I am open to any discussion about on street parking and uh and the impacts to the rest of the community when we get into this co- living um and my other question is and could be a dumb question but what's the difference between dis design standards and form codes um sole real quick just a reminder think of co- living as simply apartment complexes that instead of a studio it just doesn't have the bathroom and they're sharing bathrooms and they're sharing kitchens because they're going to build the idea is that you're these aren't necessar least are coming in our commercial mixed use zones the I mean theoretically we have houses so yes they could convert them I suppose but this is more like someone's building an apartment but instead of building you know full apartments with multiple bedrooms it's one bedroom and they have common spaces so the idea that it would be the same as anything else that we enforce or they would have to come through the process as to um now blanking on what your actual second question was uh design standards thank you so form based code they're they're similar in nature um design in a lot of ways what form based code is is design standards where you don't care what's on the inside you say you build a building um it has it has to have this sort of appearance it can be

this many the wind the floor can only be so high um close to the road close to the road you know depending on whatever it is you know you can't have a one flat wall longer than this you have to articulate you have to have certain design things um the first floor has to have a height of at least 15 feet the upper ones have to have this much um but we don't care what you put inside of it you could put commercial inside you can put retail inside you can put office inside you can put apartments inside usually a lot of times it's used in mixed use for that um and so it's more focused on if you build what we like what it looks like we don't necessarily care what you do on the inside um so design standards are you are sort of that in most times when you're saying design standards it's tied to the fact like we have a use table tied to our zoning so you have to use these you know that we're only allowing apartments right and multif family in here now we like I said our Uptown design stand standards if you build apartments in the Uptown area which some of that property is so we have our overlay of our Uptown there is requirements on what it looks like does it have to have porches does it have to have a certain entrance type so there are design criteria that's why like the newer things that have gone in um like when they did Hops and drops they had to kind of it was remodeling a building so it wasn't the full-fledged but like that's they had to do certain things to make it look to meet those things they had to have the front outside eating areas they had to do certain things certain Landscaping to make it the appearance better um that's that gravity had to so um form like I said form based code is a just a different sort of version um

that again is setting specifics that this is how if this is how you have to build it um they're very similar in nature and our code doesn't really follow the form code it's more we don't have what's like I said we don't have theoretically a form based code we do have design standards for parts of the city and so like you said when um gravity coffee went in when um Hops and drops went in the new um MOD Pizza slash whatever we were going through and there's certain requirements for Uptown was coffee was one of the first ones to have to abide by this so we do have and that's where again later this year that was what part of the survey was is starting to get a feel on moving that way is do we want to expand um the up you know we could just use and refine the Uptown for other parts of the city that are mixed use that are multif family that are commercial um do we do we want you know you can do are we okay with how houses looks do we want to put extra burden on residential houses so those are those things I know this is again this is a different we're not used to this sort of thinking yes there are places there are historically places where people college students whatever would just sort of run a place together this is more like dorms but it's dorms that are privately owned and um I having again I I currently am trying to help a young man get a place to live and the it's extremely expensive he it's by the time we got through everything it was going to be over $2,000 a month for a studio apartment which he can't afford we're looking at a one basically one of these where I think it's you know a house that's trying to rent things it's going to be $700 a month for him to rent a little place so the idea behind this is if we can create more variety of things that are and Le especially things that

are cheaper so again I all of those things I think we're going to be dealing with this is something we have to do [Music] um yes if you want to and one more thing is uh also my concern with this is and I've said this before and I don't mean to offend anybody but people that rent are not necessarily vested in the community and so their impacts to the neighborhoods I mean what do they care if they park on the street what do they care if they store their brother's car are on the side of the street uh so really they have no gains they're here to live and I I do appreciate that we're trying to cram people in and give people affordable housing but uh we're also giving away some of our you know the our resources impacts of the community that we these people don't pay into but you can see rental housing same thing but I could be getting this wrong because you said that these are more like dorm rooms and not not a residential home that's being converted into a uh co-ed housing or correct so this is building from the ground up and making sure that there's standards for noise reduction between them fire separation firewalls designated it's designated as a co-living structure yeah oh we could give them special names that make them feel welcome oh really okay yeah um I know you had your your hand rais and then we'll continue with the round robin I I just have a quick question um yeah where exactly is this supposed to be taking place in what what zones so it's in the

