Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

My name is Jerry Cochran. 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 States of America. Excellent. To begin tonight's meeting, I'd like to ask the clerk to call the roll.

Austin Crawford.

Here.

Pat Jones. Present. Kim Lennerman. Excused. Rob Waits.

Present.

Dana Crutchfield. Here. Brian Tungskiff. Here. Miguel Miranda.

Here.

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

Thank you very much. The Planning Commission is an advisory board made up of volunteers appointed by 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 grant allocations, and zoning code. The Planning Commission is tasked with considering the long-term growth and the development of the community, the impact of land use decisions on the 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 Spectrum cable, PSC channel 191, and will be rebroadcast several times during the next month. This meeting is also being recorded, so you can watch it on the City of Pasco's website, which is pasco-wa.gov. You can click on the video on demand link and select your meeting there. There are copies of the meeting agenda available on the back table, so you follow along with the meeting. At this time, I'd like to ask that you silence your cell phones to prevent interruptions during our 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 also to be fair. In addition, Washington state law prohibits the Planning Commission members from participating in discussions or decisions in which the member may have a direct interest or may be either benefited or harmed 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 it will be waived. First, are there any Planning Commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of the items on the agenda? All right, let the record show there were no declarations. Second, is there anyone in the audience this evening or online that would object to any Planning Commission member hearing any of the items on the agenda? Let the record show that were also no declarations. We as the Planning Commission need and value your input. It helps us to understand the issues more clearly and 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 into the official record the City Council will use to make its decision. I encourage you to take full advantage. The first item tonight is on the agenda is the approval of the meeting minutes. The meeting minutes from March 19th. We skipped April, so March 19th, 2026. These meeting minutes were provided or mailed out to you in advance. I trust the commissioners have the opportunity to take a look at them, and I would entertain a motion to approve or if there are questions or concerns or corrections.

Mr. Chairman, I'll move to approve the minutes. All right.

