Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. This meeting is now called order. Welcome to the 03/02/2026 planning commission meeting. We'll begin with the roll call. Casey, will you please call the roll?

Yes. Chair Quieton?

Here.

Vice chair Daniel Garcia?

Here.

Commissioner Grubb?

Here.

Commissioner Najjadi? Here. Commissioner Sauroff, I don't see. And commissioner Talius, I don't see either. So we do have quorum chair.

Great. Thank you everybody for being here on a sunny day. Our first order of business is approval of tonight's agenda. Do I have a motion, and can the motion maker please state their name?

So moved. This is Daniel.

Seconded. This is Zaneb.

It's been moved by Daniel and seconded by Zaneb to approve the agenda for the March 2 planning commission meeting. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? Alright. The agenda has been approved as submitted. Moving on to approval of the minutes from the 01/26/2026 Planning Commission meeting. Is there a motion?

This is. I'll move to approve the January 26 meeting minutes.

Chair, I'm gonna interrupt just real quick. I apologize. I don't know that I called, commissioner Rafael Garcia in the attendance. I apologize. I do wanna note that commissioner Rafael Garcia is here, and commissioner Garcia, I apologize for that that omission.

Oh, it's all good. I'm here.

Thank you.

Sorry, chair.

No worries. Do we have a second for the motion to approve the minutes from the January?

I'll second. This is Jessica.

Alright. It's been moved by Zaneb and seconded by Jessica to approve the minutes for the 2020 January 2020 goodness. 01/26/2026 planning commission meeting. All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? Okay. Meeting the minutes are approved. Moving on to public comment. This portion of the meeting is an opportunity for members of the audience to speak on any items related to city business, including items on the agenda except those items for which the commission held a public hearing but has not yet completed its deliberations and issued a recommendation to city council or where the speaker promotes or opposes a candidate for public office or ballot measure. Comments on all topics will be allowed during this portion of the meeting tonight. I will identify two to three speakers, when your name is called, the host will unmute the microphone.

You'll then need to unmute your microphone before you speaking. Comments will be limited to three minutes, and staff or one of the commissioners will share a countdown clock. We will interrupt you and ask you to quickly finish your comments if you extend beyond three minutes. And I think we at least have one person that has signed up to provide comments. And if anyone in the audience would like to provide general public comments, please indicate so by raising by using the raise hand function, and we will let you in.

Would anyone like to provide public comment? Okay. I'm not seeing any raised hands. Give me two more seconds. Alright. In that case, we will move on to staff announcements. Casey.

Thank you, chair. I'll be very brief this evening. I already shared with the commissioners, but I also would like to share with, attendees this evening that Public Works has just sent out a storyboard and survey. So I'll read directly from their announcement. The city is working on a long term policy for sidewalk repair.

We'd like your help deciding where the city should fix damaged sidewalks first. We also want your thoughts on the role that property owners should have since Olympia's code says they are responsible for fixing sidewalks adjacent to their property. Please check the story map to learn more and to answer some questions, and I will include a link to that story map in the chat for the audience. And that is all I have for announcements this evening. Thank you, chair.

Great. Thank you, Casey. Then we'll move on to business items. Tonight's business item six a is a briefing about proposed updates and amendments to Olympia Municipal Code related subdivisions. We finally dragged Joyce Phillips back. Our long range planning manager in community planning economic development is presenting on this topic tonight. Joyce, would you like to begin?

Thank you. Thank you for having me here this evening. I, wanted to let you hear a little bit about my thoughts on this. I had originally hoped that I would have a draft subdivision code to share with you this evening. I'm not quite that far.

But, Anyway, I wanted to give you a brief introduction to subdivision codes, why we have them, how we use them, and to let you know that we are working on a new one, hopefully for consideration later this year. So there are broad public interest reasons for having a subdivision code. Not only are we implementing the state's subdivision law, but we are facilitating the division of land for residential, commercial, and industrial land uses through a standardized process, and this can facilitate development while also helping to protect both the people who are buying and selling the land. As part of the subdivision process, we ensure that each lot meets the minimum standards of the zoning district it's located in, that all of the lots have legal access, to a public right of way, that there are utility stubs for water and sewer to the property line that we're coordinating with private utility providers like Puget Sound Energy. All of the lots are are marked at the corners and that there and that all of the lots actually close mathematically based on the survey.

And that the streets and the utilities that are built for or provided to that particular land division are adequately sized for the anticipated uses of the land, including things like fire flow to help protect life and property as well. So there's a a broad range of things that we look at when we're looking at, a subdivision. And while our subdivision code does address the state's requirements, the base of our code dates back to 1984. And, I was kind of laughing. I was like, oh my gosh.

I was barely in high school, so I had to look it up. Just so kind of take you back in time, the hit song of the year was When Doves Cry by Prince. So I think we could use a little updating of our subdivision code. So, the code is known as Title 17 or the subdivision code. It's in the Olympia Municipal Code, which is available online to people who wanna take a look at it.

We do think it's time for an overhaul. A lot has changed over the years and we have made some adjustments to it. I'm not saying it's out it's completely out of date or anything like that, but I think there is room for improvement. So, for example, a few years ago, we switched to an application and review process that's done entirely electronically. People submit their documents online. We review them electronically. Share them and route them to other departments for review electronically. And so our submittal requirements are different. The way we route things is different. And our code has things in there that talk about that.

There's also a couple of new types of subdivisions that were required to allow. You might remember we talked a lot about unit lot subdivisions as part of the middle housing work we did last year. And, in the next item this evening, we'll be talking a little bit about lot splitting, which is another type of subdivision that we are now required to allow. A couple of years ago, the city completed a major overhaul of our land use administration code, and that includes all of our permit processing, provisions. And so things like submittal requirements, what our notices are, what our timelines for processing the applications are, how we inform people of the decisions, how people, can can appeal a project decision.

All of that type of stuff has been updated and is in part of title 18 now. And so instead of repeating duplicating it or right now having it be a little bit different, we can refer to those provisions that are already in other parts of our code and have been addressed and updated more recently. So additionally, over time, our requirements for land divisions have sort of solidified. The physical improvements that someone has to build as part of a land division process are largely the same, whether you're developing six lots or 200 lots. So I think there's an opportunity for us to take some of the redundancy out of our existing code.

And then with all of these changes, staff would really like to rewrite the subdivision code and reorganize it so that the flow of information that's in the code walks you, through and better aligns with the actual review process. And, of course, we'd like to update sections of the code that are either outdated or in some serious need of improvement. We actually have one section of our boundary line adjustment provisions that we have learned is not in compliance with more recent interpretations of court cases and state law around boundary land adjustments. And so we wanna rectify the code so that it is, you know, in in concert with that. So today's presentation was really meant to just give you a heads up that it's coming to get you started to think about land divisions.

It's not something that we've talked about a lot here. So in the next few months, staff will be back with the first public draft that we can all walk through. There will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions and provide comments. Eventually, we do wanna request a public hearing and and get through that whole adoption process. There aren't any dates yet.

This is just an early heads up that it's coming. I wanted people to have the opportunity to look through the existing code, to familiarize yourself with it if you would like to, or you can certainly wait for the first public draft. We do hope that it will be much more current and user friendly as well. So that is all I had for this evening in the way of just kind of introducing you to the subdivision code and what's coming, so that you have chances to start thinking about it, identifying what kinds of questions you might have, or what to look for when the next draft comes out. And with that, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Folks have questions? I had one, Joyce. How do you see the, subdivision code interacting with the kind of goal of increasing infill housing?