multif family Zone okay the um Town Center because it's mixed use um Uptown which is along midan because it's mixed use and the um it put potentially could go in the neighborhood commercial zones we allow some multif family but it has to meet certain criteria so essentially Meridian 99 Milton or some of Milton way and then maybe some of Queens Way based off of okay yeah the next question is why are we dealing with this because it's a state requirement but again it is the goal is to increase the diversity and affordability in housing I understand that it's it's just that uh people are going to do what they're going to do anyway uh you know we we hear from other people that it's already in place in some places but where it's where it's happening is in is in residentials where people are probably chopping up houses if you say Hey you can actually build something that that does this that we're not going to require you to have bathrooms and kitchens in every single room that makes it cheaper to build there's a chance that someone would build it and then instead of having illegal ones everywhere we would have a lot more actual like legalized ones is the plan and the Hope okay okay I'll let it go for the moment thank you commissioner zaro okay um first of all I think uh looking down on people that rent is out of date it's old school it's disrespectful um people might cannot afford to buy a house um there are not enough houses um most of my friends I think I'm the only one I know in my friend group that owns a house because I I have two

degrees and an amazing job and I can barely afford my mortgage I had two roommates I had one roommate to cover the mortgage um I think I think renting is just fine I think saying that people that rent are not invested in our community is crazy crazy um so I just want to put that out there young people need somewhere to live um and 90% of that is going to be renting I think co-living sounds lovely um that's why I mean we're going through all these regulations to put to put systems in place so that it is not a free-for all um it will not be a freefor all I think commissioner Johnson what you were referring to when you were saying this is already happen happening in um single family home areas sounds like a roommate situation like the owner is living there which is different from some yeah um you're right a co-living situation um so in general I think we need to shift our mindset a little bit um and be more welcoming of uh diverse housing needs um so I'm excited but I understand the parking situation can get tricky and regulations need to be in place certainly um so that's all I have to add are we on seven b or 6B yet I have a couple notes there but not yet we're on 7A 7 a still we're still on code living thank you okay perfect continuing on with the round robin commissioner sweat I know we went out turn but did he have anything else um actually um the as far as the parking goes we already have paring standards so um's it there is can't

Rec if I remember correctly from last meeting we were going to interpret a major Transit stop as like a Transit Center or something major and not as every single bus stop which we don't have any Transit centers Yeah in our city the major Transit stop does not apply to Milton at this time okay um we will when we we are going to go through all the parking standards later this year we will have to put it that it's 0.25 spaces per sleeping unit for these um but we would do that at that time we have to do that by the end of the year okay and and again uh this co- living issue is from the ground up it's not existing homes in buildings right so if I mean if an existing house was in a multif family Zone they could convert it but they would have to tell us they're converting it and we'd have to go through and make certain make sure that they meet criteria but um and and that's only pertaining to uh the structure right we're not talking about putting uh little houses outside not for this no okay tiny because anytime you have little houses they're great and they're sharing yeah this would be one there would be one building however it is but they're yeah it's not like I live in here and I have to walk outside to get to it no right okay commissioner O So it seems to me that this is simply another kind of multifamily housing situation allowed in existing multifamily zoned areas okay the the parking is different that's it's a state mandate and that's pretty much it it's not changing single family residential it's not changing anything else it's just changing the kind of

multif family you can have to include this dorm like situation that's right yeah all right okay that's it that's all yes commissioner Johnson I think it is a good idea I'm not opposed to them I'm opposed if hedge P funds are doing it because it doesn't mean rent will be affordable because they often don't look at that we don't know who the builders will be and in our economy now and the way things are going they actually don't look to the benefit of the renter and so I don't know if there's a way and we can't obviously we can't whatever's in the law but it is hard um for young people or single mothers and stuff to in our area you would never thought it would get this expensive in this area but that's why I want us to go out of the urban growth area but that will never happen that's a dream but I just want to make sure that the there's some type of um oversight with the owners and I guess we don't do it with multifamily so that's no different and that's I think that's a bigger question problem yeah than this one little thing yeah and that's my negative feeling about uh corporate ownership of stuff because the people always get the raw end of the deal yeah and that but like you said that happens to regular houses that happens to yeah um continuing just the second round of round robin as far as commissioner Bo did you have any further comments or discussion all right commissioner zaro no uh commissioner sweat no commissioner oler yeah so this is just an allowable use right there's no mandate attached to it like the owner and developer the property could decide to use this or not use this as they

