Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right.

Good morning or good afternoon, everybody. This is August 11th Planning Commission regular scheduled Planning Commission meeting. So I'd like to call the meeting to order at 6 p.m. So our first order of business is roll call. We have all members present with the exception of commissioner John Cesar and commissioner Kevin Wilson. Then they are excused. Nope. Okay. I need a motion.

We have to excuse them individually, right? I'd like to make a motion to excuse Commissioner Chazar as he is currently performing duties related to the music festival. I'll second that.

Okay, I have a motion and a second to excuse John Chazar. All in favor? Aye. Okay, motion passes. And I need a motion for Kevin.

I'll move to approve Kevin Wilson, or move to excuse Kevin Wilson.

I'll second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second to excuse Kevin Wilson. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes. All right, next item is approval of the agenda. I'll move to approve the agenda. Do I have a motion? I'll second. And a second? All in favor? Aye. OK, agenda is approved. Um, next item is approval of the July 14th, 2026 minutes from our regular commission meeting.

I make a motion to approve the minutes for July. Uh, shoot. What was the name? July 14th. Sorry. I make a motion to approve the July 14th minutes.

Second. Okay. I have a motion and a second to approve the July 14th minutes is written all in favor. Okay. Minutes pass as written. All right, next item that we have is public comment. During this time, citizens may comment on subjects of interest not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak to an item on the agenda, you will have the opportunity to do so. when that agenda item is called to ensure comments are recorded properly state your name clearly into the microphone and indicate whether you live inside or outside the city limits please limit comments to three minutes to ensure that we have sufficient that all have sufficient time to speak public comments may also be submitted online at www.oakharvard.gov backslash public comments at least two business days in advance of the meeting do we have any public comments that were sent in none and we have nobody here so we'll close the public comment section move on to discussion and presentation and report items so our first item is the current building project highlights

Good evening, Planning Commission. I'm Ray Lindenberg, Senior Planner. I'm going to give you a little bit of a brief rundown on what is happening in the community right now and open up to any discussion if anybody has any questions or comments that go along with that. So I'm going to go ahead and put some of these up on the screen for you, and then we can kind of discuss those, like I said, as we go through it. So to start off, The purpose of this presentation here, we are here to support the alignment between the Planning Commission's legislative work on visioning, plans, policies, zoning, and development regulations, and the resulting on-the-ground projects that comprise the bulk of the Community Development Department's day-to-day work. So that's just kind of why we're here today, but to share information with you to let you know what we're doing. So the first one and probably the most noticeable one that you saw as you might have driven up the hill today is the Bayview Vista multifamily residential building right down the street here. The project has been ongoing for a couple months now. It is a 48-unit residential building. It's going to be three to four stories in height, the average height there based on the kind of hillside it's built into. Right now they have three of the four stories constructed on that western end, so there'll be one more floor that goes on the top before they essentially top out that building. They do have a variety of materials on the outside. We think it's a pretty attractive building. There'll be a parking lot, surface parking on the southern half of that property, hidden away a little bit from the street there. The frontage along Barrington will have brand new sidewalk, curb gutter and sidewalk, And that's where the entrance to the building will be too. So we've oriented everything towards the street instead of towards the parking lot for a more urban kind of experience. So we're pretty excited about that one. Not only just having those units there, but to have some new large development in our downtown area I think is real positive. That's the backside of the building there. You can see at the bottom of that drawing there is what it'll look like on the south elevation towards the parking lot. And then that one on the upper left will be the west elevation that will be visible as you come up Barrington from the west side there. Another large project that we have going is the Oak Heights subdivision, which is the south end of town off of Southwest 24th and SR 20. 219 total residential units. A significant portion of those will be duplexes, which is also A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT. THAT IS R2 ZONING WHICH ALLOWS FOR THAT. BUT IT IS A PRD. THEY HAVE A COUPLE OF WETLAND AREAS THAT WILL BE PRESERVED AS OPEN SPACE AND KIND OF PARK AND WALKING TRAILS, THINGS LIKE THAT FOR THE AMENITY FOR THE COMMUNITY ITSELF OR FOR THE SUBDIVISION ITSELF BUT ALSO FOR THE GREATER COMMUNITY. THOSE WILL BE PUBLIC AREAS AS WELL. They'll be probably breaking ground on houses in the spring, I would presume. Right now they're still working on all their utilities, streets, all those improvements that go along before typically you build a house. So that's what's going on right now with all the trucks and the grading and all that stuff out there right now. I had two separate conversations, lengthy meetings today regarding landscaping for one meeting and the actual homes that they're going to be constructing in another. I think that we're all going to be pretty happy with the product that they come up with. They have a very attractive set of homes that they're going to be putting out there and their landscape plan is quite extensive and it's going to be good. So I think we'll be happy with what we see as it comes online there. The next one is the Preston Heights subdivision, which is 36 single family lots just off of Scenic Heights, between Scenic Heights and Capitol Street. This one is kind of cascading down the hill there towards the water. They'll have some nice views. This is the same group that's built Ridgeway Heights subdivision as well, and we'll see that in just a second. But these are a little bit larger homes. Probably, I don't want to guess their price range, but they're a little bit larger in the 2,500 square foot range. But they'll have their two car garages and everything. That'll be a nice one too. They also preserved a small portion of a wetland area that was actually on another piece of property. They'll have a little bit of open space on that and just in more wetland preservation, which is good too. That is kind of the layout of the subdivision. You can see Scenic Heights Street off on the right-hand side there, Capitol Street on the left. It does stub through to the south, so eventually, hopefully, we'll get further construction to the south there to connect that through all the way to Waterloo at some point, hopefully. Just a couple other kind of side notes here. The Cedar Hill subdivision, which is up off of Crosby in the northwest quadrant, there's homes under construction there, but for the most part, all the utilities and everything is completed. They're just working on building homes there. They've completed, I believe, 12 so far, so they have about that many remaining. They're about halfway done there. The Ridgeway Heights subdivision, and there is a little bit additional there. Ridgeway Heights is complete. They've done all the houses in that subdivision. There'll be three more, and you can kind of see the stub or the cul-de-sac at the end of the line there. There'll be three more in that subdivision that they'll put in when the temporary turnaround there, the cul-de-sac is removed, but that is contingent on getting it connected through to Oak Heights. So when that happens, there'll be three more lots available in the Ridgeway Heights subdivision, and then those two will be connected together. Again, what we're trying to do is get all these interconnected streets so that people can walk and travel by bicycle or alternative means in a more efficient way rather than having to go kind of out and around on major streets. The Shawn Ridge subdivision, you're probably asking about or thinking about in your mind what's going on over there. They are kind of slowly moving forward. We have worked with them on getting the utilities taken care of. There were some issues with the construction utilities, but that is being resolved. And our ability to make sure that we have inspection ability and essentially the connection between Shawn Ridge and the rest of the community there. So that is moving forward slowly, but it will be happening. And then just for my joke at the beginning, erratics, glacial erratics. So that is the tie-in. If you've never been there, go see Waterman Rock. It's really cool. It's like the size of a house. And it's just a rock that got transported from Mount Erie down south by a glacier. So if you have any questions, let me know. Happy to answer any questions or comments you might have.