Well, it will certainly, integrate the unit lot division, unit lot subdivision requirements, and then also the new lot splitting requirements. And I think that just by kind of reorganizing it and and trying to use better and clearer language, it will just flow better, which I think will facilitate people's ability to kind of read through it, understand the process, understand the requirements, pull their applications together. And the more clear we can make that in the better application we can get at the at the beginning, the easier the review processes for everyone involved. And it just helps it go more quickly. And so, hopefully, it will facilitate it from ease of use and from a permitting timeline standard.

And as you may recall, when we did the permit, oh my gosh. I think Leonard Bauer did it, so it's probably been three or four years now. But, a lot of the permit processing requirements and standards and and the the notification requirements and all of that is entitled 1870 now. And so instead of having it in two places, we can just kind of streamline it and provide links directly in within the document to so, like, when we're talking about the notice requirements, you can just link right over to that and take a look at it. And when you always run the risk of if you have it in two different places in your code.

If you update it in one and forget to update it in the other, you could potentially, you know, create some conflicts that way as well. So that's what we're looking looking forward to do.

Cool. No other questions? Excellent. Then we will, move on to our second business item, six b. There's also a briefing about proposed cleanup and technical updates and amendments to multiple sections of the Olympi municipal code. This will also be with Joyce Phillips giving us the presentation. Would you like to begin?

Yes. Thank you. Let me start with this presentation. Oops. Sorry. I had the other one still open. Let's get this one started. Sorry about that. As soon as one screen goes away, the other one

No worries. Okay.

Alright. Hopefully, that is showing up. So, again, Joyce Phillips, long range Planning with Community Planning and Economic Development here this evening to share a set of proposed code amendments that's rather lengthy. And so I wanted to just kind of start out by saying that I know this is a rather lengthy set of code amendments. I think it's around 90 pages.

That's for a couple of reasons. And so I just kind of wanted to explain why we have such a long list here. So this list is made up of proposed amendments from staff and then also to address some new state requirements. And so that in and of itself makes it a little longer than it would be if I was just doing one or the other. But then also we did not run any unnecessary code amendments during the three years we were all working on the comprehensive plan amendment and so this is sort of a lot of we keep a running list and people can go in and add things to it whenever they run across something in the code that's been, hard to understand or has an incorrect code citation or, you know, anything like that where there's just, like, a rub where they want something modified or changed.

And so we've kept that list for the three years, but we hadn't processed any of the code amendments. And so then once once the word got out that the long range planning staff were gonna start this up again this year, the list, like, almost doubled in length due to some pent up demand, I think, we had from from some of the current planning staff. So, and then the word got out even further, and so we have some proposed amendments on behalf of the fire department, and those are all related to, the fire code. And then our historic preservation officer also wanted to update the historic preservation chapter and some of the text around the heritage commission. So that's why this length is or this list is a little bit longer than usual.

I I apologize. We try to tackle it before it gets to 30, and we're at 47 right now. And so we also last year during the middle housing code amendments, we did tackle things like the unit lot subdivision and some of that. There's also additional state requirements that we need to address that weren't specifically related to middle housing. So some of those have a requirement for us to make the changes by June 2026, which is a pretty short turnaround.

And so those are included in this proposal this evening. There were a couple of others that had a deadline in 2027 or later. So, we're we're just teeing those up to be in the next round of of amendments because this is already so long. So tonight, I am here to bring you this set of 47 amendments and just to bring it to your attention and to help guide the public and the planning commission through the review of the materials. And I just kind of wanted to let people know where the different proposals were coming from.

And so they are listed almost entirely in chronological order in the way they appear in the code, but that doesn't mean that is how they were proposed, of course. So I just kinda wanted to share which ones were proposed by community planning and economic development staff, which ones were proposed by the fire department, which ones are state requirements, and which ones were requested by historic preservation staff. So for anybody who's only listening to this particular presentation, the proposals two through six are at the request of the fire department staff. 21 through 20 through 31 are at the request of the historic preservation staff and proposals seven twelve fourteen, eighteen, thirty four, 38, and 47 are to address the new state requirements. Then because they had touched on the same parts of the code proposals twelve and thirty eight have multiple things in there and so some of that is requested by staff and some of it is to address state requirements and and so I just wanted to call that out.

I did create a document. I'll talk about that on the next slide to help people through the review. And while I don't believe that any of these proposed amendments are are major or significant, I just wanted to let you all know I am happy to come back at a future meeting, either at another briefing or at a public hearing, to provide more detail around any of these proposed amendments in whatever format would be the most helpful to the commission. I would be happy to go through each one of the 47 proposals in order or to focus in on any of the of the proposals that are of particular interest to the public or to the commissioners. For so for this evening, I just wanted to highlight those that are required by the state, and I will also share the document where I kind of talk about why each thing is being proposed and what the outcome would be if that amendment were to be adopted.

So, again, just to reiterate the purpose, the amendments proposed by staff are intended to to provide some clarity or to address issues that have come up as the codes that have been applied at the project level. And then the other ones that are proposed are just to address the new state requirements. And this time they they are pretty much verbatim with what the state requirements are there. The phrasing is is, you know, specific to a city code, but, the the requirements are just to address those state needs. So I have a handout that I think I'll share it at the end of this because I think if I try to change screens right now it would stay on the presentation but I have a handout that's designed to kind of help people understand by proposal number and by page number which department or staff or state where's that requirement or request coming from and then what the proposal is and what the anticipated outcome would be if it were adopted.

So please do remind me to show you that at the end. And then just to help people who understand which part of the code the proposed amendment is addressing, we do include the code citation down to the subsection level when it's applicable. And then I think you'll see that in the proposed amendments that you have attached to your staff report. So each proposal is numbered and it's also shown in bill format, which means text proposed to be added is shown in an underlined text and then text that is proposed to be deleted is shown in the strike through text. We also show this in red so it helps the reader more quickly identify what's being proposed for amendment because some of these sections or even subsections are really lengthy and if we're only changing a few words you don't I mean you're certainly welcome to look through the whole thing that's why it's there but if you just want to key on what's proposed to be changed it's the red text.

And so just to kind of walk through I have some examples here like how we number things in the code I'm sure most of the planning commissioners already know this but for people in the public that want to go through this we usually have a code citation like this subsection here. And so the first two numbers identify which title of the code it's coming from. Most of these are title 18, which is the unified development code, which is, you know, the zoning standards for the city. The chapter example would be, 18 o four, which would be the residential district's chapter. The section, which would be the last three numbers, so it could be, like, 18 o four zero six o, and that would be the residential districts use standards.

And then when we go down to the subsection level, if I'm talking about subsection d in this example, that would be for child daycare centers. And so, hopefully, that helps people just kind of, work their way through the code and through the proposal because it can be technical reading, in a lot of instances. So tonight, I just wanna walk through, what the proposed new state requirements are. So that's where I'm going to focus the presentation tonight, but I'm happy to come back later and talk about any of the other ones. So proposal number seven addresses lot splitting.

That is essentially a two lot subdivision and that can be processed simultaneously with residential housing development proposals. If you're doing that at the same time you're doing middle housing it's an it's a new option. Proposal number 12 is specific to child daycare centers. We have a requirement now that we have to allow it as a permitted use in all residential zoning districts. Title or I'm sorry.