Commissioner Jones has moved. Second. All right. And Commissioner Crawford, right? Seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? All right. The meeting minutes have been unanimously approved. We have no old business or no public hearing, so we will jump right to workshop mode. And the first item on the agenda is the commercial land capacity. And I assume I will turn that over to Director Mattson. Okay.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Planning Commission. Today we have three presentations for the Planning Commission and no decision, formal decisions are requested, but direction is requested. And then I'll do some announcements about scheduling at the end of the meeting and introduce one of our newer staff here. So for the commercial and capacity review, this is part of the comprehensive plan update and There have been several updates provided to the Planning Commission already this year related to the comprehensive plan, and this topic specifically relates to the amount of commercial land that's available in Pasco. So I'll go through the background and review these different items that are shown here on the screen and then ask for input from the group. And like I mentioned, we're looking for policy direction, and as part of the land capacity analysis review for the comprehensive plan we looked at, the lane use map in Pasco and then existing uses in Pasco and we looked at how much residential we have in the city versus commercial uses versus industrial uses and there's not a hard and fast formula for every city that says you have to have this amount of commercial to be a well-functioning city in this amount of industrial and and so forth but we did look at with our consultants the size of Pasco in comparison Detroit cities and what a good mix of different uses would be for the city. And one of the key questions that we sought to ask was the amount of commercial. And that was something I noticed when I first arrived here over a year ago now. Had a lot of applicants coming into the city and property owners asking to convert commercial land to residential and at other cities I was working at we had a policy that you know you had to go through a very stringent process in order to convert to commercial and marketability I understand it if I owned a property and it was on commercial I would probably want to rezone it to residential because that's what is penciling right now and that's what's making money. Brick and mortar commercial, especially with online sales, is harder to build. Commercial is expensive and with remote work and how the market is changing, it is more marketable to build residential specifically in Pasco, that would be truck housing, maybe eventually into town homes. I don't know if we're quite there yet. So we do get quite a bit of requests. And that was something that concerned me. I anecdotally felt like, you know, Pasco, didn't have enough commercial land to start with, and if we lose any more, we may not be competitive as compared to the other cities in the Tri-Cities. So we sought to break it down and actually back this up by fax so that we could show the decision bodies this information. And I did present this very topic to our city council a few weeks ago to get their input as well as the Planning Commission's input tonight. And then we intend to bring all of the input to our consultant team and staff and work on it in form policies in the comprehensive plan update. So here are some stats where the city is at today. We have 532 acres of vacant commercial land and 143 acres of land that's underutilized. And that just means if you have a big parcel, let's say it's an acre, you've got like an auto shop maybe on the corner of it and the rest is vacant. That's considered underutilized. It's not fully built out. We currently can support 7,800 jobs of commercial jobs and then 13,000 jobs total, including industrial jobs. And we do have a projection of 13,000 new jobs by 2046, and that's commercial and industrial. And if you notice, we have just enough room with our commercial land use to support that. So it's a very sensitive figure that we have. If we do lose our commercial land, then we may be in a deficit. And when I mention commercial land, I'm speaking mostly of the sites zoned for commercial, but also the sites that have a land use designation of mixed use. And mixed use in Pasco is a designation that could yield residential uses or commercial uses. It's a horizontal requirement. And what I mean by that is the mixed use in Pasco means you can do residential or commercial or both. Some cities require the mixed use to be more vertical where you, if you are doing residential, it has to be above the first floor. So given our mixed use designation, the numbers could swing pretty easily to of what we have today with our commercial land capacity. We have received several land use amendment requests and land use amendment requests are also called comprehensive plan amendment requests. And that's that overarching land use layer for the city that designates where residential, commercial, and mixed use goes. And that's quite a lot. I'm used to seeing two to three a year. And I think because we're in the midst of the update, Daniel Levitt, our senior planner, and myself have been receiving a lot of interest from applicants. During the periodic update, the city is not required to take in any applications. So we can say no to all of them. So all of these 30 requests, we just of the goodness of our heart said they could send it to us and we'd look at them and if it aligns with our city goals we'd be happy to go ahead and make that change as a city-led action if it's a proposal that staff doesn't feel aligns with the comprehensive plan update we are going to politely ask the applicant to wait and apply next year when the window opens and the window will open Actually, the window will close next year, I think in May, for comprehensive plan amendment applications. So we'll ask them to submit next year. And then within those 30 proposals, I would say there was eight to 10 proposals where applicants were wanting to convert commercial to residential. And there was a couple hundred acres, I think, 100 to 200 acres, depending how you looked at it. And so we also have noted other amendment requests and, um, This is kind of a crazy number. It's just almost a little hard to wrap my head around. But when I first arrived here, I noticed that there was a lot of instances in Pasco where the zoning and the land use don't quite match. And that's just, I think, a result of over the years, changes happening maybe not in the most synchronized ways. It's not too out there for a city of this size that has grown this fast to have a map that's a little outdated. So when we looked at it, I originally thought, and I think when I built this presentation, that there was about 100 or more instances around town where there's synchronization issues. Well, when we looked at it closer, we found that there's actually 3,400 instances around town where the zones don't match the zoning. And I think the reason we haven't really heard of it, like from people, because you think, okay, If the map is goofed up in that many spots, why isn't there a line out the door? It's over historic properties or properties that are developed. So we're only aware of instances where people come in and say, I would like to develop this, and then we see the mismatch, and then we try and change the code. That most recently happened with the RS-20 zone. But there are instances around town where things don't quite match up. And it's not as easy as saying, well, just follow the land use. Is the land use right? Is the zoning right? So we have to do lots of digging. And I'll... On the second presentation, I'll let you know how we're looking to fix that, and it's a pretty cool idea, so I'm excited to share that. But back to the commercial land capacity, there's 61 to 167 acres affected if we were to approve the applicant's request, which we're not obligated to do this year. I'm looking ahead more to next year if we get these. We're going to be in a position where staff will likely discourage, they submit all of these applications, but they'll ultimately be up to the, I believe, rezones and comp plan amendments go to the, comp plan amendments go to Planning Commission and the City Council, and rezones go to hearing examiner. Sorry, just a little break in the brain there. Okay, so, as I mentioned, there's the commercial land capacity is a very sensitive number, and Based on our calculations, we have just enough to get us through the next 20 years based on our land capacity review alone. And that's aside from policy. So if we just crunch the numbers today and say we need X amount of jobs in the next 20 years, the amount of commercial land in Pasco is just enough to cover that. If we did want to make a policy and provide more commercial as it compares to other cities, we would be short of adding that. There is a table in your packet. I wish I had a graphic of it. Let me see if I can skip ahead and see if there's numbers. Nope, there's not numbers in there. So there is a table in the packet that shows the different amounts of commercial. I believe it's on page three of the staff report. And it shows percentage of land use designation. And it compares Pasco, Kennewick, Richland, Wenatchee, West Richland, and then Airway Heights. And it's a pretty interesting set of data there. Pasco is doing a fabulous job with its industrial base. So that's what sets us apart from the other tri-cities. And there's a lot of cities in Washington State that would, I think, kill to have this many living wage jobs in the industrial center. So Pasco has 30% of its land use designated for industrial jobs, which I think is fabulous. We have a great community, great synergy with the food processing uses as compared to the farming uses nearby. So Kennewick has 5%, Richland 22%, Wenatchee 10%. West Richland, 0.3. And then Airway Heights was kind of a funky city to compare to all of these, but Airway Heights had quite a bit of industrial uses there. So Pasco is doing fabulous in that area. We do have less residential than Kennewick, more than Richland. And then commercial, I would say we're pretty well aligned. And this is just based on our land use designation. So Pasco has 10% total commercial land. as compared to Kennewick, which is 12. But Kennewick, as you may know, has already built out a lot more than Pasco. We have a lot of opportunity to build up and out in our commercial zones. Richland's a little less than Pasco at 9%, Wenatchee's 8%, West Richland, 9 1⁄2. So I would say our commercial base right now is doing pretty good compared to the other cities, if we can keep it and maintain it and just hold the line over time. And the thing that's hard about it, I guess from a policy direction from your group and the council, it's easy for me to say, the ced director because i don't make the final decision on it it's you know people in the community people who want to potentially turn their property over or make money and who are we to say you know keep it commercial even if it won't you know develop for 30 years so that's that's a tough decision and um we had a similar issue in the last city i worked at marysville similar size it was with industrial uses and there was a industrial center that the city had designated I think in the early 2000s, and it was 4,000 acres of farmland that the city designated as industrial use only. And basically for 20 years, the city of Marysville took a stance, we're not going to rezone any of this area to residential, and it was hard. It was flat, dry ground, which is very, um you know unique or not or very hard to come by over on the west side and the city held the line and said we have a vision we want this to be a job center marysville doesn't have jobs there was a bedroom community and it was hard in the council it was hard for the council to serve for the planning commission then what do you know um right after COVID in 2020 that area just completely blew up and of that 2,000 acres 75% of it was entitled within like three to four years when I got there so the sometimes you have to make these tough decisions for the city long term in exchange for you know some short-term pain which is hard so I just didn't want to be ignorant to that fact by telling you all that I think we should keep the commercial um you know maintained but I do know it's tough and I just want to point that out So what I'm recommending in order to maintain these long-term impacts that could happen is to maintain the existing commercial at the very least and hold the line and make policies in place in the comprehensive plan that make it very difficult or almost impossible to convert commercial land to residential designations. And Epasco does have quite a bit of residential land designated. So I believe that from a land use standpoint, we have plenty of room for housing. And we are required to densify more with middle housing, as we've already touched on. And here are the impacts that we could see if we do not maintain that line with the commercial uses. that are listed here on the screen. It is very difficult to replace. And I think where we have the commercial now, Long Main Arterials, it's consolidated around busy intersections. It has visibility on I-5. We have a lot of commercial on Broadmoor. I think it's very strategically placed in Pasco. And it also does align with our economic development goals so that people living here They have places to work. We have a good, robust industrial base. We'd like to get higher-paying jobs just to do a better mix of that for people that live in Pasco. But we'd also like to provide opportunities that are destinations, such as the Aquatic Center, where you're bringing other people from other cities into Pasco. When they're going to the Aquatic Center, hopefully they stop and get a cup of coffee somewhere, gas up. spend their money in Pasco. We want to leave the commercial base open as well from an economic development standpoint so that we can provide more opportunities for a regional destination like North 40 or just something cool that brings other people from the area into our city to spend their money. So I've kind of skipped ahead on some of these slides and sorry that says council, should say planning commission. There are some alternatives that the Planning Commission could consider. My first and foremost recommendation would be to instruct staff to build policies that make it difficult to convert commercial to residential. And there are a few bills coming down at the state level that are from Washington state, and there's one related to commercial where cities cannot ban residential from placing itself in commercial, which really does the opposite of what I'm doing here tonight. and unbinds that, but we did advocate very hard at the state level when this bill was coming through this year, and we were able to protect the Broadmoor area, being that it was a tax increment financing district, and that's how it was set up. So that area is a safe haven, and then there's certain percentages in the city where you can harbor your commercial, and there's some ways that we're working through with the consultants. So I would put that issue in a different bucket for now and just assume that I'm talking about not losing commercial and we're gonna deal with the state regulation as a separate item, staff still needs to dig into that. So with the current requests that aren't even formal requests, staff is intending on informing the applicants that we do not wish to consider their proposals at this time to convert the land from commercial to residential and they can submit next year if they'd like to, but we discourage it. And then one consideration is if you are converting commercial, if you can replace it within the vicinity, that's something we might be able to look at too, but basically staff is recommending that we hold the line and build policies in place so that we can do this. So I am happy to answer any questions, kind of a bigger, for the group, would appreciate any feedback that you have.