First of all, I want to say as a geology enthusiast, geology jokes rock. So I was really happy to see that at the very beginning there. And also just in general, this is awesome. This is exactly what I would love to see, presentations like this, super informative about what's going on. Um, really great. Um, I do have one very, uh, specific question on the, um, baby Vista. Um, how is traffic going to be impacted? Have we done any studies or surveys on that? Cause you know, in my time here in Oak Harbor, I've seen 20 in that area go from, you know, not too bad to, you know, backed up for a mile. And it seems like that'll add additional pressure. Is there, can you comment on the traffic situation there?

Yeah, for all projects like that, we do traffic studies. And typically we find that, yes, while it does seem like it's getting worse, it's an incremental thing. Incremental things add up. The kind of upshot of that particular location is there are a lot of ways in and out. It is a very heavily gridded area and hopefully that traffic can kind of disperse. Maybe instead of going straight out to 20, it'll go up Ely or down Barrington, different directions. So that's the hope there. The other hope is that being in a more urban area, people can walk more, ride bikes more, et cetera. So yes, there will be more traffic. We feel it's dispersed enough and there is not a situation where an intersection is failing because of this project. We're hoping that the improvements to the highway will be coming online soon with the WSDOT improvement projects Hopefully in the next couple of years, we'll kind of alleviate some of that. But yes, we have reviewed it. It gets reviewed on large projects like that as a standard procedure. So yes, it has been looked at for sure.

And I'll just say one of my concerns there is, you know, as we're discussing this now, premier waterfront community right across there is access to some of the trails that lead down to the water and stuff like that. And we actually have a, unfortunately, very high pedestrian accident rate. And I can only imagine there's going to be now a lot more interest in crossing 20 right there to get to those activities. Has that been looked at at all? Or is there any considerations for people that are going to want to run down by the water since they just bought houses down by the water?

Yeah, and I think the really cool thing about this is we're connecting more sidewalks. That entire stretch of Barrington there was essentially an entire block or two that doesn't have any sidewalks, so we're filling that in. The hope is people will walk more, and there are facilities, at least if you're going from that particular block building down to Higgins or something along those lines, there is sidewalk the entire way. There's sidewalk the entire way into the downtown area. So the facilities are there and they're getting built out. You know, as far as accidents and things like that are concerned, we can try and do what we can as far as working with WSDOT to make sure that there's signalized crossings and all that sort of thing. So that's just kind of part of the community effort, not specific to one project or another.

So there's not a light or anything expected to go in there for that.

In that at Ely and Barrington?

Yeah, there was a whatever, was it an east exit out of there? I'm just mentally trying to get northeast, southwest there. That would go straight onto 20. Would that turn into a light or turn into some pedestrian crosswalk? Oh, I'm sorry.

Are you talking about the subdivision on the south end, Oak Heights? I thought that was Baby Vista, the big... No, Baby Vista is the apartment building down the street here.

Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. I'm off by one. Okay. Sorry. No, it's Baby Vista. I meant... There. By the way, I'm a huge fan of Baby Vista. That does look like it's coming in great. It's working in well with the hills and going to really be working in with the walking. Just the names of streets.

Yes, and they're all heights or vistas or something like that.

Sorry about that.

No, that makes more sense now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right off of 20 there. So the answer to that is yes, there is a significant improvement that is proposed and in the works and going to happen, and that is a roundabout at the corner of Eagle Vista, another vista, and SR 20, which is the south entrance to that subdivision. People will be going in and out on 24th, which is existing now, but there will also be a new entrance to that subdivision at the south end where Eagle Vista is, and Eagle Vista, as you go south out of town, is that little subdivision that you can make a left turn there right now. but WSDOT and city staff and the developer have been working on a design for a roundabout there, and it is very near approval. The construction, we're not certain about when it would happen, but probably sometime within the next six to 10 months, I think. So it's going to happen, and that's part of their phase one of that project is to get that done so that all the traffic doesn't concentrate on the 24th and cause issues. Excellent. Thank you. That really helps answer those questions.

So I am curious if you could do some quick math for me on the number of units that you mentioned throughout all of the housing projects.

Very quick math. 220-ish for Oak Heights. 36, I believe, for Preston. That's 256. Another 25-ish. So 12 more left at Cedar Hill. 48 at, did I already say Bayview Vista? No. So we're looking around 350-ish out of those subdivisions and multifamily that we just talked about. So that's a pretty significant number. 320.

328?

328, and I'm not including, yeah, there's...

This is not a math lesson. Sorry. You don't want that. What I wanted to get at was round math. What percentage of those would you say one quarter, two quarters, three quarters would be density versus single family homes?

48 of them will be pretty dense. Bayview Vista, if I remember correctly, is very near the max zone density for the typical zone there. I can't recall if that is, I think that's CBD2. So anyway, it is... one of the few times that we have got maximum density projects in the city. We have been kind of coasting along for a while with projects that were near the minimum density, which is great and all, but we would like to see more. So it's an exciting project for a number of reasons. There's real urban density there, so it's pretty exciting.

I'm definitely excited about it. I was just concerned about the ratio of density units versus single family homes and duplexes that were presented. I mean, the subdivisions look great. They're all very organic roads and very pleasing to the eye that enjoys curvy lines and whatnot and no grids whatsoever, unlike the density location that will have a nice grid location to get to.

And the thing is too, in Oak Heights' defense, they developed theirs after we changed our zoning to allow much smaller single family residential lots. We used to have 7,200 square foot minimum residential lot. We changed that to essentially the minimum width and depth dimension allowing for a 3,200 square foot lot. So that's more than double. And they have developed it at that. Plus the fact that they're doing the duplexes. So for a single family residential development is pretty dense. There are the areas that are not being developed because of the wetlands, which is good. So it's, it's kind of that trade off, but it is an area that has been designated as low density residential for quite a number of years. And that's what they chose to do.

I hear you. Thank you. Yeah.

I'm going to ask that you maybe don't answer this, but just pointing out. And I know, Stacy, we talked about this before. So I'm going to pick on Oak Heights. That's the big one, right? Yes. I'm going to pick on that one for just a second. And the reason I don't want an answer is because I don't know if we're taking the developer point or the money point. So the reason I even bring it up is we do have utilities in the ground that causes value to be applied to that. But the way the value is The way the value is currently set up, all that value applies on those four or five parcels, right? But realistically, when you have a single water line, a single sewer line, potentially an access, you now have created an individual parcel that is worth exponentially more for that parcel of land. So and I have read the Oak Harbor code and I realize that it goes a certain direction where we do utilities and we do all that before we break up the parcels. But it is something to maybe keep in the back of your mind that in multi-year projects, there is the ability to collect new construction dollars. the city can collect new construction dollars by breaking up those, by submitting the plats basically and breaking them up into individual lots. And that's why I say don't answer that question and don't respond to that because we don't know which, because you have favor to the developer or favor to the city budget. So obviously we want the developers to come in and we want them to build, but that's going to put a huge financial burden on them as well. But that is there if the code is written that way?