Proposal number 14 is about new housing units and existing buildings, and that has to do with when if someone has an existing building and they're converting it to residential units or they're adding residential units to it, there are certain provisions in there about what the city can and can't do. And that also includes things like allowing density up to 50% more than what is allowed under the base zoning. There's a couple of other, you know, specific things around what this what the city can and cannot do in an instance where someone is taking an existing building and converting it into, housing units or adding more residential units to that building. Title or sorry. I keep saying title 18.

Proposal number 18 is about when the city is required to allow someone to exceed the maximum building height. And so if someone wanted to add rooftop solar to a structure that is already at the maximum building height, then they would be allowed to exceed that by up to 48 inches for the rooftop solar arrays. There's also some provisions in there, and this is a really long section of code, this one in particular. And so I think this is almost 10 pages later in the draft, but there's also some provisions around, when cities can require facade modulation, which we do have some requirements for facade modulations. And so we're creating some exceptions based off of this new requirement for when we would not require that.

Facade modulation is just kind of breaking up long expanses of wall. And then there's also some provisions very similar around when we can or cannot require upper story step backs, and that is for something like, you'll see that on in some of the downtown buildings, the newer downtown buildings where perhaps on the 4th Floor, you'll see that the building is recessed by about eight feet from the front, wall of the building at the lower levels. And so there are some provisions around when the city is no longer allowed to require that. Proposal number 34 has some very specific requirements around residential parking. Some of them have to do with, cities not being able to require that the built the parking spaces be enclosed.

Some of it has to do with allowing tandem parking. That's when the parking is one car is back to back, parked directly behind the other. There's still some provisions of for turnarounds and things like that. Very specific requirements, and so it looks kind of long, a lot of new tax, but it's specifically to address those new provisions that cities have to address. Proposal number 38 is also about the retrofit of existing buildings for residential units.

This one is specific to if you're converting a structure to residential units and you have new energy efficiency requirements. So if your building is built right at setback line, you are you would be allowed to extend up to eight inches into that setback so that you could provide that insulation. And the same is true for the maximum building height of the of the structure as well. So it's it's basically eight inches additional so that you can create those insulations and energy efficiencies for those residential units. And I'm guessing that must have come out of some pretty specific examples because the language in the in the statute is fairly specific.

And then the final one of the state proposed requirements is number 47 and it is at the end of the list and it was the very last one we added so it is the one that is not in sync with where it would be chronologically by code citation number but again this one is specific that we would we have to allow child daycare centers in all commercial zones and it's a relatively minor change, but, we did add that, to to get that into this round of proposed amendments. And just a heads up on the general process, you know, we're still at the early stages of this. We did route it out, about a week ago to all recognized neighborhoods within the city. We routed it out to adjacent jurisdictions, other city departments, just trying to kinda get the word out, get any feedback from folks to see what kinds of things we might want to make any modifications to. We've got the briefing this evening.

The public comment period is ongoing and of course it will extend through the close of the public hearing. But we do intend to issue a revised draft just based on comments that we get or, whether it's from the public or from other city staff members or adjacent jurisdictions. We'll issue a notice of public hearing. We'll hold the public hearing. The planning commission will complete its deliberations, factoring in any public comment and make its recommendation, which will then be forwarded on to City Council.

Potentially stopping at the land use and environment committee for a recommendation that would then go to the full Council and the full Council will make the decision I don't have dates on those things we're still in the early stages of this, but I just wanted. Folks to know that that's the general flow that we intend to go through with this as with similar code amendment processes. For anyone that would like to stay engaged and watch this process, of course, we'll be back to the planning commission either with another briefing or for the public hearing. But anyone that would like to stay engaged could certainly submit written comments. You can request to be a party of record, and I'll add you to interested parties list and you would then get a notification of the public hearing when that is scheduled.

And then of course, and people will be invited to comment at the public hearing as well. I have my email address on this particular slide if anyone would like to submit a request. My name is or my email address is jphilipci. Olympia. Wa dot us and I would be happy to add anyone to that. And that is all I have for this evening. I know that is a ton of information to go through. I'm happy to try to answer any questions or to understand how the commission might like to receive, another briefing or more information on the other staff proposed amendments in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Joyce. Zainab?

Hey, Joyce. Hi. Hey. Actually, I don't have any questions. I just wanted to say that I absolutely loved the the document you sent out explaining the changes

and how were I guess I need to show that.

It was super helpful. Thank you. So thank you for doing that.

Let me I wanted to pull up the web. If it's okay with you guys, wanna pull up the website and show people where to find that. Okay. And it was great because I got a call from the public, and I literally had just finished the draft like an hour before they called so I was it was nice then I got their feedback and we made some improvements based on their comments as well so I just wanted to show this this is the City of Olympia's homepage for our website and if you just go if you hover over government this screen pops up and you can move over and click on agendas and minutes. I don't know if this is how everybody gets to it this is how I get it.

But then, you know, you make sure you have twenty twenty six on the planning commission selected. Can just for those who don't know, you can get to any of the city's committees here, hearings, examiner, city council, council committees, all that. Planning commission twenty twenty six. And then if you just go down to the March 2 meeting and click on meeting details, it will pull up the proposed outcome of amendments document. I did add it there so that anyone could see it.

I'm very happy to email it to anybody who would like to see it. I have emailed it to a few members of the public that have called and asked questions about this, and I did email it to all of the planning commissioners on Friday, I believe. But anyways, it's just a document. Goes through what page of the proposed amendments it's on, where the request came from, what the purpose of that amendment is meant to get at, and what is the outcome if it's adopted. And I tried to keep it somewhat concise.

It may not answer all of someone's questions, but they could certainly call, and I have my contact information at the top of this document. I'm probably scrolling way too fast for it to be helpful, but, let me just go up to the top. Yes. I have my email address and my telephone number to my direct line. If anybody wants to call and ask about any of these proposals, I'm happy to do that. I know it's a lot to read through.

Folks have questions? Go ahead, Daniel.

Yes. Thank you, Joyce. The document was very, very helpful, so thank you. Great work. For 12 a for large multifamily, it says that it wants to, like, kind of, like, fix, like, a loophole because it doesn't wanna allow that in lower density zones. I was just kind of wondering what is the thinking there. So, like, our only single family apartment or I guess would apartments just not be allowed in? Like, tell me, like, what what does that fix?

Sure. Sure. So as this process as this middle housing work made its way past the planning commission and through the legal review process, the the legal department cleaned up some language and then they created instead of constantly referring to the number of units because middle housing is basically up to six plexes and below. So we were modifying the process stuff in our code so that if you had six units or less, did this. And if you had seven units or more, you did that because the process has to be the same.

I hopefully, that's kind of a high level summary that's anyway so when we did that we added a new definition but what we didn't do was clarify in the chart where the difference was and so you can still have six units per lot in the lower density zones So and most of the city is r four to eight or r six to 12, and we do allow six units per lot on those lots in those zoning districts. The intention wasn't to allow seven or more, but what what we found and most of the lots are already developed and they're much smaller and even getting six on, six units per lot would be probably fairly challenging on most lots. What we didn't anticipate was people coming in with one acre lots, where unit lot density allows you to exceed the underlying density, but the underlying density was already higher because the, because well, not higher, but you could get more units because the lot was bigger. And so we're we were just trying to clarify that apartment complexes or things that are larger than seven units per lot are only allowed in the moderate density and higher zoning districts.