Commissioner Crutchfield.

It's not a question, but it's just a commendation or an agreement with what you've presented. I think once the commercial is given up, it's obviously difficult to get back. I think you pointed out that we have abundant housing going up all over. I think that As you mentioned, the commercial development is representing usage for all in the form of you made the mention of an aquatic center or those kind of things, not just a particular individual who wants to make money off of a particular piece of property by converting it into residential that we already have an abundance of. So I support what your recommendation is. And the other thing I might add, too, about the increase of residential right now where the City of Pasco is short on the code aspect, the code enforcement. Grow, grow, grow is great, but you have to be able to manage and maintain what you're building out, and with what the Code Enforcement Office has currently, I know they've hired two temporary ones, I was told, to help with a staff of one, but that is, that's pretty narrow for what they have to deal with. So, anyway, thank you. That was all.

Thank you, Commissioner Kressfield. Commissioner Jones, I see you.

Thank you very much. Cities planning groups have an obligation to plan for now, tomorrow, and the future. And that can be very difficult. As was said, people don't want land to be held back or this and that to be done because there's a short-term vision to make money. But there's an obligation that groups have such as ours and the city council to look to the future and I think this addresses that very well. When I was reading this over, there's some things I marked and stuff I'd like to just point out you want to look that these highlights that I highlighted I think you'll find that they're very highlighting page two first of all the bottom two paragraphs are very important that the city's received 30 approximately 30 land use amendment requests and that's danger danger because as those start being chipped away, it doesn't look too bad. So we'll just approve this one or we'll just approve this one. But all of a sudden it's 25 and then it's 20 and then all this land has dissolved away. And so I think it's very important that those be placed on hold or this land be very much protected and long-term planning be in place. The bottom paragraph talks about the reduction of the acres, how it would, barely support the city's need in the future. So that's my comments from page two. Page four, the second paragraph has a charming little term called retail leakage. I think that's a charming way to put it. We hear, I've only lived here three years now, but I know everybody talks about the need for more retail. And so to make conscious decisions that allow that to keep happening I think is a short and long term mistake. A couple paragraphs down under impact, it says the last part of a sentence there is commercial land cannot easily be intensified or replaced once lost. No one's making more land. There's only X amount of land. So we have to be careful. Converting commercial land to residential, reduces the city's ability to attract retail and destination uses. We can only offer what we have. And as that, again, as that goes away, it's a lot harder to recruit and bring the kind of businesses that we want. Then page five, community expertise. This is the bulletin items, the fourth bulletin item. Community expectations, residents continue to express a need for more retail, dining and neighborhood services. Well you have to have commercial land to do that and so that land has to be available. There's so many wise things in this report that say that and underscore that and I really appreciate this report and I support it 100%. It's interesting, the third bullet going down to the next chunk of bullets, opportunities, for commercial development in your own city helps reduce travel demand. Just think, if we had more services here, there'd be less of us driving to Richland or Kennewick or somewhere, and that can actually reduce the impact on travel and make traffic problems kind of go away. The bottom of page five, second paragraph from the bottom, Preserving commercial land is not only about job capacity, but also about competitiveness within the Tri-Cities region, yep. And then the very bottom paragraph there, the short paragraph, the last half of the sentence, planning for spending to occur somewhere else. The spending on dining and retail. We all know that the spending will take place. That's a given. That's 100% guaranteed. The spending will occur. It's just a matter of where will it take place. And hopefully, as planning groups, as city councils, we can look at the short and long-term impact of these kinds of things and make wise decisions to support that. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner Jones. Go ahead.

I think I did all that in one breath. Yeah, that was impressive. When I look at this, the percentage of land use designation, I feel like when a city grows successfully, it grows balanced. And I see a glaring disparity here in the percentage of land use when it comes to commercial. We're obviously not gonna be getting a whole lot more, but I think it's pretty detrimental to the city's growth and the future tax base and the future revenue opportunities if we give this up to residential land use. There was mentioned earlier with the Aquatic Center, that's gonna be a destination entity that is going to draw people here, whether it's just for recreation potential swim meets, which is gonna bring schools and parents, so it's gonna bring the opportunity for hotels and restaurants, not including other big business opportunities in the Broadmere area. So I'm a big advocate for holding on to our commercial land, if not utilizing some of the mixed use land zoning areas to incorporate maybe residential with commercial growth. Thank you.

Well, so far you're three out of seven. So any other commissioners want to comment or weigh in with their feedback?

Just have a clarifying question on the kind of directions from here. One of them was direct staff to evaluate requests case by case, and I want to make sure I understand that if that was one of the options or if it was just to delay to a later point, and also understand the workload that that caused. I don't want to just lay out a workload for people when it's more difficult, but I want to make sure as the city we're still responding to citizens and looking at it.

Yeah, we will certainly look at everything case by case with applicants. We don't tend to just blow people off. We'll go through it and say, you know, let's look at your proposal. I think we have a few meetings coming up, too, with a few of the applicants just to see if they could maybe revise the proposal. If they can do commercial on the bottom and residential on top, I think we'd be amendable to it. So case by case, I think we'd look at it and try and find... there's some middle ground or just find a way not to lose commercial and if the you know sole intent is to lose commercial and replace with residential it will probably be a conversation where we can't necessarily get to yes in that in that instance and for the record I'm I'm in agreement with protecting the commercial but want to make sure we're listening because there are instances sometimes where there's a pocket of something that doesn't Yep, we will hear them out. And customer service is a big deal for our department. And so we do want to at least give everyone a chance to explain themselves. And I'll usually run it by the city manager's office or even bring, you know, the topic to council and planning commission, which is why you guys are getting this is because we had so many applications and I didn't feel comfortable shutting down these, even though I had an inclination that, you know, there could be a problem. Like we typically will bring If there's a big theme from the development community, bring it in front of the groups first just to make sure we're not going one way and your groups, I'm sorry for saying you guys, your bodies would like to go a different direction.

No, perfect. Thank you. What I look at this is there's three points that I think that we, that I would like the council to consider here is A, disincentivizing anybody to change their commercial property to residential. B, incentivize businesses to actually build on the commercial properties, bring them in. That may be increasing the time limit for permits, getting permits faster. I know as I talk to businesses around town, that's a huge complaint with what's going on with Pasco. And the third one would be to make it more difficult in our code to actually change anything as far as rezoning.