I can provide a basis for maybe why the developers would consider the PAT that they do. A developer, when a PLAT is approved, has two ways to go about doing the construction. They can record the final plat, which creates all the lots, and then bond for the infrastructure. And I think that's the cost that the developers try to avoid is the bonding. So they have the option to do it. They just do the infrastructure first, which then puts them in that long assessment before the lots come on. And I don't know if the developers do the calculations to see which one is more. But the two options are available. And we see that in Oak Harbor, a lot of them just go via the path to put in the infrastructure and then come with the final plat at the very end. seen other options, like I think the hillside development, they actually bonded for some of it early because of some requirements. So there are some tools that are in place for the developers to use. They just choose to build the infrastructure and do the final plan.

Sorry. Continue on. I always talk too much. I'm sorry about that. How does this fit into... We've talked a lot about affordable housing and that discussion inside the city is a pretty important one. We're talking about that potentially in our vision statement. How do these fit into our arc as a city of becoming potentially more affordable or... You know, is this a net increase in affordability potentially or more of the current?

I would say number one, there aren't, this is not, and none of these are quote unquote affordable projects designated as such. That being said, more units generally will reduce price pressures, hopefully creating a situation where maybe somebody who was shopping downward can then move up and free up some additional inventory at the lower end of the price scale. that's kind of the the situation right now but as far as actually quote unquote affordability or designated as such not these projects are not the county is working on a new project over where the windmill place trailer park used to be on swantown that will be an affordable project they have opened up camas flats on north oak harbor streets as an affordable project So, there are some out there, but none of the ones that I discussed today are affordable, quote unquote.

Sort of a follow-up on that, just from a long-term strategic view for the city, you know, the 48 dense units built kind of on infill inside the city, you know, are obviously a huge win for long-term city coffers, right? For, you know, a lot more infrastructure in a lot smaller area and redeveloping an area inside the city. Um, how do these new developments work for long-term tax health and infrastructure health of the city? I know we're collecting taxes right now are, you know, on new build, but yeah. Does this balance the books or are we going to use this lower density kind of potentially challenge 20 or 30 or 50 years down the road?

I mean, I think that's probably a question for Steve Schuller. Honestly, he's the guru on that stuff. You know, anytime you build kind of the sprawl stuff, single family homes, you're going to face those issues eventually. We, like you said, we've got an infill project here, which is good. Hopefully additional taxes will help offset some of, you know, what's going on. But I am not the person to ask that question, unfortunately. So I'm just going to stop right there.

Um, commissioner, if you want to go ahead and send that question to me, I can maybe get an answer, you know, come from our finance, from our finance team, just generally about, Hey, when we have this scenario with this kind of build, how that impacts property taxes, retail sales tax, et cetera, long-term vision of the city. I think he may be able to help with that. Okay. Sounds good.

Yeah.

Great. No, that's great. No, I really appreciate that. I mean, I know this is a conversation I've had with a couple different planning commissioners about sort of bringing this back. And, Ray, you did a fantastic job today. Thank you. And, yeah, I thought it was a great idea, and we'll make it a normal part of our meeting structure.

Anyone else? Yep. I have one real quick question. Sure. I do think I share everybody's sentiment. I think it's awesome to see all this development. I love the presentation. I've lived here, well, since 2012, and I never had any idea that rock existed until today, so thank you for that. I'm going to go check it out for certain. But my question is, is the 48 units that are on Barrington, because it kind of goes along his affordable stuff. Is it going to be apartments or are they condos? You know what I mean? Like one is certainly more affordable than the other, or is there going to be a mix?

Right. Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure there are apartments. And the affordability issue, attainable versus affordable thing, they'll definitely be less expensive than a single family home, which is a good thing. The other thing is, living in a place like that, maybe you only need one car per family or something along those lines, which saves money too. So there are some kind of cascading effects there. Okay, thank you.

And if we have no other questions, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. The presentation is very informative. I liked it a lot. I think everybody else did too. So thank you very much. All right. Next item on our agenda is the continued work for the comprehension plan vision statement.

Good evening. Kat Kamak, principal planner. Here to continue the discussion on the vision. I don't have a long presentation. I have provided the different versions since the last planning commission discussion in the packet. As you can see, we, as staff, worked on um the comments received from planning commission at the last meeting and we came up with two versions of it and just want to get the planning commission's feedback on that our current idea and thoughts are that we will take a couple versions to the city council so that they kind of can see the evolution of the work that went in from the original vision to all the versions in between and then a couple versions for them to choose on. So that's kind of where we are at in the process and we're happy to take more comments and input from the planning commission as this moves forward. I have a kind of a short presentation to kind of just provide the A SUMMARY OF THESE VERSIONS. AGAIN, THE ORIGINAL, THE ONE DISCUSSED ON JULY 14th HAD SEVEN BULLETS. I THINK THE IDEA WAS TO HAVE SOME OF THESE THEMES IN EACH OF THE BULLETS, HOUSING, MOBILITY, ECONOMY, NATURAL SYSTEMS, FUTURE GENERATIONS AND VISITORS. um i think it read a little bit long commissioners were very receptive to the seven but we heard a lot of comments that we can make it five i think that was the idea so um we created a version that kind of follows the planning commission's input i think we heard comments about combining a couple of the bullet points. We did that in the versions to reduce it to five. I think there was a comment on switching words from seeks to endeavors. And this being a more concise version and bringing it down to five bullets was the idea. And so we have a version that just follows the Planning Commission's recommendation We had another version, kept the word seeks. We had a discussion a lot about the word seek and endeavor. And there was a lot of thoughts on how seek actually is a longer kind of a visionary approach, whereas endeavor may be like a project type of once you endeavor. Do you keep endeavoring, or what do you do kind of a thing? So philosophical, it's like kind of just getting into the details a little bit. But anyways, we kept a second version, still respected the planning commission's comments on trying to make it into five. We did a little different juggling. We moved a couple of the bullets into the main opening statement so that it's still preserved in terms of the thoughts. The only thing that I think disappeared from the Vision 2 is the tourism portion of it. Again, pros and cons of all these versions, it's just wordsmithing. Open up to the Planning Commission for discussion. We'll take your comments and make further revisions as it moves towards City Council. We don't have a recommendation right now, we're just opening it up for discussion.

Are you looking for a recommendation for today?

If you, if the planning commission wants to provide recommendation, absolutely. We'll, we'll take a recommendation. Uh, if you feel strongly in one way or the other, absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah. All right.

All right.

So discussion on the two statements.

First of all, I want to say thank you for putting all the time and effort into creating these. I was really pleased with the two options that I found in the packet. I personally lean towards version one. For me, it felt like it had a better flow and it was more of like a stronger vision. I think a lot of that was determined by using Endeavor. It felt more like an actionable verb. um for me um i also liked that it kept the tourism aspect of it because i know that's an important part of our local economy um and it felt more comprehensive for me um i did however on version two like the the final statement in like the opening paragraph saying ensuring that growth and change strengthen the qualities that make Oak Harbor unique. I like that it focused a little bit on what makes our city unique as opposed to the rest of the island. The For version two, there was a very brief mention of military, and because we are a very military town, I felt like that was one of the weaknesses of version two, whereas version one, I felt like, I guess not much more, but felt more inclusive to that. Yeah, these are awesome. Thank you.

