Remarks by David De Groot
47 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 2
- Play at 24:25
“One other thing that there seems to be an inconsistency about setbacks. So if you look at PMC 20.37, establishes required development performance standards. Number one under that is landscaped setbacks saying there shall be a 25 foot landscape yard setback along all fair zone boundaries that are common with any RSRM or PDR. And I know that's been taken out zoned property. Now on the other hand, in 2047, Um, uh, it says that the, uh, uh, boundary shall be 15 feet and, uh, landscape set back. This is 20 47, 0 2 0. Um, number one, and it comes up back again at number three. And so the, it seems…”
Planning Commission · Aug 12, 2026
- Play at 25:43
“The 37? Yeah. Yeah, 37 is, I don't have the big number. The following uses are permitted in the fare zone is one heading. That's not going to be in your packet. Our packet. It's not in our packet. It's in the.”
Planning Commission · Aug 12, 2026
- Play at 45:38
“Vice Chair. Thank you much. Um, yeah, my question is, could you dive a little more deeply into design review overlay. In other words, what does that mean, what are the consequences, maybe a little more detail on that. Why, why have a design review overlay, for instance.”
Planning Commission · Aug 12, 2026
- Play at 1:01:06
“I think one of the things to think about is the very expensive project of adding lanes to Shaw Road down the hill. is realistically, it's going to move the bottleneck from 12th Avenue South to 23rd Avenue South. It's just going to move it. It's a huge amount of money to be spending on not really solving the problem the same way that turnpockets and traffic lights don't solve the problem. The problem is number of cars on a road. And the problem is there aren't enough roads. It's a very simple idea. It's really simple. Instead of adding more lanes, you need to disperse the traffic. You need…”
Planning Commission · Aug 12, 2026
- Play at 13:40
“Okay, thank you. So, A couple of the – this is a verbiage issue. It's a wording issue. It's like it wasn't quite clear to me, and I just want to see. So the vacant site, according to this, should be subordinate and incidental to the owner's residential use. But, of course, the very – HAB-Jacques Juilland, Definition of a vacant site is there's no residents there so right there's no residential use on that lot.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 15:02
“Okay, well, thank you. The other thing that I was curious about in the wording is horticultural activity includes personal use and incidental sales or distribution on site activities. And so could you explain what incidental is, please?”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 15:43
“But it could be, for instance, I understand incidental could mean seasonal, for instance, if you're growing daffodils, and then that stops. Right. But if you've got chickens, you might have egg sales all year round.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 16:06
“So incidental does not mean you can't have, let's say, a farm stand on that site. Right.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 16:25
“OK. All right. Yeah, I was just trying to understand what these terms mean in this instance. Thank you.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 39:16
“Yeah, my opinion is I would like to see this not changed. And the reasons are, number one, the state has now decided that we can have lot splits. Okay. Number two, the state has mandated that every house can have two ADUs. And number three, we have... I would say six different kinds of housing, middle housing allowed in any residential zone. That is a lot of density that's being mandated for us. And I know there are some people who are perfectly happy with their small lot and maybe don't do a lot outdoors. Other people have children. They'd like a place for them to play. They have pets. Maybe…”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 47:53
“Yes. Okay. So one thing I wanted to point out, we all, I think anyone who reads the paper or whatever knows about power consumption and water use for data centers, especially serving AI. Right now, the data center that's on that site is a 24 megawatt data center. It's already there. AI serving data centers, according to what I've read, can range in size from 100,000 square feet to 1 million square feet. The entire Benaroya property is 86 acres. And if the proportions in the map are correct, that parcel is about 18 acres or over 786,000 square feet, even with 85% lot coverage. the site could…”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 57:06
“Vice Chair. Okay, my first concern is about approving an overlay with no master plan and no concise or complete list of permitted actions. The use of IE, which is something like, or for instance, but it doesn't actually, unlike some of our other zone designations, it's very nonspecific, and it's extremely broad. And”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 57:47
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That allows, yeah. The other thing that I'm concerned about is the non-contiguous parcels in particular that are surrounded by residential areas. And so if that very broad spectrum overlay is placed on those sites. You know, we don't know at this point how that would affect neighboring residential... You know, I'm very... I'm very always in favor of the homeowners who are around there, who live there, who have their homes there, and possibly their economic futures in those homes. And I just hate to see – you know, the fair is a big organization. I know it's nonprofit, but –…”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:22:11
“Vice chair. I just have a few questions actually. Regarding from page 55 regarding uses prohibited uses in UCX zones. I just wanted to make sure that I understand this correctly, that road service uses do not include auto sales, rental or storage. Others that they can like repair shops or whatever, but not for UCXO. Yes.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:22:52
“Oh, right. Yeah. I just wanted to make that distinction. On page 57 of our booklets, there was a paragraph that had been added and then crossed out and it had to do with the discontinuation of use for auto dealers. Can you just kind of tell us about that a little bit?”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:23:50
“Yeah, thank you. I did have a question on page 61, and this is 2031-021-1. It says, one half stall may be provided. may be provided. And I'm wondering, shouldn't that be one half stall shall be provided? And an earlier meeting had it, oh, I'm on, this is page 61. Yeah, we had some discussions at an earlier meeting about the difference between may and shall. And this one seems like it's leaving it as an option.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:24:49
“They could put maybe nothing in if they chose.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:25:53
“Yeah, not clear to me. I didn't understand it that way. So yeah, but we've got smart people who can take care of that. I have a last question. And on page 68. And this is 20.31.031. Off street parking bonus palette. I am not familiar with that term. So does a bonus mean that fewer parking places are required? I just don't. I never heard that phrase before that term.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:27:05
“Additional parking reductions. Additional... That's what I was trying to understand because it uses the word bonus, which sounds like more, but it's maybe a bonus to the builder.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:27:19
“But it's because it's a reduction in the required parking spaces. I mean, I'm just trying to understand it.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:27:41
“Yeah, I didn't quite get that. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026
- Play at 1:35:23
“Thank you. I, um, I'm also really, uh, in fully support of, of, uh, of the comments about density and infrastructure and so forth that Commissioner Crosby made. That bit of seriousness aside, tomorrow evening is the first of the summer concerts. And for people who like pop music or jazz, I'm not the best one to ask. It's a great community gathering, and we've certainly gone down and enjoyed it, and so I encourage everyone to do so.”
Planning Commission · Jul 8, 2026