chose correct correct it is again it's just adding the definition and adding it to the use table as a permitted use if someone wanted to construct it yeah so it's unclear to me that anything's going to change it's just going to be allowed and I don't know how much Milton would be a high place for it I think you're going to see it a lot more near colleges and stuff but it is an option all right all right one qu I'm sorry yeah is there a way and maybe I'm seeing I have a negative view on some things in life that there would be no misuse that it would be long-term rentals and not any short-term rentals is there a way to protect that for the people that are trying to get a co- living space in our area so I think it is I think we're g to we are going to deal with short-term rentals later this year it might be worth putting it in there um I think that might be the more appropriate place I think it's important to look at yeah for those kind of things yes yeah because that again maybe it's worth looking at it for all multi family you know should we should Apartments be I don't you know I don't know if they are but that might be something more for that conversation okay yeah yeah I think one of the continuing trends that I see is yeah how do we provide incentives [Music] for local business owners or homeowners and keeping that generational stuff versus bringing investors into the community or um so figuring out the right incentives for those and then figuring out short-term versus long-term rentals and what kind of demographics come in with that um as I mentioned last meeting you know it's one of those when I think of it in my mindset at 40 something I'm like oh my gosh who would ever but um when I look at these things

I really think of how can I make it affordable for my son to move back to the area uh cuz if I can't find that uh then he's stuck living with me or he's stuck living somewhere you know out in the middle of nowhere so it's how do I how do I set my own children up for Success long term is when I think of this and I think yeah maybe something like this might make sense for a 20s something that just needs you know just enough to Door Dash in and and eat and run and and you know just work school whatever it is that they need to do J may I make a motion on it yes you ready everybody yes all right get your head who's second um I I move to recommend to the city council the proposed zoning code amendments related to co- living buildings so seconded all right so we have a motion to recommend to the city council the proposed zoning code amendments related to co- living buildings that has been seconded all those um any discussion yes commissioner bo uh when do we go over uh the parking requirements for this are we just going with the 025 spaces within a half mile of a major Transit stop so what you're recommending today is just what's on draft the attachment one page just the change to the def adding of the definition and adding to the table of uses we will we don't have to have the parking I believe until the end of the year so I figured it made more sense since we're going to be looking at the parking to add that section so at this point they're just page seven yes thank you thank you thank you all right all right any other discussion before

vote all right so all those in favor to recommend to the city city council the proposed zoning code amendments related to co- living buildings say I I I all those opposed right motion passes unanimous okay where did I just write that down huh motion by commissioner Johnson seconded by commissioner oler and I wrote it down somewhere but it's not on my agenda thank you all right um moving on to 7B which is unit lot 7 sub divisions and binding site plans and we'll turn it back over to staff to introduce the subject again so for those who want to encourage home ownership this is the code for you so the goal for this is to increase the supply and affordability of home ownership opportunities um so as I was previously stating and again some of you were unfortunately not able to make last month so we'll try to go over a couple um it I did not theoretically if someone wanted to make you know if you all like Yay this is great and you want to make a motion today great but the Assumption was that we would have a discussion today have the public hearing and probably come back in um April for the actual action so again there's trying to wrap your around so if you look on page 13 and kind of compare 11 and 13 I tried to sort of break this down a little bit so the idea of a unit lot subdivision is is um and Spokan actually started this I think six seven years ago and they've had some real good success so the idea is that you would take your lot and so I tried to have a couple different versions here and so let's say you have your primary house and you build two

adus on it the idea of a unit lot subdivision is that you could through a um it's similar to a short plat process but instead of having individual Parcels when you done you basically have baby parcels and a parent parcel so if you take the one on the top right um You have a single family home you have two adus in the back you would go through the process of with the city and you would submit your survey and your documents that show this is the lot this is where we're doing baby parcel one baby parcel 2 baby parcel 3 everything in green is going to be a shared common area so maybe that's the driveways um obviously that's you know you want to make sure all the paths for all the unit um utilities are there and then it gets um the process again if you're looking at 11 I sort of try to to kind of compare it to our short plat which people are more familiar with and a full sub sub division this one's very similar to the short plot it's a type three which means notices are going out to 500 ft so people kind of know what's aware um once those documents are we they come into us we review them we make sure they meet all the codes we have our Engineers look at them make sure they meet all of those requirements for how you do those official documents um it gets recorded with the county both the actual plat the mini plat that shows um where everything is or like technically it's like guess more of a site plan and any agreement so there's a you know they could have a mini homeowners association it could just be on every single one um so that it goes with the title that they have shared