I would like to echo basically everything she said. The only change that I will say to that is I actually felt like in version one, the military families might have been an afterthought, just the way it's worded. I love focusing on them, but just the way it's worded, including our military families, almost seems to me like an afterthought. um like we we tossed it in at the last minute um i i was not i was not set on five but i really like the five now i mean i was encouraging five but not set on it but now i really like the five and also uh just to say it again i think it's really important to leave the visitor part in there um yeah and everything else you said too

I just want to say, is this the first time that our slogan has appeared in it? I don't remember if it was in last time or not. Oak Harbor is Whidbey Island's premier waterfront city has now appeared in here. I don't think it was in the previous one, was it? It's in the July 14th version. I just want to point out that it's great that we're incorporating our vision in there. Our city motto in there, our slogan in there. In general, looking at these, the test for me is will we use these to help inform decision making? So going back to the previous discussion about housing, talking about affordable housing is in there, talking about moving around safely is in there. uh other questions that probably would have spurred should i be thinking about this is you know how does that work into the environment we've brought about product wetland preservation and the different things so um whichever of these go with i encourage us to to be thinking does this help us ask the right questions at these meetings. Does it feel like this is helping us guide the right questions the way we present discussions for this meeting and potentially set up plans? And I think that these do support that to a decent extent. And I'll finally say that I do like two a little bit better because it's a little briefer, or at least it feels a little briefer. And as the joke goes, I can improve on six minute abs by coming up with five minute abs. So I'd probably be really down with four minute abs if we could get it down to there. So thank you for the work on this.

And then we come to me. I apologize in advance. I liked more. Let me rephrase. I liked, I disliked less, number one. I disliked more, number two. There were parts about number two that I find valuable, but not enough to give it much more thought than that. On number one, Thank you for trying out endeavors. I understand the philosophical concept. When I see the word seek, I think of hide and seek, and that seems like a whole lot more straightforward, just running around kind of a thing. But I understand where you're coming from, and I can see it either way. For the first bullet point, building strong ties that stand the test of time is a beautiful, philosophically grandiose statement to make. And I challenge that by just mentioning Mark Grandivetter's published work, The Strength of Weak Ties from 1973. Yes, it's a little bit old, but I actually did a paper on it. And most of my ties here are in fact weak ties, not strong ties. So I would say socially, that might be a grandiose statement that promises more than it can actually offer. And if there was something in that, That bullet point to strike just to make it a little bit more streamlined, I would point you to that part. Lots of this whole statement talk about building social ties in various ways and ties to the land and ties to the environment and everything. I feel like it's redundant at best and can over-promise way too much. And then I would also echo on the very next line of that bullet point, afford housing suitable to their needs. I listened to this previous presentation about 300 something housing units being brought forward for the city. And as I'm looking at them, I think that there was maybe one unit that I myself would be able to afford. That's me. That's one person. I am not a perfect example by any stretch of the imagination. But it is very loud, I think, to put that first and foremost. And we're building single-family homes pretty much all over. I think that that... It's a lead weight to me, to put it first and foremost, and to lead a philosophical statement with that. I liked the use of intentionality in the opening statement. I appreciate that it was used there, and I... I don't feel like tourism is necessarily something that is needed to be mentioned in your opening vision statement, but I might be the only one on that, so I can back off of that. Visually and this is my last comment visually if you're going to have two large bullet points and three larger smaller ones I would interlace them so that kind of goes back and forth so you have more of a flow of the size Just makes it easier to read through If you put the two pig paragraphs or two smaller ones in between the big bullet points, then it makes it more daunting to look at Just I want members of the public to read this and to read it again and again, and to anything that we can do to make it visually appealing to read, I think would really help. That's more of a Picayune just design thing. Okay, I'm done, I'm sorry.

All right. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for consolidating this and all our comments. I know it's probably not the easiest thing to do. And whenever we have vision statements and we say, here's what we got between this and this, we all have kind of our pickies and choosies. um i i agree if i had to choose one i would say version one is probably my favorite but i i do agree with um donna as far as that last statement on version two the um growth and change or ensuring the growth and change strengthen the qualities that make oak harbor unique i think that's that's really strong the thing that i didn't like about mostly about version two and you kind of talked about where one of the bullet points is residents can find and afford housing suitable to their needs. What if they can't, you know what I mean? Like, is that we can, obviously as we, we develop and, and do our different housing projects and affordable housing and all the different things that we try to do it, somebody is going to find something in there, but to put it as a bullet point that say that they can find affordable housing and and that suit their needs, sometimes you can't. Maybe they're full. If I come to Oak Harbor and I say, hey, I really like Oak Harbor, and this is where I can afford, and this is what I need, and there's nothing that's available because there's just nothing on the market at the time, then I can say, well, your bullet point says that I can't. So I just don't like that bullet point that well. Otherwise, I would be probably more sold on version two. But that's my two cents, too.

Sure. I'll just say I'm very clearly opposite there. I think these should be aspirational. Like, we should be striving to make housing available to people that want to move here and people that need to move here. I mean, to be clear, people are forced to move to Oak Harbor. I myself, when I first got here, was in TLA for the maximum number of possible days searching for housing before finally getting the place that I now have. And we should be striving to make affordable housing and a mix of housing that serves the people that live here and will live here. This should be guiding our policy to help keep on reminding us that there are people that can't afford to live in Oak Harbor. So I think that's a very appropriate bullet. I very strongly agree with something along those lines being in there.

And I see your concern. And that should be. But the way that it's worded presently with that bullet, residents can find... That's not striving. That's not endeavoring. It's not seeking its residents can find and afford. Um, I certainly agree with you like that bullets important, but maybe it could be worded different instead of it being a concrete residents can find. Does that make sense?

It does. I could agree with additional wording that potentially says, you know, we are, you know, we think it's incredibly high priority as a city. We're constantly trying to strive for that. You know, admitting that we've got failings at our vision statement is kind of a hard thing to do. Essentially what you're saying is we're currently failing at that task and we would like to improve that task. I'm good with saying can, because like I said, it's aspirational, but I think that's the difference here. Should this be aspirational or should this be realistic? I think I'm fine with aspirational and making it a strong target. We should be guaranteeing people that they can live. You know, I want a city a flat out like my personal vision of any good city is do you want to raise your kids here? Can you live here and raise your children here and have a good chance of them wanting to stay if you're not raising the next generation of Oak Harbor? um and you're probably doing something that maybe you should reconsider as a city so a big basic fundamental piece of that is can you live you know afford to live in the city so there's my there's my passion moment there thanks yeah absolutely fair points um you had did you have a comment too nope oh go ahead

Just a follow up on my original comment about the military families being, I've been thinking about it all day and it finally just clicked to me how to switch that around. If we were to take, instead of saying welcoming home for all people, I'm looking at version one, sorry, welcoming home for all people, and then take out the including our military families and move that down to right after long-term residents, but just not put including, long-term residents, military families, and newcomers alike, that still focuses on the military families, but doesn't make them an afterthought. And then the second thing that I was just thinking about as they were having their conversation is the housing suitable to their needs. That is in version one, but it's a little bit more buried in the bullet. So it's not highlighted quite as the first words. And I like the aspirational aspect of it, but also not having it as the first words that are rambled off on the bullet. So I think that's why I lean a little bit more towards one on that. The words are still there. We're still aspiring to do that, but it's not in your face as the first words that come off of that bullet.