Thank you, and I appreciate that. We are working on improving our timelines. There is a long history of inefficiencies, and I'm not necessarily saying it's anybody on staff that is to blame, if I were to say it that way. I think the systems in place were very outdated and clunky. This year, I believe it was this year, yeah, this year was the first year we took online payments, so there's just a lot of things they were behind the times. People needed to come in and pay with a check, which was frustrating. You know, that actually kept me up at night, to be honest, before I even started working here. And just to fix those things, you just think it's so easy, but it, you know, you have to go through all of these loops and hurdles and governments set up to function slow, unfortunately, sometimes to get those things through because you're using the public's money. So you have to be careful. But yeah, there was a lot of inefficiencies with the system and we are just now getting our permits on the portal so the applicants can apply from the comfort of their home and office and pay online. So we are very sensitive to that. We're not quite there yet. We're not in a place where, you know, I'm feeling like a well-oiled machine with the department, but we're getting there. And we did have a lot of staff vacancies and culture and reputation and a lot of things to get through and I think the group we have now is fabulous and we're ready to go and make it better so it will happen over time but I really appreciate you bringing that up.

Great, yeah, no, I think, I don't know that the commissioners are always in a complete agreement, but it sounds like we're in complete agreement in supporting you and your position to limit or create hurdles for commercial to residential conversion. The other thing that hasn't been mentioned that you might emphasize with others is that it's also a fiscal issue, right, is the more commercial and industrial generate much needed sales tax revenue for PASCO that we desperately need. Residential doesn't. It generates property tax for the state and the county. And so it actually makes the problem worse because residential drives up infrastructure costs that then requires more sales tax and so if you lose residential, you're losing the ability to create that tax. For me it's also a purely fiscal issue that we already have enough residential generating infrastructure costs without the commercial to generate the tax recovery. And so from that reason alone the council should say we're already in trouble to the tune of 10 or 15 million dollars with the sales tax issue, and we need all the sales tax we can get. So I'm 100%. One of the things I was going to ask you is, of the mixed use, do we have an idea of how much of the mixed use is being populated with residential versus commercial? Because that might be an interesting metric to understand, because you could go into a mixed use and say, well, yeah, we have mixed use, but 90% of it is residential, right? And it'd be nice to know kind of how that mixed use is really being used. And even actually have some guidelines about are we actually too heavily emphasizing residential and mixed, right?

Yes, and great question. This presentation focused just more simply on commercial residential, but mixed use is being mainly used for residential. And there have been a handful of rezones that have occurred since I've been here. under the land use mixed use designation that have gone from commercial to residential because we don't have policies. So this is like another reason I brought it up. You know, there wasn't really, yeah, policies to guide it. So we can't, in my opinion, can't turn away applicants if we don't have codes that support it. just because we don't like it or we think something. So I think if we don't like how the codes are working, we should change them instead of pulling out the rug from applicants. But there's been quite a bit. So I would say most mixed use is being used for residential, and a lot of people are trying to convert it. We have seen a few recently that went to the hearing examiner where there was a little bit of a mix of commercial and residential in key areas, but I would say a lot of it is residential right now.

Well, it might be something for future consideration to try to have some sort of guideline about the percentage mix.

Yes, and we are looking into that. There's a state guideline that's hampering us a little bit in that area, but based on the feedback from this group, we will look at ways to preserve it. In the next presentation, I'll be able to touch on a couple ideas that we have.

Yeah, on that line of thought, the synchronicity issues that you're talking about, how much does that affect the table that we have in here of percentage of land use? Would that make a big difference?

That's a good question. I believe this table is based on the land use designation, and what we're going to do is fix the land use layer first, so I believe we'll keep the general statistics here. I think what we're going to do is mainly fix the zones underneath.

Okay.

So I would say hopefully it stays similar. If we do find that we're losing commercial with trying to fix the discrepancies, I would say we'd probably want to stick to the commercial land use in all instances to preserve that and rezone what's underneath it.

Yeah. I mean, if we're at 10%, just the research I've done on it, that's the floor that we want to be at as far as commercial. Exactly. We want to maintain as much as we can, if not grow.

Yes. And we will look at ways to maybe add commercial to like North. It doesn't, you know, the connectivity starts to get lost the further up North you go. So something we're going to be looking at and, and you're right chair on the, the taxes, the residential uses are net drain on city fiscal resources. We do get a jump in sales tax for the construction. It's pretty nice with when residential is constructed, but overall it's a net drain on the city. And that's a common misconception I hear from the public. among many other things, but I hear, you know, someone's making money off this residential development and we're absolutely not making money. It's a net drain on resources. People beat up the roads, they flush the toilets, they use the city, which they should, but it is a net drain on resources. You're right.

All right, any more comments or feedback for staff? Sounds like you have good support and alignment with you and the council on this issue. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to say the presentation was very insightful, so thank you for that. I just had, I guess, a clarifying question. When it came to Sometimes around Pasco you'll find residential properties. They might be, you know, one unit, two units. They have a commercial zoning to them. I guess how does the city feel about conversions of those commercial zones to residential? A lot of times these property owners want to rezone them because they're currently used for residential and it's hard to sell those properties when they have that commercial zoning.

Yep. And that's a fabulous question. That was actually something I covered with our city manager a couple weeks ago about we want to be sensitive to just blindly rezoning properties so that people are not left with illegal non-conforming use. In some situations, I think like downtown is the best example where you see more historic homes on a lot, and there's definitely, they're worth... So to demo it and rebuild is very expensive. So a lot of people like to stay and use it as a residential use. if it's owned commercial and there's a vision for a downtown area, we do want to leave it commercial, but still grandfather that use, it is harder to get loans or financing in some situations, but the code now allows you to continue to use it as a home. You just can't necessarily like expand on it. And if it be, I'm not sure what the timeframe is in Pasco, but general non-conforming rules say if it's a house and it gets abandoned and it's not used for two years, then the commercial designation would apply. So I don't know if we have, to answer your specific question, we're not proposing to convert those grandfathered homes into residential zoning if it lines up with where we want commercial, because that's part of the 10% that I've shared with the group. But when we're looking at it, if there's any situation where it's zoned residential, or even lane use commercial, we need to make sure we're communicating with the property owners and noting that. And then in some situations we could do like, instead of saying it's a legal non-conforming use, we can just say it's an outright permitted use if it was in existence prior to 2026, just to make it really easy for financing and not, you know, make it harder on them. So those are things that we will be thinking about as we go through all of these instances by hand with our consultant. So good point. Thank you.

All right, if there's no other feedback on this issue, we can move on to the Unified Code Development presentation.

