Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, my name is Jerry Cochran and I'd like to call the City of Pasco Planning Commission meeting to order. I'd like to welcome all those in attendance this evening and ask you to join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United

Thank you, everyone. To begin tonight's meeting, I'd like to ask the clerk to call the roll.

Rosa Torres. Present. Pat Jones. Present. Kim Lehrman. She's been trying to get on, but for some reason she can't. Dana Crutchfield. Present. Rachel Thiel. Excused. Jay Handler.

Present.

Jerry Cochran. Present. Mr. Chair, there are five members present. We do have a quorum.

Great, thank you. Go ahead and let us know if Commissioner Lehrman is able to attend, so at least we know she's here. Here. You're here? Are you here now? Commissioner Lehrman?

I am here now, yes.

All right. Present. She says present. All right, the Planning Commission is an advisory board made up of volunteers appointed by the City Council. The purpose of the Planning Commission is to provide recommendations to City Council regarding changes to the city's comprehensive plan, land use updates, block ground allocations, and zoning code. The Planning Commission is tasked with considering the long-term growth and development of the community, the impact of land use decisions on community, livability, economic opportunity, housing affordability, public services, and the environment. I'd like to remind the audience that tonight's proceedings are being broadcast live on the City of Pasco's Facebook page and on Charter Cable PSC Channel 191 and will be rebroadcast several times during the next month. This meeting is also being recorded and you can watch it on the City of Pasco's website, which is pasco-wa.gov. Click video on demand link and make your selection of the meeting there. There are copies of the meeting agenda available on the back table, so you may follow along with the meeting. At this time, please silence your cell phone to prevent interruptions during the meeting. For those present this evening, when you're given the opportunity to address the commission, please come to the podium, speak clearly into the microphone, and state your name and city of address for our records. Before we begin tonight's meeting, I need to remind the audience and the Planning Commission that Washington State law requires public meetings like the one being held this evening not only to be fair, but appear to be fair. In addition, Washington State law prohibits Planning Commission members from participating in discussions or decisions which the member may have a direct interest or may be either harmed or benefited by the Planning Commission's decision. Any objection to any Planning Commission member hearing any matter on tonight's agenda needs to be aired at this time or will be waived. First, are there any Planning Commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of the agenda items? Let the record show there were no declarations. Second, is there anyone in the audience this evening who would object to any Planning Commission member hearing any of the items on the agenda? let the record also show there were no declarations we as the Planning Commission need and value your input it helps us to understand the issues more clearly and to make better recommendations to City Council furthermore in many cases your input here at the Planning Commission meeting is your only opportunity to get your facts and opinions placed on to the official record the City Council will use to make its decision I encourage you to take full advantage of this opportunity The first item on tonight's agenda is the approval of the meeting minutes from, this would be the February 20th, 2025 Planning Commission meeting. The minutes were mailed out ahead of time or provided to members ahead of time. I trust you had the opportunity to take a look. If there are any questions or corrections, or if not, I will entertain a motion to approve the meeting minutes.

I just have one question or suggestion for a correction. On page number three, paragraph number four, the second line where it says fellow questioner's mind, I'd request that that be changed to fellow commissioner's mind. Thank you.

Thank you very much. With that correction amendment, I would entertain a motion for approval of the meeting minutes or any other discussion or correction.

Move approval.

It's been moved.

I second.

All right. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Great. Thank you. The meeting minutes are approved as presented or as with amended. The first item and only item, we don't have any old business, but we have a public hearing item. So we will hear from staff and then we'll, of course, open it up for public hearing. I don't, do we, other than Commissioner Lehrman, do we have anyone on the phone for a public hearing? Okay. So we will open up the public hearing, but we'll start with the 24, 24 Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report, which is BGAP 2025-001. And I'll turn it over to Ms. Webb.