land and they have to help pitch in to keep it updated so um if you're looking at 11 I tried to compare so unit lot subdivision you have a parent lot so again if you're looking at the diagram everything within the outer boundary meets our current setbacks for a house in a single family zone so it would be 20 in the front 25 to the house in the back 7 and a half on the sides can't be more than 40% structure coverage so those three units combined still have to make meet the same requirements that we would for if it it was one house so you're going to get smaller houses than because you're putting more on there and then they are recorded as one unit um it's only allowed this process is only allowed for like single family duplex adus that are all on the same level so you're basically looking at it in our nr1 nr2 multif family potentially um and then maybe mixed uses if they were doing like what they did behind um the post office so that's but again it would have to use this the unit lot subdivision have to be very small so in most cases um they're going to probably use the binding C plan utilities they would have to have separate utilities um and again yes there'd be easements and agreements to make sure everything works the um so I guess I can stop there on unit lot subdivision and see if there's questions and comments on that one before we go to the others yeah it's

okay I'll start with you commissioner SP and work you oh andine adus I'm sorry no oh no I was saying I was gonna go you first and then commission next um you just redefined adus uh we hashed over adus forever and uh adus are supposed to be powered by the by the house utilities all come from the main structure Power Water electrical you know everything so the way that it was adopted was it was up to the utility company to determine whether or not they had to be joint meter or separate meter because um and then so the idea is if you're going to divide them into separate units you would want them to each have their own meter absolutely um the size of these uh adus that are behind uh a structure are there going to be size enough to handle a kitchen utilities uh I mean like a washer that's required in a home period uh that's National Electric Code um there's a lot of requirements and I can't see you're going to have the space in an Adu to have all of that adus can be up to a thousand square feet again if they if they all fit if they'll fit so and that's where it's up to the developer to whoever's the property owner to decide how they want to allocate their amount of space do they want all in one building do they want three smaller buildings how do they want to do that but again this is what's before us is the process to allow them to be independently

sold yeah I don't know about this I don't like it uh commissioner oler so my understanding is this is optional for somebody creating adus on their property they can still do the traditional Adu it's all owned by the owner but they have this option to do a unit lot subdivision for up to three lots and then like my understanding is the parent lot isn't lot one it's not owned by the that becomes co-owned by all like a condominium so they're have to have like a mini homeowners association attached to all of these is that right so they could either have a mini homeowners association or it could be like because there's some properties that have like a share driver way so every um legal description there's an easement attached to each one that says they have responsibility to take care of and it would be on the whatever the recorded document would say that all of them share ownership and they all have shared um responsibilities to maintain it should we have a requirement for them to follow the RCW for homeowners agreements if they're going to enter into such a arrangement with a unit lot subdivision just to make sure that that's all above board and not I think the way it's I know the the template was that they could either do like a homeowners or they could um put it on the they like I said Put it kind of as an agreement on the plat and tied to the individual laws is that sufficient I mean what if you have what if there's some kind of what what I'm getting at is what if this R this gives rise to some

kind of ENT unit dispute and there's no clear guide or past in it unless we already use the RCW for it maybe we should it's just a suggestion yeah and I can look at how how that's written um and see if that applies to this or if um do you have the RCW there it's title 64 chapter 38 okay I will see um if that's makes sense it very well might make sense to reference that um or how it's written on that um again it it's the same Pro yes there's always the potential for the same problems here as like I said there are places that have shared private drives and if one chooses not to then it becomes a civil issue of who's taking care of it and who's paying for it and stuff and so there's always challenges or you know we have a lot of shared storm water that either is homeowners association or if it's just a couple Lots there's an uh Covenant agreement I guess is the better word for it so but yeah I will look and see um if we can reference something a little bit better okay thanks uh commissioner Johnson um this is not State mandated yet but it's coming I think this one is State mandated we're this as well this one's already in effect we just don't have rules okay all right just so everybody knows the first don't do these freely because it's big changes that are pounding us um would it would the state disallow a requirement of an HOA I think that's the best type of I think that's kind of what um commissioner erer is also looking at so let me double check how and we can definitely beef up the language of how

if that um but can a city mandate that I don't know because I think it like I said I think the the pamphlet talked about like it could be just on each one of like if you know if you're just talking about a couple it could be just listed that they're shared ownership so let me I'll do some research on the that specifically and get back next month a shared ownership is really strange in that respect and the other question is so the big house the owner subdivided plats builds the two units sells those to somebody and so we don't know how it's going to be declared with the shared space they're individual homes people act differently in each of the homes but the number one person who originally did it moves he can sell his house or her house the other two can sell his or her or their house at any time at any place to anyone you can sell them that's the whole point that they would basically it'd be similar to condos right that each one gets its own kind of sub paral number um but even if the original person is living in the main house when they file that document and we approve it we sign it we record it they record it it will dictate these are the you know the county will assign them sub things and these are the shared chunks and see I really want to push for HOAs I think it's the best way protection for the city and for the owners of the property as well because we see it in the tow houses you know over in the other part of the city and I understand shared driveways that but they're not sharing the whole lot so I really have I don't have a