Thank you, Chair. And this is another big project that staff is working on in parallel to the comprehensive plan. And it's the first wave of big updates to the PASCO Municipal Code to make it more user-friendly for the community. And this goes back to the customer service and the feedback we've heard from the community and the HBA on PASCO and their ability to navigate through the permit process here easily. So there's the technology side, which I touched on earlier, and then there's the policy side and the municipal code that is out of date in several areas. So this project is threefold. First, we want to comply with the new state mandates and the state mandates over the last five to six years that PASCO hasn't addressed. So we are behind on addressing some state regulations. And so we will go through and make sure that we are compliant at the state level. And then the second goal is to implement the comprehensive plan update. So if there's middle housing requirements or goals related to the comprehensive plan that we just talked about, for example, the commercial policies, we'd like to fold those into the municipal code where it makes sense. And then clarify our development code. Right now it's, and I don't want to sound like I'm picking on Pasco because similar to the map, it's not uncommon for a city that's this big that has grown this fast to have outdated policies. You just grow super fast. You double and triple and then your codes are all of a sudden behind. So I don't mean any disrespect to Pasco or how the codes read. It's just a fact that a lot of our codes are behind cryptic, historic, and hard to use. So what we want to do is improve clarity and just make it easy to read. You know, my opinion, and I would say probably every applicant agrees with me and staff, you know, if you read the code and you have to read it three or four different times to even remotely try and understand what it means, it's not a good code. It should be very simple. It doesn't need hereby, where art thou, like old cryptic language in there. It should just say, you know, your parking stall should be eight by ten and just really easy to understand with pictures. So that's what we're going toward. It will be a multi-year process. But this year, what we're focusing on mainly is like the permit types, the zones, what's allowed in zones and, you know, defining that and then defining the process you go through. So just pretty much back to the basics is what we're focusing on with this update. These are some of the key state mandates that we are addressing. We've talked about a lot of these and there's more coming. after this year's legislative session. And part of this is updating the comprehensive plan map, the future land use map, which is another acronym called FLUM that's on the screen. And this is just a color coded map of the city. This would have been helpful in the last presentation. Those dark red colors that you see are where we generally have commercial land use designations that follow the main arterials in town and along I-82. Then can you click on the, just click anywhere on that slide and we'll liven it back up for me. There we go. Thank you. No, you're fine. So these are the different areas of the code that we are looking to revise. So as you can see, there's several other titles that need some work, but this year we're focusing on the zoning and the subdivision regulations. And these are like a more zoomed in or detailed list of what we're trying to do. And so when we audited the code, we found that with the zoning, we have so many zones in PASCO and they all start looking alike. So if you see that table on the screen, classifications on the left. So the classification is the land use, low density, residential, medium, high, commercial, mixed use. And then on the right, it shows all of the zones that fit under each classification. And so Pasco, I think, has had a history of adding zones over time for specific situations, which I think can or can't be warranted depending on how you look at it. I think Pasco is a bit zone heavy. We have so many zones. And with middle housing coming into play, it actually, since the requirements are the same for all lots that are zone residential at the state level, these zones start looking like very similar to each other. So there's really not a huge distinction between the zones after you apply the state middle housing regulations. So for example, the state says you are required to allow four to six middle housing units per lot citywide. Well, when you start looking at each lot and the distinctions currently, that doesn't really make them much different. So what we're trying to do is consolidate the zones and make it more user-friendly for the community and easier and more streamlined. So what we're planning to do, and here's the densities that are shown on the screen. So on the left-hand side of that table, you can see the zoning classification, and then on the right side, you can see the densities. And they are distinct right now, but then, like I said, when you add middle housing, they all start looking similar. And the current density in Pasco, not trying to get too much into the weeds here, it's based on units per acre. And the state has required that cities do units per lot, which sort of just shifts the mindset. So it's hard to understand right now. I think the best way to show it to this group and council is when we do the code change and then I can show you photos and how the density will work out after the state implements it. We also do want to add some pictures into the standards and these tables are extremely hard to see, but just make the tables and development standards easier where there's a photo on the left and then a table on the right that tells you what the standards are for each zone so that they're easier to follow. And then we are under utilizing some of our properties in PASCO and this is just an example showing like our current issues with the zone. For example, the R1 zone, if you start at the very left of the screen, it allows for one single family home on a 4,000 square foot lot. And then if you do three attached single family dwelling units, which is around the same size of a house, you have to have a lot that's three times as big to facilitate that. And then if you do a triplex, the lot can be smaller. And then a triplex plus ADU, the lot can be a little bigger. So there's just some synchronization that we'd like to fix within the zones to make it make more sense and then comply with state guidelines. And the commercial zones, same thing. We have seven commercial zones. We think we can easily condense this down because a lot of the zones share the same uses that are allowed. And there's not huge distinctions between those. So this is the fun part on the left hand side of the screen. You see, it looks like DNA, that colored rectangular current, current shape there that shows all of our zones color coded. And what we'd like to do is condense the zones down to 10 or 11 zones citywide. And it sounds pretty scary when you first look at it, but if you don't, if you're following me on the zones are all starting to sound the same because of mental housing, then it makes sense to combine the residential zones into one neighborhood residential zone. There is one change that I have suggested since this table was provided and it relates to the neighborhood residential zone. I would like to, create a neighborhood residential zone for the north end of town that allows for higher densities and maybe the more dense middle housing types. So the six plex, five plex, four plex. We can pick six out of the nine and we don't have to choose the same six through the whole city. So what I was thinking based on feedback I've received from council and the planning commission on the Riverview area is that the north end of town, we can do neighborhood residential and maybe pick those higher dense middle housing types. And then in the Riverview area, we can't say no to middle housing altogether. We've already gone over that, but maybe we can pick the, you know, cottage housing, duplex, triplex, and the lower amount of unit types so that there's just a lower density. And then maybe down in the Riverview area, we have slightly bigger setbacks, maybe more buffering requirements, and just be more thoughtful about middle housing down in the south end of town. The city council is also looking at the Riverview area and exempting frontage improvement requirements. That's a code that actually is under council's purview because it's a development standard. So they're wanting to make that more of a county development standard. Staff provided a recommendation and they're giving us direction on that and we're working through that. So that's what I was thinking, we could do two different zones, one in the north end of town, one in the south, and the south being like less intense where we can. And then the other zones consolidating moderate residential, so those multifamily zones would be combined into one. And then mixed use, we would still have a mixed use zone or a mixed use and commercial zone. So we're still working on it. Currently the downtown area has a buffer around it that is consistent with the downtown master plan. We'd like to create an actual downtown master plan zone as well. So there's the zone cleanup is the moral of this slide, is what we're proposing to do with this code update. Does anyone have questions on the zoning before I go to the next slide? Yes, so neighborhood commercial. I'm not sure if the state passed the regulation at the state level. If not, I'm thinking it'll happen next year where neighborhood commercial uses like your corner store in the residential areas would be a requirement at the state level. But that is what we're envisioning is in some of these neighborhoods where there's an arterial maybe where it's too busy intersections that some light neighborhood commercial uses such as a corner store be allowed. You know, I think you can zone it in a way where it is a true corner store and not a 7-Eleven or, you know, some things that people don't necessarily want in their neighborhood, what I've heard just anecdotally. But that would be the neighborhood commercial zone. So all of this would be presented to you in the form of a zoning map. And, you know, like I've mentioned before, we are planning on coming back in the fall and just having pretty much busy meetings all the way through the end of the year. So we'll have a lot of work to go through related to this code change and the comprehensive plan updates. but we'd touch on that and where we're thinking in more detail later.