Okay. I had a similar moment where something was bothering me and it's finally just clicked. Moving around the community is safe, convenient, and enjoyable, whether on foot, on wheels, in transit, or in a vehicle. Those feel kind of redundant. They are in some ways and they are not in some ways. Can we just take out the word weather? That's my suggestion there because it feels like it's trying to be on a cliff and there's a whole lot more to the land before we actually get to the edge of the cliff. And the weather makes that confusing. W-H-E-T-H-E-R for anyone who's listening. Okay, thank you.

That doesn't seem to change the meaning of it too much. So yeah, it does flow a little bit better if you remove weather. I agree.

Four minute abs, four minute abs.

There you go. All right. So do we, so with that, we've all kind of said what our versions do. we want to make changes or do we want a recommendation as it is like what what do you guys i know council would like us to pick one um let's go to the council ah council member might step in here

On the one side, I want to say don't overthink it. On the other side, I want to say do overthink it. And I know that conflicts. Don't overthink it. Let's be realistic. The odds that most people are going to read this, pretty minimal. Most people haven't read a comp plan. Not saying that there's nobody, but it's not super common. I mean, I look at the comp plan's last vision statement. Maybe there might be people in here who could tell me, but most people aren't going to be able to tell me what the vision statement was from the last comp plan. That's not to say it doesn't matter. The part that always makes me a little scared is when I do see the vision statement referred to, it's often... at least I have seen like in council meetings, by special interest groups or people using it to kind of throw it in your face, so to speak. Well, we want to put, one of us talks about a skilled workforce. Well, what if you have somebody who is willing to build a school, but in a place that really isn't ideal? Well, you said right here in your vision statement, you're trying to build a skilled workforce, so you should let this pass. So I know that doesn't help. I'm just saying I like the aspirational, because I do like that this is what we want to be, but we also be careful with aspirational of like, well, this is what you said you wanted to be. That doesn't help anything. I understand that. I'm just saying, I always get a little nervous when things are too, I like things being firm and concise, but not too much so where it can get easily thrown in our faces later. I mean, we should have some guardrails, but at the same time, I'm real careful when it comes to things that are philosophical, that it can be easily twisted in a future argument five years from now that we're not even thinking of. That helped nothing. Just want to give my thoughts.

Council member. I think you're entirely correct. And also this is never going to be a perfect statement. It is aspirational and that's the whole point. So I would really, um, I would, welcome the commission to stand by maybe one more iteration and really feel comfortable with choices there. I think we gave a lot of really good feedback this time, and I would really love to see what the planning department could come up with from all of that valuable feedback. But that's my input.

So because I know staff always likes to have good feedback and not have it be clear as mud because council does that half the time. Are you able to take this, incorporate, and bring it back at the next thing with a proposed? Okay. Because if it can go until next week, the next meeting, that's great. But it... It really, as a council member, it's nice when things are all buttoned up and this is what they thought. And it's not going to be perfect. There's going to be a word, there's going to be a, but it makes it a whole lot easier for council when it's, here was the motion, it was approved, even if it's five to two or something, there's a majority and that's how it goes. So it doesn't necessarily need to be voted on today, but table it with a pretty firm next one with a recommended motion would be helpful.

We'll be ready to do that at the next meeting.

Yeah, we can come back with the revised version and incorporate the comments from Planning Commission. When we do get a recommendation, it's moral. At this time, we probably, I'm just thinking from a technical and logistics standpoint, we won't be making a vote on it necessarily. We'll be kind of like just doing, because any voting would be an action on the comp plan, and we don't want that yet okay so we're going to we're still on consensus mode and nods as opposed to a formal vote for anything so just want to to let you know that and that's why we don't mind taking two versions to the city council because it's still in a working format but if i think council member stucky mentioned i'd like to see it buttoned up we can kind of reduce it to one version that the commission wants to say I think we can go with this and we can try.

Or at least some notes from something. I'm here and I pass along, but it's helpful if you're a council member who's not watching a meeting, we don't watch every meeting, to at least have something in our packet that says the direction the Planning Commission wanted to go is helpful as opposed to it was just ran by the Planning Commission doesn't really help much.

I've got that recorded motion draft ready for the next meeting.

I just want to say that was the question I really wanted to get to was are we looking to just present like a draft to the city council or is this really going to be the thing or not? It sounds like we're not even going to draft, we're just saying like the current working draft that you know the planning commission gets behind is this version as a scene setter for the follow-ons when we're showing you the various drafts of the various portions of the com plan to you know to put it in place so are we i guess this is a broader question about the com plan as a whole will we get to the point where we are voting to um to present to the city council um final drafts um Or are we going to do that as a whole? Can you talk about the process in general of how we're going to be passing off things like this to the city council for when this is actually getting to the finalized point?

Well, our current plan was to take two versions to the city council. With the general understanding that the planning commission is okay with both versions, And the city council may have different perspectives on how they view it and how they think about it. So that was the idea to take two versions and then let the city council decide which version they want to go with. So we can either do that or we can come back with one version and move forward with that. We don't know if the council will make more changes. We don't know that. So we'll have to allow for that discussion at the council level to happen as well.

So the ultimate decision for the vision statement will fall under the council then? Absolutely. Okay. So what I'm hearing from us is like each of us have liked some parts of one, some parts of two, some felt stronger about version one, some people felt strongly about version two, other than Cody who didn't like either of them. I agree.

I vehemently do not like vision statement two. I will say, if you were going to take two of what you were presented to us today, I would say take version one and the July 14th version for comparison. I do not like version statement two. I'm sorry.

So that's kind of where I think we are today. I think there were some good comments, good notes that were brought up. If that's enough for for council. Um, like I said, I think both vision statements we had, I think we were about split on whether we liked one or two.

Um, so commissioner Cody made a statement and I want to confirm if it's okay with the planning commission members to consider July, the July 14th version, which is a seven bullet version and vision one, which is a five bullet version. as the two options. I think that's what commissioner Cody is suggesting. I want to make sure that other commissioners are okay with that, or do we want to do the two, five bullet options? So that will be helpful.

I said that as a, as a way of offering a rough diamond and a polished diamond. Not, not that I, I, I'm not, I'm not saying anything negative about the July 14th iteration. I, If I was offering two versions, I would offer a preferred, which would be the version statement one, but then I would want them to also be able to see how it's evolved, and so I would use a slightly older.

I mean, the current planning commission report has this little brief one page, you know, on what the July 14th version does. I mean, I don't mind, and we have no problem including some of these statements in so that the city council can see that we went through three meetings of changes, right, and what are the changes that are considered and then still present two options for them to choose from. So they'll have a record as Council Member Stuckey was saying, the council likes to know what the commission worked on. We'll attach some of the reports that we did so that they can see that. And so the work will be, at least the ideas will be transferred and then the city council can decide which one they prefer.