problem with it I know we have to do this but I think h o they're all putting in for the responsibility of the main somebody might say well uh yeah it says uh it's a legal description but it's not saying no you have to pay for some of this and that's what an HOA does so if it's like a condo by legal things to me it should have an HOA and that that's all I'm saying on this I will definitely check uh do some more research on what requirements we can put on the shared ownership part yes thank you commissioner Bo were you done okay for now I didn't interrupt her happened before a here we go uh okay just a few questions um this one's kind of been answered but can unit Lots be created after the completion of the development so say the development's all done and who it who's ever decided to do the unit Lots is done can someone come in later and and create unit Lots within that development as long as it's within this nine lot limit so um also so again going back to my um page 11 I didn't point out a couple of the things so the density is so this leads into your question or it adds to your question is that the density this doesn't allow you to get around our requirements of density or how many units so let's say on you know on our attachment down here on the bottom one where there's only two units so yes someone could unit lot subdivide that with two units and then somebody could then theoretically they could amend that and add a third unit because we do allow three units but somebody couldn't have three units and then somehow try to get a fourth unit because we don't allow

four units So within what's allowed now the unit the nine would only be if at this point for us that would probably only be if it was like it says if it was like a multi family and they had a bunch of little houses but they'd have to be full houses um or like I said for um if like behind actually it wouldn't have to be tiny houses at all if behind um like I said looking at behind the post office it the idea of a nine they could do if it's multif family they could if they just had done nine units instead of the 2030 that they did it would allow them to use the unit lot subdivision process versus The Binding site plan process but the only way you're going to go up to nine anything over three at this point is if you're in multif family those are not you know because we only allow three in residential and so dumb question again nine units nine units is not for one development it's for one lot if the lot can support it it's right right and I guess it depending on how you want to decide I mean it could be considered a development but really this this would not comply because there's more than nine Lots in your diagram right so each one of these so each one of these is an individual again just showing it's never going to happen I five six I didn't imagine that you would ever have this but I just wanted to we we had talked about that the pictures last month were not very accurate to our setbacks to our size restrictions so yes if some the only time you're going to go up to nine is if you're like I said it would be you're you're in the multi family zone so our density allows it and it's on a big enough lot that they could then have shared like I said basically that would be what's back behind there but it would be nine instead of the 34 what

they used to do the 34 was The Binding site plan so we do already allow that this would just allow it to be a slightly easier process if there was less number okay um I get it with the water electric and gas meters each one has its own um what about lock coverage and impervious storm water fees would because you're creating more impervious surface and lock coverage would it would that stump somebody from being able to build on that two M uh like three on one loot or uh is it um or is it just they just rais the storm water fees because they're covering more square footage so if it's in the single family zone so if it's an nr1 and nr2 um our code says that their impervious surface is limited to 50% so whether they put one unit on it or three units on it they can't do more than 50% of impervious surface so that and that includes the structures they're limited to 40% for structur so that's all three can't cover more than 40 and the H the structures plus driveways patios whatever can't be more than 50% under our storm water thing um there is if they get above 40 there is an extra fee for storm water but they we wouldn't allow them to go a 50% no matter what they put on it yeah in the residential zones there stages yeah yeah yeah so commercial than melti family they're allowed to do more I'm at 41% 41 % so you pay the higher rate and I made them prove it to me too okay uh what about impact fees Parks roads and schools on each individual unit lot will they be paying a so we under our adus um

under our current Adu regulations um the so the primary house or if it was a duplex um they play the full amount any Adu pays 50% whether it's a rental or you could sell it we're getting right through these um so can I interject real quick sure well still on my mind so uh now I lost my never mind go ahead I'll figure it out Circle again write it down uh another question I don't want to get too involved with it is um you have a two-story home the parent lot two story home so would you be allowed your adus to have a garage underneath and a apartment upstairs our adus are limited to 24 feet so if they they theoretically could do that so it kicks back to the Adu code okay okay now they can't let's say you had a house and you decided to turn the basement into an Adu you cannot use the unit lot subdivision because it's all in one footprint right so those stay and I think I have non oh design standards question about um the adus it would go back to the Adu code where and the yeah it go back and the Adu code does say that it should um be similar in nature to the house so it should be somewhat you know okay now to look at it from an Investor's point of view which is how I would look at it is what if someone develops a home and two unit lots and rents out all three doesn't that defeat the purpose of