Good evening, Planning Commission. The Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report, which we call the CAPER, is a federally required document that reviews how HUD funds were used over the past year. It measures progress towards community development goals and helps ensure transparency in the allocation of federal dollars. The CAPER provides HUD and the local community with a detailed assessment of projects funded through programs like CDBG and HOME. It helps track accomplishments, challenges, and areas for improvement in housing, economic development, and public services. This year's CAPER report wraps up the 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan, which established long-term priorities for local housing and development incentives. The findings in this CAPER will influence the next strategic plan and future funding decisions. Each year, HUD requires the CAPER to be submitted within 90 days after the program year ends. Next slide. This is an overview of the CDBG funding. The Community Development Block Grant program provides flexible funding to support housing, economic development, infrastructure, and community services in low and moderate income areas. This breakdown shows how the 2024 CDBG funds were allocated across different activities. The major funding areas were in housing where we had 32% And this received the largest share of funds reinforcing the city's commitment to affordable housing, rehabilitation, and home ownership programs. The repayment of Section 108 loans, that was another significant expense covering obligations from previous large-scale community development projects, which was the Peanuts Park renovation. Economic... economic development uh... got nineteen percent supporting initiatives aimed at job creation and business support helping stimulate local economy conament growth uh... investment in infrastructure and services uh... public facilities improvements with eleven percent these funds were Actually, prior year funds from COVID, which aimed at upgrades to City Hall to ensure health and safety features. Public services was only at 3%, and this covered essential programs that benefited vulnerable populations, including senior services, youth programs, and homelessness prevention. Administration and planning costs was at 11%. This covered the cost of program oversight, reporting, and compliance to ensure funds are used effectively. The total grant expenditures for CDBG spending for 2024 to include COVID funds amounted to $1.1 million, with each category contributing to the city's broader community development goals. This bar chart provides a clear comparison of how CDBG funds were distributed across project categories in 2024. The height of each bar represents the total expenditure for each project type, allowing for easy identification of priority funding areas. The distribution of funds aligns with the city's goals to support housing, economic development, and community infrastructure. Moving forward, the impact of these investments will be evaluated to ensure funds are effectively addressing community needs. Next slide. On this slide are the next steps moving forward. Tonight, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing to allow community members and stakeholders to provide feedback on the CAPER. Once public input is gathered, the hearing will be closed and any necessary adjustments can be considered before submission. After the public hearing process, the city manager will sign the official submission letter confirming the city's compliance with HUD reporting requirement. This step ensures that the document reflects the complete and accurate summary of the city's CWG program activities. City staff will submit the finalized CAPER through HUD's Integrated Disbursement and Information System, which we call IDIS. The submission deadline is March 31, 2025, meeting the 90-day requirement following the program's year's close. Once submitted, HUD will have 60 days to review the CAPER and assess the whether the report meets all federal requirements. If needed, HUD may provide additional comments or request clarification before finalizing approval. The CAPER is approaching its final approval stages with key steps involving public engagement, city authorization, and formal HUD submission. This process ensures accountability, transparency, and compliance with federal guidelines. Once HUD completes its review, the city will receive confirmation closing out the 2024 CDBG program year. I understand this report is a substantial amount of information, and I appreciate your time and attention, and I'm happy to address any questions or provide further clarification for the Commission. If there are no questions currently, then, Mr. Chairman, I respectably request that you proceed with opening the public hearing.

Great.

We do have one question from the commissioner. Yes, thank you. Three, actually.

Okay.

Could we go back to the page, one of the initial pages that listed the percentages for everything?

Yeah.

Thank you. The general administration planning. In the years that I've been involved in city government projects before we came here, that number, and that was about 15 years' worth, that number always seemed to be around 10%. And now it's starting to scratch its way up, which is money that, although necessary and has to be paid to the people that plan and do the stuff, it seems like it's going up more than needs to or should. Can you explain a little bit what the oversight is on that amount to keep that in line?

Yes, with the CDBG funds for administration, we can take up to 20%. With this grant, the staff that takes care of these funds, they are paid from the grant. They do not get any funds from the general fund. So everything that they do as far as monitoring, reporting, if they have to go to training to keep up their certification, supplies, anything like that. It is all paid for out of the grant.

And is that to our people or those, is that outside evaluators, contractors, et cetera?

No, this is just to city staff.