I was about to say, so I think in front of this group right now, the question is, do we feel like we want to recommend passing some variation of this to the city council, or do we want one more round um so that you know we can sort of get it all formalized nice little this is what we will present to the city council literally the slides that will go to the city council um as far as our recommendation for the vision statement is i think that's what i'm hearing you know do do we want to do do we want to wait one more or do we want to push something right now and you know my personal thought I'll say on this is I think that we'll probably spend a whole nother meeting on the vision statement if we go another round like that would be my take. We spent a lot of time on this already. I do not think it's perfect. I think if you were to ask each one of us to go into our respective corners and rewrite it, we'd come up with very different things. But like I said before, I could see myself using either version of this as a kind of maybe not a perfect guiding star, but a pretty good north star for asking questions. And to City Councilman Stuckey's point about he might feel uncomfortable if we have something in there, that's my point. I want us to feel uncomfortable because we're not living up to our vision. So I actually like potentially that, you know, it's making us, you know, it's like we want to be that better city. So if I were to say, should we go now or should we wait? I I'd say we could keep on waiting forever. Um, I would be prepared to make a motion to, to present both of these to the city council with potentially us saying that we, you know, with our, our essential notes of saying like in general, the majority preferred X over Y, um, but we think that it's you know a good enough improvement over the current vision statement that it's it's worth going to the the city council and understanding again that this is a draft they're not approving it they're just getting understanding and saying like let's select this one and kind of live with it while the rest of this process goes on and we're not we're kind of approving in the future

yeah and and the city council can also send things back to the planning commission for discussion if they feel like there's more discussion and they want a different recommendation or want the planning commission to look into aspects of it the city council does have the option to do that so if they have the same concerns at a workshop which is what will take it to a workshop then we can also suggest that well we can go back to the planning commission and and ask them about, you know, to consider these before we come. So there could be a back and forth as well. So, yeah, so it's the commission's choice. We can come back at the next meeting, present another version, or if the commission feels like you want to send these versions with your comments, which, you know, we can include, and then the city council can take a look at it and they can give further directions to us as well.

Just to respond to basically both of those, I would, if I was making a decision, I would want two very different versions to look at, not two very similar versions. So I like, we call them, Commissioner Cody, Commissioner Beckins' recommendation of July 14th, even if that was off the cuff, just to see where it was because maybe the council is leaning more towards a seven-bullet point or they want it written differently. Ultimately, we're not making the final decision, so we could go back and forth for months and do this over and over, and then they could go back to version one that we looked at. So I think that we've put quite a bit of thought into this. We've put up quite a bit of recommendations, and I would actually be comfortable sending two versions with notes

I just want to make sure, and Stacy, we've kind of talked about this a couple times, about getting information besides assuming the council members watch the meeting. And aside from just me, because when I present something, there's always a bias that can sneak in there. So... What is the best way for their comments to get to us in a packet? Would that be to email it to you so you can include it? Would that be you going over the video and summarizing? What is the best way in your estimation to get that information to a council besides someone like me just saying, oh, I think I remember this?

Right. Thank you for that question. And yes, we've had a couple of conversations about this. In my experience working with planning commissions, a tool I've used in the past, and you've heard me use the phrase a couple times, is something that's called a recorded motion. And that's a document that's usually a couple pages long. that describes here's when the meeting took place, here's the action that happened, here was the legal foundation for it, and then it has a series of findings of fact, if you will. And I'm gonna use that term a little loosely because findings of fact are normally associated with a material record or a quasi-judicial decision. But in this case, the findings of fact would be the substantive parts of the discussion that the planning commission had that led to why council is seeing what they're seeing. And that's normally collected from minutes, watching the video, if you would like to email me individually notes. And then that recorded motion is typically signed and reviewed and signed by the chair and also by me as liaison slash secretary as identified in code. And then it's presented to the city council along with the actual material. Okay.

And that's wonderful, because as I explained to you, one thing I'm passionate about is that the information taken from this body or any of our commissions, there's some substance to it. That's something I feel like has sometimes been lacking, admittedly, from boards and commissions where it's reduced to like a sentence, you know, ran by the planning commission and. You know, so I want to make sure that you guys, your time feels valuable here, that there's some substance to the discussion, and that some of your comments are included for those that may not watch the whole meeting. And this is an excellent, excellent step in something like that.

Good. I think, yeah, I think this will be pretty streamlined to implement. And then, Council Member Stuckey, and I'm sorry if we're talking shop here for a minute, eventually the plan is to get all the boards and commissions integrated into civic... It is marvelous, and I'm counting the days. When will that day be? But I'm counting the days.

Yeah. Just to add to that, I think the findings of fact decision may or may not apply to our vision decision, just because I think, again, it's a comp plan decision. We're not making a formal decision. Again, you know, because it's a, so the, the, the reasons for those findings of fact and all of that is, is in, because there was the, there's a lot of procedures that the planning commission was involved in, in terms of, uh, uh, uh, things like, uh, uh, development, uh, reasonings and, um, uh, preliminary plots and so on, which, now the hearing examiner does because of the legal requirements and they write the findings of fact because those are all kind of documented for different purposes. For legislative process, sometimes that is not the best tool because legislative processes covers larger 30,000 foot level discussion points and your findings of fact may be very narrow maybe too extensive to catch all of it. So, um, it's, it's a tool that's, that should be used cautiously because it can limit, um, what the recommendations are or what you're trying, what the planning commission is trying to recommend. And especially for documents like the comprehensive plan, your findings of fact will be very 30,000-foot level. It may not capture the detailed discussions that the council is looking for. So even though that's a good document, I don't think that may help in all decisions is what I'm just saying. So there are some decisions that are discussions and that we capture in other ways than findings of fact because not all of the suggestions that you make to city council come in a form of a vote.

We're getting a little off the rails here, but what could those other methods be?

Well, just like how we've changed our format of our reports to capture more of the discussion that is happening at the planning commission. And so that may be one way to inform the council on all the discussions and all the parameters that are happening. So that may be one of the ways to do it. When we come to formal decisions, when you're making recommendations, absolutely, the findings of fact, because you're doing dates, you're holding hearings, that you held a hearing on a particular date, and so on and so forth, and these are the comments that came up. You capture all of that. But I don't know for vision. I just want to, you know, because it's hard to capture all of these comments, different thoughts, and the findings of fact that everybody can agree on and can sign off, and that goes forward, because we have difference of opinions as well. So, yes, that tool is available, but we can use it appropriately when needed. But I think the intent and the idea is to try and convey the discussion of the planning commission to the city council as best as we can. And some of these discussions will be captured in report forms because we're kind of, you know, we're including your comments in the discussion as we're going forward. So we'll collect all of that information when it goes to the city council. We can compile that. But yes, I mean, we're looking into ways where recording meetings can be summarized without people's perspectives because everybody has a perspective. So you can capture minutes. Minutes are one of the best ways to convey what the discussion was to city council. And those are usually included in packets when we send them forward. And we can start to do that more formally to highlight the discussion so that the council has that information. So we'll try out all different ways. There's no one way to do it, but there's multiple ways I think we can meet that intent of conveying the discussion items to city council. Go ahead.

I was about to say, um, I, I share, um, city council member Stucky's like new view that it'd be really amazing if we not only gave the blurb, but a commentary from here. Um, but I do question whether, do we want to, you know, is this a thing that is a general general discussion or is it specifically for this one topic? And what I mean by that is, should we as a group have that discussion as a separate discussion item on a future meeting of like, here's how we would like to convey an informational non-decision, and here's like a sample format for it. Or is this something that... you know it should should stop this discussion going forward you know um i i personally believe that we should have that discussion about how we should just bring things up to the the council and and um but i don't think that that should block here that should just be an ongoing and a very high priority item for us to talk about our communication and formalize it a little bit but i personally still think that you The best way to get communication going is to start communication. Since I've been on this commission, we've never formally said, yes, send this up to the city council. We've been through a lot of meetings where some of the results of this have gone to the city council. But as a commission, we've never once said, yes, we want to send this to the city council. um so i think that we should take that decision and and say whether or not we want to do this in this one and we've got enough to to do that or we should wait for one more revision and you know some some comment but i i think that the those two discussions about the format and the content are worth splitting apart

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner. If it's the will of the body, I'm happy to bring that draft document that we've been working on to just have a discussion with Planning Commission if that's kind of a format, one in exactly like CAC described, one of a myriad of tools that can be used to convey information to the council. Happy to work on that with that commission.