the home ownership and affordability you're still create I mean you're still creating so if they're going to rent them they're not going to go through the unit lot subdivision process because you can have a house with two adus and rent them all out gotcha so if you go through the unit lot subdivision I think the only reason you're doing that is because you want to sell them there's no Advantage right to rent them if you're you're actually better off renting them the other way cool thank you yep good question all right commissioner zaro um just a couple small things on the HOA um I think we'll talk about it next time but is there a way to cap the fee that they could charge probably not through this process okay it just seems like we're adding a barrier to ENT to well yeah they're going to have to have joint anyway so usually they set whatever they think that needs to be to pay for whatever so there could be I mean I strangely live in a neighborhood where it's $10 a year I'm not really sure what that helps with um but you know you would assume they would be like hey we're going to pay for lawn care and we need to put some away for you would hope that they would figure it out on their own okay okay um page 15 under the definition um subdivision says redivision of land into five or more Lots on our attachment one table they're short and full um and the max allowed under short is five so I'm wondering if we need to break the the definition up into and sorry what page are you on so if you're

looking at page 15 the definition of subdivision and you're looking at the table on page 11 so on page yeah so on page 15 it shows the there's um there's already a short subdivision definition there is okay there is so I could I should have probably added that I was just only adding the ones that I was changing so I apologize for that there is a short subdivision um definition that does the five and under um what I was doing was separating out we had subdivision or plat really those are two different things plats more the map subdivision is more the process so that was the reason that was included is I was just okay including a plat and then the blue highlighted is the things that I changed based on the last meeting um so we did add um I just did multif family uses because that made it sort of hung there um made a point that the unit lot subdivision is limited to single family middle housing and adus um on 16 um made a point that each if you're because we're selling them that each unit would have to be served by a separate utility meeting again if you don't subdivide you may not have to and then so again the first section is the unit lot subdivision we do have to have a process we don't have one that's what we're working on the second half is The Binding site plan which in essence is the same idea but it's used for bigger multif family projects it's used for commercial properties it's used for malls and so um I would it felt like they're so tied together that and they're very similar in nature so I've taken our existing code at 1630 and obviously you can tell I've sort of redlined and try to make it

consistent um and address the issues that were brought up so right um is that it okay so I think my first around of comments um I've just been focusing on just the table and the graphics I haven't really gotten too much into the definition so maybe our second round robin will just be a little bit of if there's any questions or clarifications on definitions so the way I'm understanding it is if I looking at example on page 13 and starting at the top left let's say one and two were originally one plot and then got subdivided and it's been five years or whatever the thing is then lot one and lot two could potentially add children Lots no so sorry this one was hard to like graphically show graic okay so the idea of the the top one is that that's a duplex okay so you're still basically one and two are going to be child Lots okay so you could basically in essence not have any shared land in this case because you've made one and you've made two okay but they would still file so they wouldn't be able to I mean I guess one of one of them could put a Adu on I suppose but it's very unlikely Okay so the idea being here is you would you would allow ownership for each side but it would still be recorded as this is one unit and you can't chop it up you're not yeah okay so um the next one down so that green is basically all of their shared space and I think that's where we're kind of talking about that maybe we need to have some sort of HOA or some sort of RCW reference because yeah they have to somehow have joint ownership but I'll

look into what our options are okay cuz yeah it's a little bit of like number three has kids and they want to start putting a big toy out there number two is like hey that's mine or you know why are you chopping down my rose bush or whatever else so yeah I do think that there should be um either that or number three cells and move someone else moves in and one and two go well he he always took care of the lawn I don't know um so yeah just definitely I think there should be something that says what the agreement is as far as whether they pull resources or expand their their plots where they're they're all um owning their [Music] own um so yeah I just tried to show up these are all just yeah the idea that they could be designed many many different ways yeah you could like the bottom one that's kind of at the in the bottom middle you know that would technically be if they were too attached you could share all of it yeah or they could divide it out so okay it's sort of up to whoever decides to do that how they want to divide it up so yeah and then with all these mini examples we showing like they can't really get split into nine but if you were to take basically all of these on the right hand side and say that that was one parcel that is a way that they could have put nine if they were yes if this was all one parcel and you ignore these if you were in a multif family Zone and this was one big parcel then theoretically you could do some sort of but it probably wouldn't look like that yeah okay um yeah it was just kind of helping me understand all the different things and options and concerns others are bringing up so with that we'll continue the the round robin as far as any questions more on the tables or if we want to start getting into definitions uh I did have a question and you mentioned something about