Kind of almost a technicality because we changed the name in the code to say large multifamily instead of, middle housing.

Got it. Okay. So six flexes are still allowed, but it's only in moderate density. And okay. That makes sense. Okay. Thank you.

Joyce, just for, make sure I'm understanding the like, if you had a r six to 12 zoning and a one acre lot, that would that could hold a 12 unit that could hold 12 units. But now that like, essentially, now you'd have to subdivide it to get to 12.

And then Yes. You could have up to six units per lot. Right. But if you wanted to have more units than that you would need to do some type of land division. And when we wrote the middle housing code it was primarily thinking about and hearing from people who had lots that were more like anywhere from 5,000 to 7,500 square feet in size, we weren't and that was interesting and presented its own challenges.

For the most part, we weren't thinking about, and there aren't that many lots that are, you know, an acre or two acres or or even five, but there are a few. And so the intention was not to have apartment complexes in the lower density zoning districts.

And was that allowed before the middle housing?

No. But the the one of the things we did in as part of the middle housing, was we modified the definitions of dwelling units. So before we had a very long table that had single family, ADU, duplex, triplex, fourplex, you know we had all of these different types of housing in the chart and what we did in the middle housing was we just said you know the number of units allowed per lot and we kind of consolidated all of the different dwelling unit definition to say a dwelling unit is essentially, you know, a description of a residential unit and then we said here are some here are some types of dwelling units. Well, when we added the definition of large multifamily in that definition, we didn't change the chart to identify that large multifamily isn't meant to be allowed in the lower density zones. And so we got the text part of it right when we modified it kind of at the end of the process.

This comes back and modifies the table to match what it said before we added large multifamily as a type of conventional housing. Does that make sense?

Yep. Great. Thank you. Daniel?

Wait. Do wanna let Jessica go first? Because I just got one. So, Jessica, you go first.

K. My question was on page six. Let's see. Make sure I have this right. Sorry. Page seven. It's the way it was written, development of dwelling units on the newly created lot may be conditioned on construction of frontage improvements to a right of way adjacent to either the parent lot or the newly created lot to the extent required under applicable codes, regulations, and design standards.

That Letter c.

Yeah. Letter c. Is that the entire lot frontage or just access to the newly created lot?

Generally, when you're doing frontage improvements, it it applies to the entire parent parcel.

Okay.

And by so my goodness, you guys, I have not processed a subdivision in, like, twenty years, but I have been talking with the current planners a lot about this because, obviously, it's something they do on a regular basis. But, normally, when someone comes in and they want to subdivide the property, you look at how many lots they're creating. Are they gonna have to build a private or a public street to serve those lots? Or do will they all have frontage on the existing public right of way? Depending on the frontage improvements that are there or that are not there, there will be requirements to build street improvements, whether it's the whole street, like they have to build a street that comes in to serve additional lots, or if it's just the frontage improvements on the street that already exists.

That's usually triggered at the time of subdivision.

Okay. So if if somebody was subdividing a lot and the newly created lot didn't have any road frontage and was being accessed either via an easement or, like, a flagged lot, to get their access, the parent lot would have to do road frontage improvements on in front of their entire lot?

Usually. Usually, yes. I'm sure there are some exceptions in the code for some unusual circumstances, but usually, those frontage improvements are required at the time of land division. Oftentimes, because they can trigger the requirement to dedicate some right of way depending on Okay. What's there or what's not there.

Okay.

Sure.

Rafael?

Oh, sorry. Can I add one more thing to Jessica's question? I'm sorry. Just so you know that that that language that is proposed there to address lot splitting is almost almost verbatim from the bill itself or the statutory language. So if that one does say that it is state required, you're I do have the links within that review document to include where you can go to look at the the original language.

Have house bill ten ninety six linked in the document, but you're welcome to go in there and take a look at it. I encourage everybody to do that. Make sure you think I got the wording correct and that it makes sense for, I actually found one place where I copied and pasted some of the language directly either from the bill or the statute, and it said, the city or the county. And I'm like, oh, I think I can just say the city. So I've already got some revisions going.

Rafael?

I guess since we're talking about, the lot splitting, how, like, in-depth or how far has kind of, like, staff really, like, analyzed the so called, like, tensions between, like, say, the house bill ten ninety six, density preservation mandate, and kind of, like, the lot splitting exemption, from middle housing requirements. And, like, could any of these, like, interactions kind of, I guess, undermine housing production goals for us?

The I think the slot splitting one is a little bit unique because there is, some language in there that specifically says that if either one of the lots are of a size that would allow future division, it doesn't qualify as a lot split. And so I think that's a little bit unusual, but we have I mean, the the the process to short plat property or even to do a unit lot subdivision is not terribly difficult. It's not in inexpensive, but it's not terribly difficult. So I don't think that there's anything in this lot splitting bill that would make it more challenging. I think we are, you know, we are definitely meeting long range planning, current planning, our engineering review staff, our utilities to take a look at the implications of some of the new requirements around the unit lot subdivision piece.

That's always been a little bit challenging. We still haven't processed one, but we're just meeting ahead of time to talk through it and make sure we all have a understanding about what we potentially could be looking at. Because before when we've all you know, you've looked at a lot. You think, oh, one house and maybe a house and an ADU. And now all of a sudden, you're like, okay.

This could be six It's it's a different perspective on how you might service it with utilities and things like that. But I think we've got the zoning and the subdivision side of it worked out that right now, I think they're I think once we process a couple of them, that we would have more insights into what some of the challenges are around utilities, but we have been meeting regularly and walking through that so that we're ready. I just think we all have our I think we all have kind of like, oh, I wish we could do this or I wish we could do that, but that that isn't necessarily what the outcome will be. I you know, I the easiest thing would be if everybody had their own utility connections. And right now, ADUs can share utility connections with the house.

That's not a problem when they're on the same bill and they go to the same person, and the property owner is ultimately responsible. But when you do a unit lot subdivision down the road and you have two or three or four, maybe five or six units on separate that have potentially shared utilities, that could be problematic, just from an administration standpoint. So we're still talking through all of that. We I mean, there are provisions in place that would allow that and that you would have, you know, agreements and maintenance agreements in place and things like that. So it's not like we aren't ready for it.

It's just that there are things that we try to let people know this is this is allowed. This is potentially less expensive. You might want to consider this if you're thinking about subdividing the property in the future. We're just trying to make sure people understand what those issues are so that they can make the best choices for themselves at this point. I don't know if that helps answer your question, but I don't think there's any specific conflicts with lot splitting and middle housing.

Thank you. Yeah. I assumed we're very, like, still preliminary on this, and there's a lot more that goes into it. I was just wondering, like, how in-depth we really went into it. But thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Daniel?

Yeah. For number 35, it talks about downtown parking and talks about vehicle parking standards and new buildings over 3,000 square feet of gross leasable area shall have bicycle parking. What is kind of like, for the size of, like, 3,000 square foot, like, what is, like, the typical building that like, is that, like, an ocean coffee? Is that, like like, what kind of businesses already kinda, like, fit that size? And then, like, follow-up to that is, like, how many new businesses did you, like, kind of estimate? Like, how much more bicycle parking is that, like, estimated to have, like, a lot or, like, a little or, like what's kind of, like, the goal there?