I remember how hot the arguments were about that Argent corner store, so you have to be really careful, but like you said, you've got to be, if the state's pushing it, then we've got to figure out the lightest possible compliance.

And we could say this is a potential area for neighborhood, like let's say I bring it to the group and say it's not required yet, it's optional, and the group feels strongly that maybe we're not ready for it, we can just, zone it neighborhood residential and say potential future neighborhood commercial, based on state guidelines or something and delineate it that way, but not require it at that time.

Thank you. Just two things. The changing of all of the low density residential zoning, all that stuff, combining into just a NR, a new zone, my only, hesitation seeing something like that is somewhere along the line, groups before us, both staff and council members, elected or appointed, saw a need to have separate zones to address specific things, whether it be low income, high income, and all points in between. My concern is when these kinds of things get consolidated, the upper level and middle level get a lot of attention paid to them, the needs of the low income areas and those kinds of things sometimes get lost in the shuffle. I would ask that that, you know, a lot of concern and hesitation be applied to the consolidation of all that. Because that's, I made a note in here when I was reading this, that was a concern that I had. The other one, this kind of ties into that, different zones for different parts of towns, different rules for different people, have versus have nots. Is that something that's going to come from this as well, where you live in this part of town, these rules apply to you, but if you live in this part of the town, these rules apply to you, whether you're a builder or you live there or a developer or whatever. The perception of those things, as the chairman reads in our introduction, That may not be the intent, but that kind of slapped me in the face a little bit as a perception. Not real, but perhaps that's how I, that's one of the things that concerned me about it. So you're stopping us for questions right at this point is perfect because those were the ones I had on this. So I toss that into the mix for consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. And we will look at that closely. Um, I think the general idea with the separation and, and our zones is the north end of town is largely undeveloped. So it's more of a blank slate. And in my opinion, the best place to put the highest density, because they don't know any different instead of densifying greatly in an existing neighborhood where people have their existing properties, not saying that we can protect it altogether, but I think that that usually goes over better. from a development standpoint.

Yes, thank you, Director Madsen, because I, I think it's important that you are considering that, as you mentioned, the lower density, the bigger setbacks, to the development that's there, that's been there, their neighborhoods. And then again, you're focusing more on the apartments that are up in the north end. It kind of fits. It fits that area, but I don't see that it has a have or a have not. I don't see it that way. I just see it as development that meets the existing and maybe the future vision for Pasco. Thank you for that.

As well as being able to support the existing infrastructure in that area that was built with that intention, the north being a blank slate to your point, we can build infrastructure that will support that kind of high density living.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna bring up, is the existing infrastructure. Argent was mentioned, and a lot of the infrastructure in the south of the town is already established with houses close to the street, and a business is going to bring in a lot of traffic where it's intersection, and they're gonna be next to intersections that will largely need reworking or widening, which is gonna be another additional issue for getting traffic safely in and out of there.

Good points. Okay, and we can certainly touch on zoning too at the end if you'd like. I just wanted to pause there because that's a pretty heavy topic, but we will be sure and cover this in great detail with you at the end of the year. It won't just appear in code without your approval. Downtown zone, I mentioned that, and then neighborhood commercial, We already actually received a question about this, but small nodes that would allow commercial, and this is what we are envisioning here. Just a nice, cute corner store that you can go get a gallon of milk from or some eggs or butter on your way home. Yeah, I love that design. But that's what we're envisioning, something like this for that concept. And then moderate residential, this is more of like middle housing focus, but maybe a walkable community. and near schools, parks, and commercial districts. And then the permitting process, I could probably talk about this forever, so I'll just be quick. We just want the permit process to be easier to understand and navigate is the short of it. What permit are you getting, why do you need it, and what process is it going through? And that's not clear in code right now. We are making a lot of inferences in the code, how to tackle it, what process to take it through. and it's frustrating for staff and applicants. And so we want it to be crystal clear, like this is what you're doing and this is the process you follow and just black and white. So we are working on fixing that. And best way that we found to do it is to divide permits out by types. So if you're building a ADU, that's type one, that just goes through administrative process. And then there's different types if you are doing something more complex than it goes through different processes. And it just walks you through which decision it goes through, timelines. And ideally, we want this all mapped out in the permit system. So when you apply, you know what you're in for from start to finish, and it'll be easy to follow. So next steps, we are working through the code audit currently. And then we do want to get feedback from the community on the code change, mainly targeting the HBA and real estate agents to weigh in on it. I would say applicants and the community, you know, what is your input on this code? And what we intend to do is say, we're going to focus on these three areas right now, zoning, permit process and state mandates because we have to, and we just don't have enough resources to really expand outside of that, but I would love to get as much input from the community. We've got a list of know 50 to 100 coachings like co-changes already that we plan to start working on next year in-house with with staff so we want to do some light outreach nothing too complex i would say we notice it in the you know to our applicant list maybe on facebook maybe some outreach to the community and just ask them to review it and give us feedback so we will incorporate that and then we will come back to planning commission likely in september for for final feedback on the update and then bring it to council in October or November. So we wanted to give you the big things now just to test the water. So if we were, you know, if you didn't like the zoning approach or something we were doing, we want to know now. So we're not bringing you a huge surprise later on in the year. And here's the timeline that I discussed. So happy for any input that you may have on this. Otherwise you will see it in a few months once we get further along.

Well, I applaud the approach and ambitious kind of thing to simplify, make the permitting, simplify the code, simplify the zones. I think those are really great efforts that developers and citizens will really appreciate. One thing we can talk about offline, you may consider whether it's through consultants or your own internal city IT staff is, I'm familiar with a project with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission where permitting for nuclear plants, power plants, is a pretty complex code and permitting process. And they're using AI acceleration to not only help with filing and applying for the permits, but doing the analysis of the permits. And it's making nuclear power plant authorizations just like accelerate through the roof. And so taking your complex PASCO code and actually applying some tools to it, being able to, even as you consolidate and simplify the tool, the code, it actually could help you do that. So interesting thing to explore with your IT folks. All right, any other feedback on this project or this kind of effort here from the commissioners? All right, we can move on. We'll see more this fall, and I think it's great that you're taking on this effort. Less restrictive alternative housing outreach is the next topic.