taxes didn't you uh impact fees impact Fe impact fees yeah but it's covered under the Adu code already so they get half off so only the primary house has to pay that no they uh when you when you develop the adus um you would have to pay the equivalent of half the impact fees for um streets parks and schools is what the uh I think that was what the final adoption was by city council so you pay the full amount for the first house and then if you do an Adu you have to pay 50% of that for that Adu and those they pay at the time of issuance of permit okay I just still think it's a can of worms you're gonna GNA love it later um continuing on anything as far as definitions or anything that you'd like to get into there yeah um so my understanding is The Binding site plan would be for basically more like a traditional condo it could be all one large building and then separate so binding site plan still come so binding site plan is usually where it's the unit and the ground below it so if you had an apartment complex that you were turning into condos um basically you're relying on the state law and how they regulate how to condom miniz with the binding site plan so basically when they're turning Apartments into condos they don't come to us at all what this would be is if you are um again making sort of those child Lots so you're you have the one big parcel and then everyone has their

own little building and the land below it now it might be a little bit of land it might be a lot of land and then there's also but then you're sharing driveways and you're sharing parks and stuff so in so you know the option is you don't have to those can be less than your minimum so if you were doing a traditional uh subdivision for single houses everyone has to be 8,000 square feet if you're in the multif family Zone you could have let's say you have this is the Min cottages on a large scale what yes okay yes and like said traditionally binding site plans were used a lot more for like you said um now and I don't think there is one but like if you look at the Safeway complex they have shared parking lots they have shared storm water um so if you ever look they actually have different Parcels Safeway owns their parcel and then even though they're all connected different ones own different parts if they had if they were to do that today we would say okay you also have to you have to go through the binding site plan which makes us say you have for sure agreements that you're all sharing and who's doing all of this so This has because apartments in some ways under the building code are sort of considered non they're more commercial it gets a little gray when you're dealing with multif family at once you get past two um this has been more and more common a lot more cities and we have done it at least once if not twice so that way they could have little tiny Lots with their houses okay and you can get you know and meet the density of that whatever our zone is so again I think it's what is it 12 I think for multif family it's not it's not a lot

relatively speaking okay compared to Tacoma Contin on the the room any commissioner Bo one more thing page 18 1630 015 of applicability the provisions of this chapter shall apply to Parcels that are developed or plan to be developed with commercial industrial or multif family uses so how do you get residential adus in a commercial zone so that's the binding site plan one so you're not going to do adus oh this would be for big structure yeah yeah all right thank you that's all I got right commissioner Z I'm good okay so with that we've we've gone around the room a couple of times anything else as far as closing discussion or next steps I will do some research on what if we can add some language on how the Covenant HOA something is done to kind of lock that up a little better okay um but I think that's the only thing I'm hearing at this point um okay all right so it sounds like only homework is just looking into how that shared space gets managed or recorded as managed okay perfect um so then the last item I didn't I did I probably confused people because there wasn't really a agenda summary cover sheet um I just um I didn't know because there was some talk of that did we want to talk about the survey ideas to to kind of bounce ideas off or are you guys okay just my original thought was you'd give me ideas that or give me what's important to you so I know what to focus on and then I'll start bringing back information but there was some

discussion last meeting of being able to maybe um discuss each one of those a little bit of what is important so it's sort of open if if we want to have a discussion on what people think is important or cons what they want to tell me to look at or if you're okay with just the surveys came to me and I will um I'll probably bring parking back first because I think that's one we definitely need to fix um as I and then we can start working on or I might bring a couple back depending on how April's goingon to be a little tight because I'm going on vacation but um could we could you pass out mine to people um I did not oh I didn't pass it on directly but I can if everyone I was just sort of summarizing I don't want to read it you do you um no I did say that didn't I and then I changed my mind where I was just um sort of summarizing I do have a sheet that I was just going to summarize what everybody said um I have two council members back they at the after the meeting on Monday a couple of them said oh you gave us a survey didn't you I said yes I did so I may still get a few more in from council members and then my thinking was I was just sort of going to I can kind of just summarize what people sort of highlighted and then send that out and then I will use that to start getting a better feel of what to bring back again these are not State mandates other than a few things in the parking but most of them we've dealt with these are more what is the vision that you guys and the council have for the city and our community has that we can address and fine tune so it frees everybody up a little bit right well I mean we still have like 30 minutes on the clock so if we want to just save it save it for later okay yeah I've got