So we already well, first off, I will ask Casey if he's aware of any businesses that are around 3,000 square feet. I am a terrible spatial estimator. But I will say we already do require the bicycle and and, short term and long term parking. But what this particular change is is specifically most of the buildings in the downtown are already existing, and so they're already exempt from, you know, commercial parking requirements. And then we also have the residential exempt area, which includes this, the whole downtown area.

What we're and then what we're basically saying is that instead of it just saying, new buildings, we're just basically saying all buildings are exempt from commercial parking standards in that. But I'm happy to come back and talk about parking in the future, or the or to to be a little better prepared to answer that particular question. But, I off the top of my head, I could not name a building or a business that's 3,000 square feet.

Totally, totally get it. And a follow-up would be great because I like you said, I'm also not the best at, like, estimating space. And so I was, like, gross lease. Well, so I'm, like, trying to do math in my head, and I was like, let me just ask. So, yeah, totally, totally get it. But would love a follow-up if you if you can.

Sure. I'll I'll make a note of it. Any guesses, Casey, for businesses that size? No?

No. Not off the top of my head. I'm sorry. I'm I'm pretty

terrible at that as well.

If it if it helps at all the a lot of the lots in Olympia, like, the residential single family lots are, like, 60 by one twenty, which is about twice that. So I could imagine, like, a you know, if you split that in half or put a building that was half the size of that, that'd be about 3,000 square feet.

Rafael? More broader, I guess, out of, like because you showed us the the slide where it had I think it was, like, seventh of the new proposed state requirements. I guess, out of these 47 proposals in the package, how many are actually, like, genuinely state mandated versus, like, local discretionary? And then kind of for, like, the state mandated ones, what kind of happens to Olympia if, like, the amendments are adopted on schedule to match with, I guess, the state mandates? So,

I believe only about seven or eight of them are state requirements. Most of them are staff requested. About five of them are requested from the fire department staff, about 10 from historic preservation staff. And the so the majority of of them are from the planning staff looking for improvements to the code. If we do not adopt them, it depends on how the bill was written.

So most of these were written in such a way that the city has to adopt these amendments within six months of their periodic update. So for us, our periodic update was due in December '25. So that means these would be June '26. And, some of them are written in such a way that they have a specific date. And so they're all a little bit different depending on if you do or don't meet you know, adopt them by June.

I just sort of lumped all of them into that same category as just being state required, and we can do them right now. I think one of the ones that's on the list did have a later date, but it was such a minor change that it was easy enough to get it in this round of amendments. And that had to do with allowing the child day care centers and commercial zones because of the all we had to do was change neighborhood retail from a conditional use to a permitted use. So some of them were pretty simple. If we do not adopt them on time, I don't think there's any serious, repercussions as long as we're working in good faith to do so.

Usually happens when the state adopts something, you have until the next periodic update to adopt that. So this was unusual to say within six months of your periodic update because because for a city like Olympia that has a lot of public process built in, it is it is almost impossible to get something through our process in six months. It typically takes nine months to a year for simple, code amendments. So this one, we're not trying to rush it. We're not making that, like, our do or die deadline, but we'd love to meet that deadline if we can, if that helps.

I don't think there's any specific penalties to the city if we don't meet that deadline.

Gotcha. No. Thank you. I assumed, like, the priority would be to, like, focus more on, like, the state mandated ones upfront and then break down from there, but that's just I was just curious.

Yeah. If if we do need to do that, we certainly can break them out. We prefer to try to do them at in one fell swoop, although usually not this many at a time, just to make, you know, use of the same staff meetings and notice requirements and things like that. It'll it will take, you know, a few more months to get through this process, and so trying to consolidate the staff time and the effort involved to get through the process. I believe there may be one of these requirements, and it could potentially be the lot splitting one.

I'd I'd have to go back and look at them. If the city did not adopt it by the deadline, the state rules may supersede local code. I don't I know there was a lot of that in some of the earlier, requirements around middle housing. I I don't recall, but it seems to me one of these might have that provision included as well.

Dana? So kind of related to thing you're kinda touching on about, like, efficiency and, you know, kind of, like, using staff time to, you know, kind of consolidate some of this effort. Was there any thought or can there be any thought about maybe adding stuff to some of this? Like, the child care center bill, you talked about. That was a bill from, like, the state ledge that, like, you know, kind of imposed new requirements.

There's a similar bill to do, like, neighborhood cafes. Mhmm. And I don't believe it's progressing this session. Like, I don't think it's, like, medics, you know, cutoffs. But just wondering because I think we hear from city staff a lot, you know, that it's, like, hard to keep up with the pace sometimes of the new requirements while we're doing the requirements now and we're already putting in child care centers. Is there any ability to kinda be efficient and use that time to, like, maybe add in some other uses, like neighborhood cafes maybe, which we know the legislature is looking at?

Yeah. So we have so we do allow neighborhood cafes in neighborhood retail zones. There's an there so some of the implementation measures that came out of adopting our comprehensive plan in December, part of that included at that same time of year, we work on with the land use and environment committee and the city council, the department work plans. Part of that effort includes some work around these three things kinda got bundled together. Home occupation businesses, and that is when it's a business inside someone's existing residence.

Like, you have to live there. You don't have to own it, but you need to live there. Another part of that is small scale commercial uses in residential areas where you don't necessarily have to live in the structure. It could be, you know, a stand alone coffee shop or, like, a little bakery or a cafe or something like that. So that is already in the works.

David Guenther is gonna be taking the lead on that, and you'll be hearing more about that in, the the coming months. And partly, it is because we did see that in the last two well, last legislative session and this legislative session. Even if it doesn't pass, it's something that had support from some of our comprehensive plan policies, and it came out as being one of the issues they would like to see staff work on as we work on implementing the comp plan.

Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Because that that was my other thing I was kinda thinking about was, like, that there is all these other pieces. And I was also thinking I was, like, it'd be kind of random just have, like, a random child care center, like, by itself. So I was like, I have a Starbucks. I don't know. Like, at a at a at a local coffee shop. I don't know.

Rafael? And then, kinda just, like, reading through. I know a lot of it's very, like, highly technical language. More so, I guess, how is, like, the city planning to kind of communicate what these amendments actually mean to property owners and residents.

Mhmm.

I guess more plain terms, like, maybe, like, a cheat sheet or something or, like, how how are you gonna go go about that? Because I know it's a little difficult for us to even kinda just sift through it.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's exactly why I created this other document to try to help people understand where the proposal was coming from and and what it was meant to address and what the likely outcome would be. As people call and have questions, I can certainly make amendments to that to describe describe it more. It's always a balance of you don't wanna repeat as much as is in the 90 pages of the amendments themselves, but you want it to have enough context to be meaningful to someone who doesn't read this stuff every day, and try to make it factual to the the rest of the code, to the statutes that it's implementing, and then to, you know, language that anybody could read and understand.

I'm always looking to add add on where it's needed or make improvements to that. I've had a few conversations with, folks that called, when it was routed out. And so I've talked with a few folks. We've talked through some of those, and they actually helped finalize this particular document based on the comments and questions that they made. So, hopefully, we're getting there, and I will certainly include this document in the next staff packet when we when we come back on this issue because I don't know how many people are used to looking at that place on the website where I showed that it was located. And, of course, I'm emailing it to anybody that asks for it as well, but we're trying to kinda help share that information.

Thank you.

More questions? I've got one, Joyce, on a it's not really the specifics of of what the, ordinance says now, but or what the ordinance requires. But, in page 61, this part of the parking, and this is just kind of an example of this. It says parking spaces may not be required to exceed exceed eight feet by 20 feet.