Okay, I want to kind of get back to a discussion that we were having earlier that we were kind of in the process of resolving, whether or not we wanted another go-around at the vision statement or as imperfect or as, you know, like you say, Um, you put us all in a corner and come up with a vision statement. We all make different edits. And if we continue to do that and do that and do that, we won't get anywhere. So, um, um, I we've heard your two thoughts on it. Um, your thought on whether we should do another round or.

I would like to have one last iteration provided. There were two commissioners that were not here tonight. They didn't really have an opportunity to give very much feedback last time. So in fairness, I think that giving them at least one chance, if they can't be there next time, that's what it is. But I would like to see one more iteration. I think that that would give... several versions for the planning commission to take or the planning department to take to the council. And then the council would have choices. And and I think that would allow more curation as to what the council can move towards more successfully. Okay. Thank you.

Councilmember Kendall.

I think I, would also like to see one more iteration. So going back to the discussion about presenting the vision statement from July 14th and then version one from August 11th, one of the concerns that multiple commissioners brought up was the bullet point regarding affordable housing. Bullet point two of July 14th specifically has the verbiage can find and afford housing suitable to their needs, which is something that we took concern with. So I think it's an important enough item that I would like to see in my ideal world anyways. I'm pretty partial to version one on August 11th. So I'd like to see that. And then maybe another iteration to present side by side with that that addresses the verbiage regarding can find and afford housing. And then also Commissioner Guy also mentioned more language regarding military families. So finding a way to incorporate that. So it kind of covers those bases. so that it's different from version one from august 11th but also taking into account the feedback that we've gone over today so to summarize one more review for next month with ideally version one and then another version that goes over the changes we discussed today

So we're two to two with me being in the middle. Yep.

I was to say, I was, you know, I'm, I'm fine with personally fine with either one. If we do wait, I would, I say that we should spend two minutes just talking about what we actually would want to send structurally, meaning not to reopen the discussion. You know, I think there's more, but, but I think as we talk as councilman or stock, you brought up, it'd be good to not only have the vision statements, but one or two, that we're kind of approving a packet that goes to the city council, have one or two slides that summarizes from us what our thought process was. So I personally think that if we do decide to wait, it'd be good if we all sent in comments about you know, as commissioners sent in comments before the next one that said, here's where my headspace is about these vision statements so that when the next version comes and we're talking about it and we send a packet up, they've got not only kind of what we're recommending, but also what each one of us has, you know, thoughts to give to the council, you know, as if we were standing up there and talking to them a little bit, like summarize briefly.

that would be my recommendation if we were to if we were to wait obviously we wouldn't be able to do that if we were to do it today okay so my thoughts on waiting and and doing another iteration or submitting what what we have what we've put together um i understand we have two commissioners that aren't here today and last week didn't get a whole lot of input If we wait another round, we're going to sit here again next time, and we're going to talk about the vision statement again, and we're going to get two new inputs and two new likes and dislikes, and we want to do it again. And you can keep – it's an endless process. Much to Councilmember Stuckey's point, nobody's going to – not nobody, but the odds that – I don't know how to summarize that and not sound terrible. But we're not going to get it right. And it's up to the council to decide. There's things in the 14th version that I like. There's things in version one that I like and things in version two that I like. I don't know that if we keep doing two, three, four weeks down or two, three, four meetings down the line that it'll ever be a hundred percent where I say, that's it. That's, that's the one that, that I like. Um, there's probably always going to be parts. So if I was going to make a recommendation for today, I would say, um, we'll submit the statements as we have all three of them as now.

Yeah. Okay.

Should we actually make a motion to? I don't know. We're not supposed to really vote, right?

Yeah, we don't want to make a decision on that, but you can have a show of hands or some sort of like a workshop thing to.

A workshop, though. A workshop. So can we do a show of hands on who would like to submit these three statements?

All three?

Right, all three? All three? Yep. And then a show of hands on who would like to wait and do another round. Okay. Do I have to say that three to two? No. Okay. Fair enough. Well, we have the, we have the commissioners. Yeah.

Good comments. What we'll do is we'll take your, um, all the comments that we received. Um, like, you know, like we prepare the packet, we'll add some, bullets in terms of the commissioner's concerns and you know, what you liked and what you had concerns on and we'll move forward. And I think with anything, um, you know, if the, if the city council, uh, or anybody else is really interested in diving into the details, we have all of these meetings online and people can go refer to them really quick to see what actually was meant, you know, in the discussions. Um, so I think, uh, there are options for people to clarify the thoughts if, if they were really interested, but we'll do our best to try and some capture all the comments and, and provide it to the city council so they can have a discussion about it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Um, for our next commission meeting, I would actually like to make a request of council member Stucky. Since this is going to be moving forward to the council for their review, the planning department is going to bring forward, try to be as non-partisan as possible, very straightforward, unbiased, and I appreciate all of that. I would welcome you to definitely give us a perspective from the council that is not as unbiased as the planning department could be. I would like the human perspective that the council has in comparison to see how well it was received.

You're talking about for this particular item? Yes. Okay, I can do that. Yeah, because for me... if we've made the vote and I can look at the, yeah, I can do that. What I can't do is necessarily speak for the council as a whole before a vote, because we're all individuals. But I can certainly summarize it and do that, yes.

Yeah, I mean, if you notice someone grimacing at one or another.

No, and I think that, well, I think that that link is important to see how, I mean, just like we, you know, CAC was saying that we could watch videos, you too could watch the videos, but it is kind of nice to have that, link and that's what I'm here for. I mean, as we were talking about communication, that may be an item for, you know, like today we talked about the critical areas regulations, which we had gone over before this was in June. So not all of you, but you know, when I see on here, Our entire discussion, unless I'm missing something, was just reduced to the Community Development Department previously presented this item to the Planning Commission on June 9, 2026. There was nothing else. And that's the thing I'm trying to get away from is, well, there was discussion. Then I had to rewatch the video and then try to get some nuggets out of that. Where if it was a couple sentences on a packet, that certainly would save me some time rewatching meetings from months prior to try to summarize it. But yes, I will certainly do that.

I guess this is a comment to both. Would it be appropriate for us to still send in commission one kind of comments from individual commissioners to both of you? Don't send it to the group, right? But so that you would have some of those, like here's my bottom line thought on this. Like I mentioned before, like, you know, does this help make decisions and will you read this? That's like my bottom line on everything. You know, should it be aspirational versus whatever, like a comment or two being passed in that like where the thought process is in our heads when we push this? Or is that not something that would be good because we haven't discussed it as a commission here? I think that's it.