Okay. Would, would you agree, disagree? Not sure. I don't know about that number. Does, have you, do you see that number different than it has been over the years? And I'm not meaning to put anyone on the spot. If you're not sure, then I understand. That's totally fine.

Yeah, I think it's actually been fairly consistent here. What I'll share with you is coming from another community that had a fairly similar CDBG program. Their admin was actually closer to 20% every year. So I would say at 11.5%, we're pretty modest.

And I appreciate that, so thank you. And since that's going in-house to take care of paying our people to do their important parts of this, I think that's fantastic. Where I get a little nervous about it is when outside entities are saying, here's how much we should get for our services. And it's usually valid, but sometimes that's where projects can get too expensive and we lose out. Okay, thank you very much. You're welcome. The Section 108 loans, is that going to be an annual payment that we have to make out of the CDBG grants? And if so, for how long?

It will be for the next 16 years.

I'll be 60 by then. Plus or minus. Thank you. And then one question. If you go to the back page... and then go inside the back page, I don't know what page number it is, but anywhere there's a breakdown of the income levels. There's extremely low, low income, and moderate income, but there's no upper income or high income, and we have upper income and high income people. Why isn't that a category? Are these categories designated by HUD or by the CDBG, or how are those categories determined?

No, those categories are authorized by HUD. We are only allowed to help low and moderate income. So any of our programs that we do, they do have to be income qualified.

Right, but this says there aren't any that everyone else is moderate income, which isn't. Do those have annual income attachments to it?

Yes, so like if we give money to, say, a public service activity and they have to gather income, they will actually tell us that if they had like 10% on, they were under the 30% or four that were over the 50%. So we go by, those numbers are calculated by what we receive from the people who receive the funding.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Awesome. Thank you. Any other questions? Go ahead.

Yeah, actually, a little bit of comments, or I guess suggestions, maybe as we work to get this finalized. So kind of going along with the question earlier about the percentages, maybe would it be helpful, that was kind of the notes, especially on page, on the very beginning of the summary, on page one, where it kind of goes through in those big categories with those same percentages, it might be helpful to have a comparison to the prior year so that it shows that consistency year over year, or maybe showing an improvement in where we're investing those dollars. Say, for example, if the affordable housing, and I'm just totally making up numbers, but if affordable housing last year was 25% of the funding and now we're up to 32.7%, or 32.8, excuse me, it could show, you know, that where the investment is changing and how much, you know, we're doing to improve some of those big categories. And I think, you know, as the other commissioner pointed out, it might be also good to say, you know, look, we've held our admin costs, you know, across the years. And so I think it could actually help the story and give kudos to the team for doing a good job. The other one that I had noted, I think it's over on page 13, sorry, page 14. where it said that all rental properties in PASCO are required to be licensed annually. And there's a whole paragraph talking about, you know, what's required for that. I would just suggest clarifying that since that's recently changed. And just saying, you know, for this year it wasn't in place, right? But saying, you know, just a clarification that would help. I think folks... not read too much into that and just say, okay, this was applicable for that year, but going forward it's not going to be that.

Yeah, and just to clarify for your percentage, which I do know that this report is kind of hard to read, in the staff report I could give you guys some more information as to if we've met the percentage where they've increased over the years, but this report, the way that it's broken out, this is HUD's this is the way HUD likes it so we just go in and we just put in this number that number from the information that we have but it does show on page on page two where it's got like the comparison for the verses it does show the percentage that we completed for the whole five years On the first one on the first graph and then on the second graph if that's for just for 2024 No, I saw that but it's just

I was trying to make it clear so you guys get the credit.

Yeah, and what's good is that since we just approved the 25 through 29 consolidated plan, you guys will actually get to see how it does increase over the years, over the next couple of years. And then on the page with the rental program, yeah. So this plant or this caper is closing out 2024. But, yeah, when we do 2025, we will put in there that that.