Mhmm.

And that sounds a little more like a direction to the city about the ordinance. Is it right? Like, if you just if you just didn't require a parking spot that was eight by 20 anywhere in the code, then do you need to state that you can't do that as like, it's a rule for the city kind of rather than

So it's in well, it's in the statute or it's, yeah, it's in the statute that that provision applies to us now. And it's a little bit I I struggle with that one personally because and we did add some language around parking spaces and primarily to address tandem parking and driveways. And I believe we said eight by 20 in that locate in that part of the code as well. I probably will need to go back and look at that. The other thing that I don't particularly like is that assumes it doesn't necessarily take into account the the geometry required for angled parking and, radius movements in and out of angled parking, whether it's 45 degrees or 90 degrees or you know, there's there's so much more involved in parking than just the actual stall space.

And so it's kind of assuming there's a basic block that's eight feet by 20 feet that's available to the car. But depending on how you're designing your parking, that may or may not be incredibly relevant. However, that is a requirement that we have to be aware of. And I I sometimes I sometimes struggle with, do you just cite the code? Do you cite the RCW and expect the planner or the public or the developer, architect, site plan designer, whoever, to to go look that up every time, or do you just put it in your code and say that's that's what you have to live with? So sometimes I do struggle with that. I'm open I'm open to ideas. I don't I don't love that one specifically for those reasons.

Yeah. Yeah. Beside the the egress and access besides the point. I was just wondering if I mean, the I guess the only drawback I see is it's more words in the code, which is more things to to look through. But as long as our code didn't have parking that was greater than eight by 20 or acquired parking that was greater than eight by 20, then we wouldn't really have to say anything about this. Right? Is that

I would I would probably before I would answer specifically yes or no on that particular question, I would probably wanna talk with folks who are more knowledgeable on the maneuvering requirement aspects of our code. If you look at our parking code, actually, Casey, you might be able to help me out. I'm not sure if it's in the parking code or in the EDS, but we have drawings with, you know, space and size requirements based on the angle of the parking and things like that.

Sure that's gonna be under our ads because that's our engineering plans examiners that review all that. So planners just make sure we have the right number of spaces, and then the engineering plans examiners make sure that those parking spaces actually work.

That's another reason it's really important to make sure your OMC and your EDS line up. Yep. Yeah. Guess they're reviewing this now too. I mean, it has yeah. But

Yeah. I guess I'm saying, like, the the state law tells us we can't do eight by 20. And then we're like, this and this is a minor point that I can drop. But and this this this this line is also telling ourselves that we can't make our code include a requirement for eight by 20. But as long as our code just didn't include that requirement, then we're okay.

Mhmm.

These so it's just like, where the direction is coming from and for whom Mhmm. Is what I was thinking about. Again, the main consequence is just more words. But

Yeah. At a time when we would love to make our code more user friendly. I know yeah.

Yeah. I I I worry about the the thing I actually worry about as a a concrete sort of consequences is, like, confusion Mhmm. Where, you know, you're reading your commercial parking code and you say, like, okay. These are dimensions, and then you get to the title. It's like, oh, there's more about the parking size here. How what does that mean? Which seems potential pitfall, but I don't think it's a big too big a deal.

But So one of the things that will be coming up later this year this year or next, I can't I don't recall. There is there is going to be work on the parking aspects, at least for commercial parking, which, obviously, there's a little bit of overlap when you have your design standards looking at parking as well. There's also, one of the things one of the things I found while looking at the, Washington State Department of Commerce website is they actually have a new there are so many specific requirements around parking now that there is now remember, you guys might recall at the beginning of the comprehensive plan update process when we forward the the checklist that kinda shows you all of the things you're required to have in your plan and then all the things you're required to have in your development regulations. That was a few years ago, but now there is one that's specific to parking. There's, like, a six page parking checklist now.

So, there will be more review and detail around, commercial parking coming before the commission later later this year, I imagine.

Thanks. Did I chat. I I I did wanna clarify the some of the maneuvering standards. They are actually in our parking chapter. But for the most part, those are gonna still be reviewed by our engineer plans examiners.

Yeah. I guess I'm I'm hoping that if we simplify something, it also simplifies the code instead of having a lot of things that we're maybe not doing. But

Yeah. There's some really specific things in there, like around the parking, the tandem parking, and the grass creek type surfacing. There's some very specific things in there. Oddly specific in my mind, in my opinion.

Right. Great. Thank you. Other questions for Joyce before we get to our final business item? K. Thank you very

much, Joyce.

Thank you.

So our final business item six c is adoption of Olympia Planning Commissions, our work plan for twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven. Casey Schoffler, associate planner in community planning and economic development and liaison great is, presenting on this topic tonight. Casey, would you like to begin?

Yeah. Thank you, chair, and thank you commissioners for letting me share on this topic. So I will share screen, the draft work plan that more or less as presented to you back in January. Let me know when that comes up for you.

Yep.

Thank you. So, I'm asking for your recommendation, to forward this work plan onto, city council for adoption. This document reflects what came out of the land use and environment committee work plan, so that will follow pretty closely with what council is working on this year. So, one of the things I will point out is that there are some specific items on the land use and environment committee work plan that while they're on the the land use work plan, a lot of the items or the, work plan items, they're not necessarily well defined yet. So, for example, there's some discussion of a possible, sub area plan for Plum Street coming up.

I don't list that specifically on this work plan because we'll actually be going back to land use later this month at the March to get, clarification and kind of scope of work on what land use environment committee and the council at large would actually like to see done for that. So something like that would be covered under our zoning map, development and code text amendments. So I don't have Plum Street as a specific item even though it's something that is on the land use and environment committee's work plan as a specific item. So till we have got further, information on that and where to take that, I don't have it listed specifically, but it's likely gonna be something that you'll see in your work plan coming, or on your agendas here in the near future. Otherwise, there weren't a lot of changes from what I presented to you back in January.

The other thing I I didn't include in your packet but was requested by, vice chair, Garcia was under informational briefings. Specific request was to go back and take a look at the 2025 work plan. And under section four informational briefings, asked to add in those items that we didn't necessarily get to in our last work plan. So it's not in your packet, but I have it presented here. And I can share with you our I don't think that actually switches screen, but I can share our 2025 work plan.

The items here in yellow are holdovers from last year that I was asked to include. So with that, I don't necessarily have a ton to bring you, in change. I I didn't necessarily hear from a lot of the, commissioners for additions, or other topics to add. That being said, if there's anything that is, omitted on this work plan that I sent out to you, or if you have any questions on the additional informational briefings, I'm happy to answer that. If you have any requested revisions, I'm happy to, accommodate that, assuming your commissioners your colleague commissioners are are on board with that as well.

So not to belabor this, but if there's questions on this, please let me know. Otherwise, I'm here to just ask for, your recommendation. I will submit this work plan, for review by the, community livability and public safety committee also later this month. And once we have that, we'll have our adopted work plan, that will take effect as of April 1. So with that, I can zoom in on the on these items if anyone would like to see this.

Like I said, I didn't necessarily include these items, in your packet. So I I'm not trying to pull a fast one on anyone, but, was requested to to include these items from last year's work plan, and it is a copy and paste verbatim from last year's work plan, that you approved that we just, to be frank, we were we were pretty much zeroed in only on comp plan updates, last year's, but we just didn't get to these types of items. So informational briefings can come from city staff. They can also be brought by individual commissioners or, if you wanna work with your, commissioner, colleagues to present on an item, that's where we could do informational briefing. So with that, that was a lot of words.