Oh, so thank you for that question. If individual commissioners want to submit comment, we would treat that as public comment. Excuse me. the process and we'll go ahead and add that to the website as part of the public comment material record which will be accessible to the City Council or any member of the public who would like to see it as far as putting together the material record if you will of discussions Planning Commission had in advance of a City Council workshop or meeting we will be documenting what took place at the Planning Commission meeting

Okay, I feel like we've kind of moved on to the member comments, sort of, so we'll just officially make it member comments. Does any other members have comments that they would like to put forth? Any other commissioners? None? Okay, I have one then. I think it is amazing that we have a full commission now. In my tenure being here, I don't think that's ever happened. We've always had a fairly small commission. We've had discussions back and forth, but not quite to the varying opinions that we have now, and I think that's great. So thank you all for what you do. Thank you, Council Member Stuckey, for your perspective and kind of helping us to understand what... what council wants from us. So thank you very much. Thank you for your presentation. And that's my member comment. All right. Next item is determination of future agenda items. How do we, does anybody have anything that they like? We're, we're pretty much planned out, aren't we?

Comp plan.

So comp plan will be? There'll be more comp plan. I think what we have coming forward Potentially for the next meeting is draft development regulations that we had the summary of potential changes we have to consider. I think we'll start seeing drafts of actual language changes. So that's a possibility. We're looking at it. It just depends on whether we have adequate time to make all the internal review before planning commission gets to see it. And yeah, I think that's pretty much what's on tap for the next meeting.

We did discuss possibility of discussing the format for passing off. Would that be an appropriate suggestion for future planning commission items? Having a discussion item of possible, here's what we would actually pass for topic type X to the city council.

Oh, yes, I can address that.

I can address that generally right now. I did reach out to our legal counsel to get an opinion on the RCWs and the code and the bylaws on exactly that question. And the response that came back was, of course, the Planning Commission is a recommending body, but it's not necessarily a body that can lobby the city council for topics. uh the ex-officio council member liaison can take an active role on behalf of the commission um by working with the council figuring out what their priorities are and then putting items on the agenda what i did talk to legal about and what i've also talked to cac about is developing a process where the planning commission the city council probably at the beginning of the year have a joint meeting before the comprehensive plan docket is set and at that joint meeting that's an opportunity for the planning commission and the city council to talk about items that would be on the work plan for the planning commission so not a lobbying opportunity of an opportunity to work together and say okay what are council's priorities how does that work with what the planning commission is interested in then obviously planning commission would make that final decision so generally that's the guidance that I've received and

I appreciate the light work on that. I was actually just referring to the earlier conversation today when we were saying, hey, if we do hold off on this, the whole finding of facts format or not, like, you know, should we have that discussion on, you know, where you present something like here's kind of the format where we are thinking if we are going to present, should we adjust that or not? you know going forward just just purely addressing um council member stuck he's like we don't want to send a blurb and then no extra information should we consider additional information and kind of formalizing our communication when we make a decision to send stuff to council let me make sure i understand the question so is the question specific to the visioning statement item that that

we would develop that we would develop as we've been talking about we would make some as you said better communication better notes and that could be vis-a-vis the recorded motion on this particular item right now is

no i apologize i think this is more generic than that like so so the point is right now i you know if something were to be brought to council i don't honestly know what it would look like okay and and i don't honestly know what what additional slides would be on there and i think that's part of the communication question and i am putting a lot of words And the council member stuck his mouth right now. But, you know, I've seen it where it's this was presented to the Planning Commission on this day. And it's just, you know, the final end in slides, you know, the it could be a useful topic for us to discuss what's the general format we want so that when when it's presented here, it's kind of the draft and we're deciding is this good enough to go up or not, or at least having an input of this is good enough or not. should these additional sections be included, you know, or at least here are some good ideas for when we're we're talking about this. There's some additional sections that say if we were to send this to the council, it'd be here's the vision statement and here's like the the the you know, the additional kind of summarize what we believe to summarize comments from the council were thought process on this like some some sort of more formalized, you know, like packet format, so to speak, that we would send up. I'm not saying this exactly, but that kind of discussion.

OK. And I think I'm sorry.

Let me turn that on.

Yeah. I think I'm following. And let me know if my response is is hitting the right note here. What I'm proposing and what I'd like to review with the planning commission is a format, is a document for getting information to city council. And as CAC really well described, Myriad of formats for getting information to city council. When we have public hearings, for example, there's a very specific format we use for public hearings where we do take advantage of the findings of fact, et cetera. They're presented with a full material record, et cetera. But then there's days like these where we're working on something like a visioning statement where we're not taking formal votes, but we've had a lot of discussion and a lot of work, and there's a way that we want to convey that to council, like you said, in more than just a couple sentences, and then... put a couple of vision statements in front of them. And so recorded motion is just it's a document format that other communities used. I've used it very successfully in two other tenures as a planning director that can help do that. And I would like to review that draft with with the Planning Commission. And I think it will get to what you're talking about. It's an opportunity for the planning commission as a body to review and say, yep, this is kind of why we talked about that. This is why we got to that decision. This is why we got to that decision, et cetera. It's not a replacement for minutes or going back, watching a video, or maybe if AI gets really good at finally transcribing meetings and not filling our heads with slop. But... I think it'll be a good interim tool, or like I said with Council Member Stuckey, right now City Council works with software called Civic Clerk that the recorded motion could act as interim until we get all the boards and commissions on there. I hope that was helpful.

Yeah, I mean, my point is just bring it up as a topic. So give you a chance to present some sort of concept to us for future to not to bring it up as a topic right now.

Yeah, happy to do that. Yeah, one of the things that – Sorry, I went just sideways on that.

That's fine. One of the things that I think I would like, you know, like when we talk about these – I'll use the vision statement as just a quick example. We say, hey, we like these two, and it's submitted to council, and they say the planning commission likes these two. but maybe just a paragraph saying, Hey, they, they discussed, we like the opening statements. We like minimal number of bullets. That's why they reduced them from seven to five or, you know, right around that number. Here's some of the concerns of the language that was, you know, I mean, just like a quick little, other than this is what was presented to the commission. The commission discussed it and this is what we're presenting to council. These, this is like a, like just a summary of, This is what we talked about to get to the art. Is that right? Is that what we were thinking?

I think I'd like to have it as a discussion because to give staff here a chance to kind of think it through and polish it off. Beyond that, my only comment is the whole point is to help the council. So I think it'd be more important to get um, council members, Tucky saying like, does he think that that's, would be a valuable thing, valuable addition or, or not? Um, I know there's a lot, I'd love to sit up there and tell the city, uh, the city council, but it's, you know, I want to know how I can, what the best format to talk to them is. Um, so I'd like to give them a chance to think about it. And if, if council member Stucky has some additional thoughts on, on how to guide that discussion, I'd be more than willing to, but I don't want to preach up to it. If that makes sense.

I'm happy to work with the commission on that. We can help with that.

Outstanding. Well, thank you. And thank you for your comments. Any other member comments? or we already did member comments on future agenda items. Our next scheduled meeting is for September 8th, 2026. And with that, I'm looking for a motion to adjourn. I have a motion.

I move to adjourn the July, or sorry, it's July, June, no, August. Man, I don't even know what month it is, and yesterday was my son's birthday. The August 11th meeting of the Planning Commission.

A second.

All right, we have a motion and a second to adjourn the meeting. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right.