Okay, not the most fun topic for the group after the first two, which I think were fun, zoning and code changes. This is an update for the Planning Commission. This is typically a code change that would come to your group, and I wanted to just be transparent with you that There was a history in PASCO that I noticed when I got here that there was a lot of topics that bypassed the Planning Commission and went straight to the council level. And I'm not saying that that was good or bad. I'm sure there's plenty of reasons for it. But typically, most code changes go through the Planning Commission, specifically under the zoning code and the different titles that you oversee. So just moving forward, I want to let you know that most code changes if not all code changes that should start with you will be starting with you unless there's a good reason so there's a few that came through this year that had started with a previous Council like the special events code update and then there's one other that I'm forgetting that did bypass the Planning Commission and this is another one that actually there was a decision made um with my recommendation to bypass planning commission just based on the timing of this and what happened is there was a um a six of under housing use that was um proposed in kennewick i'm sure most who hasn't heard about it is anybody okay looks like everybody's heard about it. So it did cause quite a stir in the Tri-Cities area where there was a less restrictive alternative housing proposal approved in a neighborhood in Kennewick that would allow for sexually violent predators to live in the home, that they did have the likelihood of reoffending. So the neighborhood obviously wasn't happy about that. And there are very strict state policies related to it that inhibits the city from preventing it altogether. And I think that use did catch that community by surprise. Pascal, along with I think the other cities in the area, worked to look into this to use it as a way to look at our own codes. For good or for bad, PESCO did not have a code in place that regulated this type of housing. So that actually helped us. Best practice would have been to have this use in code and say, here's the way it can and can't go, so that we weren't caught off by surprise. But since we didn't have it mentioned in code anywhere, the city was able to... to do a moratorium, which means this use is not allowed until we can build a code to do it. So we did that several months ago with council, and the moratorium ends, I believe, in July or August. August, thank you. So sometime in August, the moratorium ends, and we've been advised not to extend it. So we do need to get a code in place, and that's what we've been working on over the last few months. And we do have a draft code that's going to council for initial public input on June 1st. So that will be in the council packet. If the planning commission does have comments, I would say please review it and send me an email and I'll be sure and cover that with the council if you have feedback on it. So I just wanted to let you know what we're doing and then let you ask questions and kind of keep you in the loop. So we're not, you know, we are technically bypassing the group, but I do want to keep you included in this topic since it is a very sensitive topic for the community. This is a presentation that we had drafted for outreach and we did do four outreach events. Three of them were at different schools in Pasco at different times and then we had an event during the day. So we've done extensive public outreach for this and we've asked for input and with these uses I'll just define them so that we know kind of what we're talking about since there's a lot of So LRA is less restrictive alternative housing. And this is when individuals are ordered by the court to be placed in the community instead of full confinement. So this is similar to the home that you may be familiar with in Kennewick. And in those homes, These individuals are conditionally released from the state custody and treatment, and they have more limited supervision, but it's a third party that's hired by the state to watch these individuals. And there's certain rules they can't leave unattended and they're monitored and whatnot. And the individuals in these LRA homes that can be located in neighborhoods could have sexually violent predators or folks with behavioral health issues or coming out of state psychiatric situations. That's what an LRA is. And then a secure community transition facility, that's a specialized residential facility for certain civilly committed sexually violent predators transitioning from refinement. And there was an island, I think McNeil Island over on the west side that housed a lot of these inmates that I think the state is pushing to spread these folks around the state, maybe for funding reasons. I don't even know if the island is still in operation. These aren't new on the west side. These are actually fairly common. I think we were just several years behind from the west side. So we're just now starting to see these in the Tri-Cities. So this actually isn't really a new topic for me or for the west side. It's just new for Tri-Cities. So we are working to build a code to regulate these facilities and these As shown on the screen the city can't prohibit these uses entirely The state does not allow you to say we don't want this in our city. We we're going to ban this use We're not allowed to do that so we we are looking at these facilities and where they can be cited within the city and with LRAs which I mentioned They can be operated by private providers and they're required to meet state mandates. So there's not a lot we can do in addition to it. So we can't say, well, we're going to have our police guard the house 24 seven. It's, you know, that from a funding standpoint, probably not the best idea, but there's certain operational procedures that the state requires them to follow. And we can't necessarily go above and beyond. They're supposed to be supervised and secure and they need to follow those certain rules and we can't add more to it. We can't say, we don't like the state supervision rules, we want this house to be locked up 24-7 and never let anyone leave. We don't have that jurisdiction. Same with secure community transition facilities. This is run and managed by the state. I think we'll see less of these. This is like a facility that you would see the state build and it would have the state logo on it run by state employees. These facilities like what happened in Kennewick is what we'd be more likely to see in Pasco. So what are we doing? I already mentioned this. We adopted a moratorium. We have been working very closely with our legal staff and with the other cities on this topic to tackle it. So we have a six-month moratorium that's in place. So if anybody applies now or if they did before, we would just say we can't accept your application. We have a moratorium. And we're currently working through siting regulations. I do have... a draft that will be published on Tuesday that will be available to the public and it'll show a map. I have a little sneak peek of the map right here. It's Pasco covered in blue. All the blue areas is where you cannot locate this facility because there's certain things you can buffer from. So that will be in the packet and we'll describe what the map means and all of those stipulations. I can give you a sneak peek on what we can buffer from. Based on legal's advice, we can buffer this use from, thank you for printing this for me, Carmen. It's very helpful. Risk potential activities and facilities. So these facilities can be located away from RPAs. It's another acronym. And RPAs can be public schools, private schools, school bus stops, licensed daycares, public parks, publicly dedicated trails, sports fields, playgrounds, recreation, and community centers, churches, temples, mosques, public libraries, public and private youth camps, and others identified by the department in some RCW reference. So there's quite a bit of areas you can buffer from. And we have created this map as a starting point. Where we see the most vacant areas in town is the north end of town where there's not any of these uses established. It's vacant farmland. So that would be the most likely area for this to locate. Looks like a few areas down in the Riverview and then Broadmoor area too. So we're working on this. I wouldn't panic at this point. We will release the map. We can do... you know, what the state allows there. And we are trying to be as restrictive as possible because that's what we heard from the community. That's what we've heard from council. And that's what I assume, you know, I would hear from this group too. Um, so we are going to the max extent feasible, um, while limiting our risk legally, because if we do go too far, we could get sued and that wouldn't be good for the city either if we're not compliant. So that is forthcoming next week. Um, I've covered this, what we can and can't do, just trying to start with the bad news with the group and different development standards, and we can't prohibit it entirely. And then these are the dates we held the outreach events, and we received pretty good feedback. I mean, the groups were pretty small. I think the first outreach event we did was two to four people, and then it grew to like 10 to 15, and there was one at City Hall. Do you know how many people came to that one? So the groups grew over time and we heard consistent feedback from the community related to it. Your input matters as well. This is a slide we had for the community, but the planning commissioners, I would invite you to review the packet that will be published on Tuesday after the holiday. And if you have comments, you can send them to myself or to Carmen and I'll make sure when we're presenting that that feedback is incorporated if it's new. feedback that we haven't already received. So I wanted to keep you up to date. Happy to hear your feedback and just wanted to let you know that this is bypassing you because we did run out of time. I was planning on bringing the code change to this group to look at, but we just got pinched on the timeline and it needs to go straight to council and we'll have two public hearings on this matter.