Happy to answer questions. I will zoom in just, for sake of clarity, and I'll leave it at that. So if there's no other revisions requested, I would ask that you move to approve the work plan as presented with revisions, as highlighted here.

Folks have any questions? No hot items? Daniel?

Thank you, Casey, first. Thank you. I know you're responsive to that request from me, so thank you. I had one more addition. Was hoping we could add the week without driving is an event started by Washingtonian on a to highlight the those of us who cannot drive or do not drive.

It is October this year, and usually organizations like TRPC, the Thurston Regional Planning Council, and or City of Olympia try to do events around it. Me and Greg, two Rauberausers, local Olympians, did an event last year with OPAP, and Janae. Anyway, we just love if we could add a week without driving, in one of our October meetings or September meeting leading into, week without driving this year just because I think it's an important event and would love to get an informational briefing if we can. And, also, hopefully, if TRPC and City of Olympiad are doing an event, I think that'd be a great tie in, and it'd be great informational briefing and also, to talk about it.

What would the briefing be, Daniel? Or you would we'd think of it from, I guess, who TRPC might be the briefer?

Yes. If if TRPC and City of Olympiad are doing an event, then I would hope that the briefing would come from them and talk about, like, last year, they had a very small event where it's just pretty much staff only where they talked about some of the changes coming to 4th And Plumb, which are now installed. So that's amazing. That's great. But, anyway, yeah, so it'd be, like, something like that.

Like, if City of Olympia and TRPC are having another similar event or maybe they're talking about another intersection, another improvement. Hopefully, they would talk about that. Like, last year, 4th And Plum is one of the most dangerous intersections because you have logging trucks, people turning onto the freeway from, like, downtown, like, onto, the 5. So, anyway, like, something like that. If we're doing another event, they could talk about street safety, the collisions that are maybe happening there, and then what the event is to to highlight those of us who are vulnerable road users and do not drive.

Yeah. I'm I'm wondering if there's, like, the if they're doing an event for week without driving, that it's probably more on or of a staff announcement. But if we had if we wanted to ask for, I don't know, some update on the safety plan or something like that, that could be somewhat coordinated with that.

Yeah. I'm open to more ideas. I think that I also just saw, like that seemed like there was a lot of open space on the plan. I think that the content I saw only went to, like, September, I wanna say. I think the work plan is supposed to go till 04/01/2026 to 03/31/2027, so between September and March. Casey, am I reading that right, or am I missing something?

No. I I I I I think a lot of the dates that we provide on this are fairly aspirational. So I wouldn't rely as much on the dates because those are kind of target dates versus TBD. So I I wouldn't necessarily worry about the dates. So I wouldn't worry about that, and that's fair.

I think we the this year going forward, we'll have a lot more opportunity for other topics that we haven't had for the last three years. Yeah. So if you want to add some sort of informational brief on a week without driving invite TRPC or a community organization to kind of talk about the purpose, I think that's perfectly fine to add to our informational briefings, and we can coordinate on the date as we get closer to it. So September, October time frame to have hopefully, to invite somebody to brief on that. I I think that's doable as of now.

That's barring, any sort of, text amendment or code amendment, application that comes in that we have to address, for things like that. But as it looks now, I think adding that as a as an informational brief, I I don't see any issue with that, from a stat perspective.

No. Totally hear you about, you know, like, capacity. But, like, yeah, like, if there's, like, six months unaccounted for, I feel like that's a pretty big buffer. So, like, that's, I guess, why I was asking for that's that seems like a a big buffer that we could fill that we could still have, like, let's say, three months worth of content in case we need to adjust things.

Sure. I think we've got the flexibility to work with that.

Joyce?

Thank you for letting me add in. I was just thinking, I I think the week without driving is always a super interesting topic. But I would one of the ways it could potentially be expanded upon to tie into some of the things the city does to help facilitate different ways of of getting around would be to to potentially tie in that commute trip reduction, and what the city of Olympia does to address commute trip reduction efforts. And I believe most of that comes through our transportation staff. I know that I worked on things like that when I worked at the city of Lacey, but I think it'd be interesting to to hear what, Olympia does in that regard.

And that that has more to do with, site planning and amenities that are available to people who walk or ride the bus or ride their bicycles to get to and from work or large employers. But it's I think it's interesting stuff. Of course, I was on the commute trip reduction board for ten years, so, of course, I think it's fascinating.

I am super open to that. And, I mean, yeah, Casey, if we can add commute trip reduction as another idea. And, I mean, if you'd I didn't wanna do this, but I can just keep going with ideas. Also, the bus system update. I mean, I would love to get briefed on the bus system update because, like, that seems like a pretty big change coming, and I know that we're not making any decisions about the bus. I do think that that is, like, a pretty major thing that's happening and, like, I don't know. Like, it's a ten year in the making process. So, anyway, there's a lot of ideas. I don't need to keep going, but I'm just saying that I think that there is leeway on the work plan because we have so much buffer.

I'd make one I think the buffer probably looks a little bit bigger than it is in reality. The the for the the week without driving piece, I'm wondering if so I'm I'm my only I obviously support with without driving. I think it's great. The I'm I'm not sure the planning commission wants to be chasing events, but I like the idea of, like, trying to coordinate a brief on something like commute trip reduction or or the safety plan or or updates like that with with something like without driving. That seems like a coordination aspect, but I don't and I don't I don't know, Casey.

I don't know how we would wanna note that there, but, like, a parentheses to be coordinated with week without driving instead of I don't know what we get briefed on with week without driving other than the events that would be happening. Oh, Casey, sorry. You're still muted.

Sorry about that. Yeah. So I I think I think there's gonna be a couple of opportunities coming up where we're gonna be talking about downtown parking strategy and downtown actually, just citywide parking and transportation safety issues or topics. So I I think there's a number of ways where we could incorporate that that kind of information. So, chair, kinda what I'm hearing is maybe along with Joyce's suggestion, if we're looking at the week without driving, rather than center it on on that specific event, as we move up to that date, maybe have an update on downtown parking strategy or other updates from transportation in general and tie the week without driving to additional informational briefings in that sense.

Is that that was a mishmash of words. I apologize. Did any of that make sense? Does that kinda capture what you're you're looking? That's what

I was thinking. I I'd be curious what, Daniel thinks too, but, since he suggested it. But the idea, we try to coordinate some very relevant update or briefing with that. I think that, like, hopefully presents a package both for the for us and for the community, which could be nice.

So I I'll reach out to colleagues in transportation. I believe they're starting the process for the transportation plan, transportation master plan update. That might be probably the best way to, start addressing or, looking at that topic. So that might be a way to to look at, especially if we're looking at the TMP update, week without driving and, commute trip reduction and possibly even a IT update. If we coordinated some of those informational briefings, not necessarily all at once, but tried to do a few leading up to and around the week without driving, I think that's very manageable and doable.

I I I say that speaking for some of my colleagues and the community members that will actually be presenting on this, but, I can work with them and and see what we can get going for that.