Program is no longer with the city of Pasco My question has to do with that as well on page 14, so does that because those Protocols aren't going to be in place anymore for the inspections and the licensure and that does that disqualify us from? some of the HUD monies or programs federally funded things that

No, it won't. So we are an entitlement state, so we get the money anyway. But our activities that we do, we just have to make sure that we are following into HUD's guidelines as far as, like, if I do a rehabilitation on a house, I can't do one on a rental property now because they don't have a license. So... Okay, thank you.

All right. I had one question on, it's on the big, big report on the, it's the 2024 results. It's not part, I don't think it's part of the CAPER, it's part of the annual detail report. And I was noticing on 2024 there's quite a few open applicants and they've taken partial draws. What is the, is that just because we're not complete with the year and they don't always take it all at once?

Yeah, so none of our subrecipients can actually turn in an invoice until we give them an agreement. We usually don't get our agreement from HUD until August or September. So a lot of them will then turn in just... one at a time instead of doing it for three quarters. And then what will happen is in January or February of the next year, we end up doing another draw to close out their program year.

That makes sense. Thanks. Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions from the commissioners before we move to public hearing? I know Commissioner Lehrman, did you have any on the phone?

Yes. Commissioner Lehrman, can you hear me?

Yep.

Yes, I could do that in the staff report.

Wonderful. Thank you very much for being open to that. Extra work. Appreciate it. And then back to Commissioner Jones. Yeah, for the last couple of years, I've been asked about administrative fees, and their office has done a fantastic job of keeping that number.

So when we received the letter back from HUD on the caper to close out the year, it actually will break it down whether or not we are meeting the intent of the funds or if we need to strive into another activity. And we have a really good HUD rep here that represents the Tri-Cities, and she's always there for us if we're needing to branch out or get in touch with other cities to see how they're doing something.

Wonderful. And part of your annual training, is there opportunities to learn from other Washington cities on what they do? that was kind of like a big house of success?

Yes, and we also learned from other states as well.

Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Commissioner Lerman. Yeah, I mean, I also want to commend staff for the, I mean, I know that the general administration planning, I think a lot of cities take the attitude that, well, if I can take up to 20, I'm taking all the 20, and you guys don't do that, and that's very prudent and frugal use of these funds, so I appreciate that, too, and congratulations on that. With that, if there's no more questions or comments from the commissioners, we will open the public hearing. So if there, I don't think we have anybody in the audience, but I will open it and I'll make our three calls for public comments. So going once, if there are any one for public comments on this item. Second call, going twice. And finally a third call. We will close the public hearing. And with that, with the public hearing closed, there is on page two of your package, there is a motion that staff has provided to suggest. If there are no further comments or questions for staff, I would entertain the motion on page two, or whatever motion you should receive it to put forward. Anybody find that or need that? It's right at the beginning of the package. Next one. Page two of this item. There you go. Back to that. Go ahead. All right, Commissioner Lehrman has moved and Commissioner Jones has seconded. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? All right, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. And with that, we have no, is there any other business that you want to discuss or any foretaste or foreview of what we have in the coming months?

Sure, yeah. I thought I'd just mention, I mean, we're like this close to getting a number of our projects under contract, whether it be the comp plan or the transportation system master plan, you know, the energy resilience. I mean, literally, I think, Potentially by the end of the week, we'll have one or two of them under contract, and certainly by next week, the rest. So I think next month we'll be kind of giving a little bit of an update on those efforts and bring that to you just to give you an update. And hopefully, you know, with some... maybe kind of thought to what the schedule might be and how the planning group will be able to get involved in those as well. So that's exciting. These are going to be fast-paced projects. The comp plan is, the draft is due end of June of 26, but aside from that one, like our transportation, the energy resilience, the regional climate action, that greenhouse gas effort, those are all due June of 25. So those are all very, very fast-paced projects. So we're working very quickly on those once we get them under contract. But a lot going on. And also, I just might add, we do have a new director of CED coming to the city at the end of April, and certainly we'll be bringing her to introduce you to her.

Excellent. We're excited. Super important for you folks to have any additional staff can help at this point. Absolutely. It's exciting. All right. Any other business questions? With that, hearing no other business, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved. Second?

All right. We moved and seconded, and the meeting is adjourned at 6.58 p.m. Thank you all.