Yeah, I imagine that in February you wanted to get this through as fast as possible for the moratorium, so I get it. Well, I think it's great that we're taking a proactive approach. It's kind of like Kennewick's, what happened in Kennewick was almost fortuitous for us because it allowed us to actually plan ahead before it happens to us. That's really great. Go ahead.

What did happen in Kennewick as far as, I mean, I know what happened, but did they ask for a moratorium then after all of the uproar and the or what happened exactly with that?

You know, I'm actually not sure.

The private owner withdrew it.

Yeah, it was a private sale to, because the private companies are contracted out by the state. So the private sale, we're not necessarily aware of, and neither was Kennewick. So I'm not blaming them or saying that they did anything wrong. It's just they weren't aware of it. And I'm not sure they had built into their code, just like Pascal. So the same thing could have happened to us. So it's like, you know, there wasn't a code that said you can't cite here and go above and beyond certain criteria. So I think it's just one of those things where it happened, but that, that use ended up going away based on, you know, the private community outreach. I think that they, um, you know, the people who bought it changed their minds kind of thing. It wasn't anything the city did to force it because they couldn't, but it was the neighborhood, um, you know, participations that led to that.

So when this talks about the cities, does that apply to county too, that they can?

So I am not aware of the county's progress on this topic. We were asked at our outreach events, you know, are the donut holes protected? The donut hole is right in the middle of Pasco. Right. And we are buffering where we can from those RPA uses in the donut hole. So there's a church in the middle of the donut hole. We are saying in city limits, it can't be next to the church that's in the county. So the boundaries don't matter there as far as buffering. As far as the county allowing placement of these facilities in the donut halls, I'm not sure where they are with their code in place. I believe I have a meeting with their director next week, so I'll be sure and share this with them, and they can run it by their legal and cut and paste what we're doing if they want, just to save time and energy. I'm not sure what they're doing. But we don't have jurisdiction over the county properties, but we are buffering these facilities from the uses in the county.

I know the county, and this was probably definitely before you were here and maybe, I don't know if any other commissioners, but there was a proposal for, it was a girls' ranch, I believe. It was in North Franklin, and it was for troubled, you know, that had, I believe, been in trouble legally. I'm not sure of that. There was quite a pushback on that, and it just kind of, went away, kind of like the thing in Kennewick that I remember, it's been a while ago, probably more than 10 years ago.

so and yeah the community does have a force that the city doesn't i mean we were asked during the public outreach events why aren't you going to olympia and and advocating for this and telling the state they've lost their mind and whatnot it just goes a lot further and i know everyone's busy but it goes a lot further when you're hearing from the community and not the community leaders unfortunately if we are at the city level Trying to push back where we can on these things even mayor city manager, but it just means more coming from the community I mean we are doing it, but it's just you know the example in Kennewick is a true grassroots effort by the community to overturn something so sure Anyone else questions or feedback and we'll get a lot more on this go ahead just a quick question since these are like your point being privately owned and

in conjunction with the state, could it be considered a commercial entity and be zoned for just those mixed use areas?

So we can't prohibit them in neighborhoods unless it's buffered from those certain uses. So they can Yeah, I would say they're more commercial-esque than residential-esque, but then people are living there, so the state has told the city what it is, basically. Like, if we want to say it's commercial, the state has said, well, it can be located in a residential area. We are allowed to buffer from certain uses, so we can't really zone it different than what the state says.

Gotcha. It's very lucrative. The state gives them grants to buy the property, and they give them grants to operate the property.

Yeah, it's a very lucrative, you make a lot of money doing that. Yes.

Okay.

So that's just an update. Just keep an eye on the council agenda if you'd like to follow it. Like I said, June 1st, public hearing. We just have a draft that we're attaching. We're hoping for public input. And then we have a workshop with the city council on June 22nd. And then a public hearing with the city council for hopefully a decision on July 6th. So it will be around and happy to facilitate your input if you have it.

So Tuesday it will be released. You could either provide your comments or all of the commissioners can certainly go to the city council meeting and testify. When's the council meeting?

It's June 1st is the public hearing. But next Tuesday is when it will be out. And you can email the council members or you can provide written comments. I'd be happy to include it. in the packet or pass it along. Legal will be doing the presentation. CED has put everything together and legal will present it. So if there are comments, I'm happy to share them. I haven't really heard the only unique comment I've heard from the outreach other than we don't want it and make it go away and all of that. and be as restrictive as possible as the donut holes that came up. So that was something we actually were able to pivot on and address, and we appreciate that feedback. So if there's anything new, give us your comments. I'll let you know if it's been addressed or not and pass it along if it's a new comment.

All right. Other items, structure, business, no commission, no planning commission meetings and anything else you want to tell us about?

Yes. I wanted to introduce Shannon Zimmerman. She's our newest planner. She's our planner too. And she joins us from Island County. So she has relocated to the area. Um, and she has been with us for two months now. About two months, and she has experience with Island County, so we're really happy to have her. She's done a great job so far. She's helped with a project with the Western students earlier today. They're helping us with some design guideline code work, and we saw their presentations today, and it was pretty fun. but she's been very helpful. We're happy to have her on the team, and she's learning that the codes aren't clear, and the best way to fix the codes is to have someone new and a fresh set of eyes using it and telling us where it doesn't make sense. So she's doing audits for us as she learns. Did you want to say anything, Shannon, to the group? I don't want to put you on the spot.

No, just excited to be here.

So welcome, Sharon. We're kind of a little weird from the wacky Island County folks.

Yep. And then the other announcement I have is that we are planning to not hold the Planning Commission meeting for June, July, and August. And we'll see you all in September. If there's an emergency item that comes up, hopefully we can at least get four of you to come in. if that's okay, but I don't foresee that happening. But what that will mean is in September and October and November we'll be really busy and we may want to add a second meeting in one of those months just to get through the comprehensive plan. But I feel pretty confident that we've discussed a lot of the big topics with this group, economic development, commercial land development, consolidating the zones. So I think those were the biggest policy issues that I wanted to cover with you. So we're just going to get to work for the next three months and then bring back know a lot of information but hopefully none of it will be a shocker to this group after all the the you know information we've provided so far so that's the goal and if there is anything that you want to do a deep dive in we can certainly do that for for this group but i don't think that by the time we come back there'll be anything huge that will shock this group um at this point and same with council so we'll have a busy end of the year

Excellent. Well, we also wish you the best for the birth of your child next month.

Thank you.

I'm sure you're wishing it was this month, but you've got a couple of weeks to go.

Thank you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate all of you, your volunteers, and you do a lot of work for Pasco and we have a lot of monumental things to get through this year. And then hopefully it will be more fun each year as we just start getting fancy and fixing things. So I appreciate all of your work that you do here too for this community.

All right, if nothing else, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second? I second. It's been moved and seconded. We're adjourned at 7.52 p.m. Thank you, everyone.