I'll find I'll find you yeah again that was my thinking is just tell me what you guys think is important I'm looking for themes and then I'll know what to bring back and then we'll have a full conversation on parking and then we'll have a full conversation on various landscaping and you know so I'm okay with that I have a vision of lenworth we're not bring the tourist to GNA open up a cuckoo clock store sure talk about vvo and shortterm rentals I do that yod all right so it sounds like you're going to continue to collect topics of the survey if you haven't turned in your survey um please get that in yeah give me your survey or if you'd rather have a phone conversation just call me and I will dictate you email that out I did but I will send it I resent it on Monday or Tuesday Tuesday so double check if you have it or I can get you a hard copy I yeah I'll I'll look on my email first if not then I'll come and get one okay yeah she's a busy lady I went in the office yesterday and they were like uh she's in a meeting I go with who I go do you know who I am lady when I was in with the council members lady goes no I don't know who you I don't know who you are I all right I'll get a hold of her later you must not go in often enough they're like hey oh no just a police station they're all Tom hey where you been oh good hey don't we all have to sign a thing too we have to sign our volunteer agreement yeah so is it time for me to do my y stop so yeah I think we're moving on to eight stop reports um couple quick things one um as of this afternoon the new code is finally on code publishing website oh so it looks very pretty with all the colors um it was a little stressful because I'd have people call and say it says this and I'm like it doesn't I know it says that but it doesn't count anymore so

that's nice um secondly yes I have so hopefully if you read receipt a volunteer handbook she emailed that to to people if you didn't get it emailed and you want a paper copy I can and then where is she uh Nicki I believe Nikki did or Trisha did tra did was that recently yeah the other day last um so many of you were probably good and turn signed this like six months ago there's a volunteer hand book that went out and if you signed it and turned it in you weren't on her naughty list oh some of us were on the naughty list and were're told hey you need to sign the sheet and get it in probably just do it just sign it that way you how many volunteer forms do I have to sign how many background checks do I have to go M I don't know yeah got like three backgound I just was like I'm not going to remember can you have Angelie print some extras and I'll sign it so that's why are there extras cuz I'll sign it it's a pain to do it over email I'm like I can't put in my signature when's the last time you sign one just sign one and I'll give it to her yeah and then you're good for a year last is so talking about the new code um I think there I'm putting this on the record I think we in I I inadvertently checked the wrong box for drive-throughs um currently the code that got adopted doesn't allow drive-throughs along Meridian in the Uptown District where we have all the drive-throughs um basically all along Meridian where Safeway and all of those are so the best I can figure out is it we didn't all we weren't the proposal was to not allow them in the town center but to allow them in uptown and somehow when I was transferring to new versions it got flip-flopped so do we need to do something so I would really like to fix that if everyone's okay with that because we actually have

a couple really cool projects that's why I figured out that I screwed up do we have to make a motion for you no so I will just at the next in April we will do it as we'll do the public hearing and I'd love to just do the public hearing and the action to just it'll just be add this one thing allowed use to it then I can take it to council right after that and hopefully we can get it fixed in two months yeah yep if you're all okay with that I figured you would but I wanted to give you warning that that's the only really bad thing I have found so far that I went oh shoot um that bad it's it's just was it was a little disturbing when I looked at it and went oh this is not good so um and then like you said we will as we find as we go through parking and if we find things throughout the year I will will we can definitely do some um any any other fixes there's little stuff that like code publishing found but they could fix those without having to go through the whole process they that we can't fix without going through so okay I will bring that back thank you very very much and off the Record we have some cool projects good all right so with that we'll go to commissioner reports we'll start with you commissioner Johnson the only thing I want to share is when we talk about adus and I think I've mentioned it before there is a beautiful on uh 12th or 13th on a SA are the family built a Adu that coordinates with the main house and it is the best construction and look in our neighborhood over by Xavier um for an example of what can really look good in an Adu they did a a 10 plus job and I haven't seen too many

other places that are as good as this one right nothing I don't think I have anything either commissioner what commissioner older all right well um they're no longer here but I just want to say thank you for having public comments I it's always welcome and exciting to have uh next meeting is April 9th and with that it's