And, yeah, Greg, I'm definitely open to ideas. I guess my biggest thing is I just feel like I just saw, like, content. I know, Casey, you said don't worry about dates, but I'm just like, September to March is, like, what, six months. And I was just like, it feels like we have content to fill. And so not to, like, not to just give ourselves biz busy work. Like, I think there are, like, important, conversations. Like, yeah, 4th And Plum is this very dangerous intersection, and Downtown Streets make up, like, a disproportionate amount of our pedestrian and bicyclist collisions. So, like, why not maybe get a little informational briefing on something being done for that?

Yep. Yeah. I think it's I mean, it's useful for hopefully, it's useful for staff to know things that the planning commissioner are interested in if thing if things come up, and and we'll see if they come up.

Also, putting it out there, Rafael, Zainab, Jessica, not to put you guys on the spot, but, like, there's ideas. I mean, I think you guys can suggest ideas too. I don't mean to act like I have all the ideas. Like, I I'd be open to and I know Aaron too, I guess, also channeling Aaron a little bit because I know he's not here, but I know he's had the idea previously of, like, research subcommittee. So, like, I just I think they're I don't know. I think that there would be people that maybe would have ideas, and I'd be open to others' ideas as well.

I I don't have any additional ideas. It just would be really nice to get to these items that we didn't get to last work plan. So I just want to, like I know, Dana, like, you're saying, like, we have a lot of, like, space to fill. But I guess, like, I just wanna be cautious of putting things on here that aren't, like, our top priorities because I'm worried about, like, say, not getting to, like, ADA street parking update this time. So I I think, like, we've been interested in that stuff for, I think, at least, like, two years now.

Yeah. I I would say my my observation of the work plan process is that the, like, getting the stat like, we've I mean, comp plan definitely squashed us last year and then getting the staff time, if if it does require staff time to brief on some of these things, is tough. And so the more we can, like, focus on that and and provide kind of a concrete, ask, I think that that will get the get us to those items. So I've I've been trying to think about how to do that too as one of the ideas around having a subcommittee where we can flush out, you know, what we're asking and what some of our questions are that that folks can, think about and counsel can respond to a little bit too, if that makes sense. Rafael?

I guess only comments. If, let's say, to prevent, like, not getting to certain informational briefings, maybe the potential thought of, like, sequencing these briefings in a way that build on top of each other. So, like, let's say priority being planning first because, I mean, like, the thirty three year high road debt data being a, like, upfront thing. And then maybe, like, you could combine street conditions and ADA parking together or, like, parking minimums, downtown parking, parking garages package into one so it doesn't extend over longer periods, and they can be condensed in the event that we don't get to it or meetings get canceled. There's that flexibility to be able to do that.

And I guess the only other comment to you is I think it'd be helpful to have, like, maybe, like, peer city data or just, like, comparable cities that have similar implementations around these topics incorporated within those briefings to kinda see areas that have, like, successfully done things or are in the works, to be paralleled with these topics, I guess. I I think that would be helpful.

Yeah. Commissioner Garcia, I I I appreciate that comment, and I I will say that, in conversation with the chair and vice chair, I maybe push back on adding too many topics, with an eye towards I know we've got some work coming up that's probably gonna address a lot of these topics. And I think some of these topics will be addressed, pretty directly in some of the the work items that come from city council, land use, and clips coming up. So I'm I'm fine. I I think it's it's useful to include kind of the the really nitty gritty topics under the informational briefings with an understanding that we might not, really specifically get to that topic, but odds are in other work items throughout the year, we'll probably, address them, to some degree, maybe not to the level of detail or, with as much research, on a specific topic as you might be asking for, but, they'll at least be addressed through some of the ongoing work that the, that we're doing, and that city council is asking us to work on.

And I will say that, I didn't necessarily include all the specific topics, like I said, from the land use and environment committees, work plan. But that's also with an eye towards kind of a I think there's gonna be some clarification and some, I think, some refined scope of work that's coming our way that is hard to put on this work plan now. And I think, vice chair, Garcia, that's kind of addressing some of your current concerns as well that it it might look like we're not filling up right now, but some of that just has to do with we're waiting on guidance from council on what exactly they want us to be working on. And I think we'll have that clarification probably in the next two to three months. And I will say that council is kind of aware of this kind of incongruous, like, we're getting a work plan before we know what council's work plan is.

I will say, that, all of the advisory committees are working with, executive staff at at city hall, and and we're trying to improve that process going forward. So there is some work going on where we'll have a better idea of what we should have on our work plan going forward. So, hopefully, we don't it I don't think we're gonna have huge blank spots towards the end of the year. I think we're gonna end up with a a fair amount of things for this, advisory committee to work on. I just don't know the the left and right limits of what that scope of work is just yet. So that's why I'm I'm reticent to to fill in too many things just yet. So, again, a lot of words. I'll stop.

Casey, I'm I'm wondering if there's, a way we can connect some of the the questions and briefings that we have down below to some of the the policy issue work plans so that, you know, when they're bringing commercial minimum parking standards, like, we have questions about parking garages as well and and what those things mean. And it maybe doesn't have to be in this document. But but if we can kinda, like, add questions, then at least that helps communicate the scope of things that we're thinking about when we see that that line item. So.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I and I I'm in agreement with you there. I think I think as these other kind of work items come up from council, we'll definitely be able to to raise those questions, and forward those on to city council for consideration, especially through if they're asking for specific action. I would say through our our our recommend, our policy recommendation letters that we sent on to council. That's a prime opportunity to to raise those questions that I think you're kind of, asking the planning commission to consider and that council should consider as well.

Great. Any other questions? Cool. Then I would entertain a motion for a recommendation around our work plan with the the edited highlights or the yeah. Recommending those highlights.

I'll pull up the some language for you to to take a look at if you'd like.

Thank you, Casey. Happy to make it up on the fly, but it will be worse than some you're reading it off.

So I think, if if, planning commissioners, if you're good with the highlighted edits and kind of the edits, that we made and discussed tonight, I would ask you to take a look at option two, recommend approval of the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven planning commission work plan with revisions as proposed.

Anyone like to make a motion?

This is Jessica. I'll make the motion to recommend approval of the twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven planning commission work plan with revisions as proposed.

Is there a second? Second. Alright. It has been, moved by Jessica and seconded by Daniel to recommend the approval of the 2026 2027 planning commission work plan with revisions as proposed. Is there any discussion?

No. Just got just to say, like, these topics also, I think, can be consolidated. Like, I think that that's the other thing is I don't think I'm not thinking of any of these topics as one briefing itself, but just as an idea of, like, are the types of topics that can be combined, like, two or three into one. So just wanted to put that out there.

We might have to create, like, a frequently asked questions, but fill in the answers as we go. Okay. If there's no discussion, then, all those in favor of the motion, say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? K. The motion passes.

Thank you, commissioners. So I'll take this, forward this on to, the CLIPS members, and CLIPS staff that should be going through them. I believe it was later this month once if if they have any changes, questions, concerns, I'll bring that to the planning commissioners. And then from there, we'll go on to council. I believe we'll have this approved by April. So, as we get our final work plan, I'll I'll finalize that and send that out, and it will also be posted to the, planning commission website.

Great. Thank you, Casey. K. With that, are there any, reports? Would anyone like to report anything? Meeting, relevant book, or article? Okay. Topics? None. Then, I will call the meeting adjourned, at well, next meeting's Monday, March 16, and then we're adjourning at, I have too many things on my screen, eight zero three PM. Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Bye. Nice job, Casey.

Thanks, Joyce. We're still on. I'm just saving the transcript until we're done. So Alright.

I'll see you later.

Have a good night.

You too.