Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. At the request of the chair, I've been asked to chair today's meeting. This is the regular planning meeting agenda for 02/24/2026. I'd call meeting to order. Can I start with the roll call, please?

Yes. Chair. Commissioner. Here. Acting chair Manley. Here. Commissioner Lewis. Here. Commissioner Starr is absent today. Commissioner Sunkhwa? Here. Commissioner Burke? Here. And commissioner O'Leary, who is not currently present, but we do have a forum.

Fantastic. I'd like to begin by entertaining a motion to approve the minutes from 01/27/2026.

So moved.

I second it.

Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye.

Any abstentions? Alright. The motion carries. Let's move to our briefing. So we have stormwater and site development, and there is a disclaimer that I should read. Alright. There's a note that the chair always reads at the beginning of the meeting, and I wanna read this for everyone. The planning commission is principally an advisory board to the Pierce County Council. Actions taken by the planning commission on almost all agenda items before it is the county council as recommendation for its consideration and final action. And with that, I'd like to transition to item number four, which is our storm water and site development manual update.

Good morning. I'm Maureen Meehan, water quality manager, and I'm here today with Kuni Song, our storm water engineer, and Emma Truitt, our storm water planner, to, bring you an update on our stormwater management and site development manual update. This manual is updated every five years along with our NPDS permit, which is gives us permission to discharge stormwater from our built systems in some waters of the state. And today, we'll go over the background of the manual, why it exists, our update goals, the public participation process that we've gone through and continue to go through as we're here today, overview of the proposed changes, what happens after this, and answer any questions you may have. And I know we have short time, so I'll move through this quickly.

Stormwater has impact on our environment, and the changes that humans make on the environment increases the impacts of the stormwater. It causes localized flooding. It erodes our streams. It does carry pollutants into the stream. One of the recent pollutants that's of a big concern is tire wear particles, also known as six PPDQ, which is fatal to coho salmon and sublethal to other species, and it also carries pollutants into Puget Sound where it impacts wildlife there.

The regulation that we are updating and working under is from Federal Clean Water Act, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, which has an intent of bringing all waters of The US back to fishable, swimmable, in some cases, drinkable. They delegated the administration of that NPDS permit to Washington State who developed a permit for local municipalities that includes requiring us to consider groundwater quality as well as our surface water quality. So it's a combined permit. We have to meet groundwater, surface water, and sediment standards in our permit. We have local codes that we are required to have so that we have authority to administer this program and require compliance with it.

And those include our storm water management site development manual, but also some construction and infrastructure regulations in 17 a, development regulations in 18 j, and our prohibition on discharge of pollutants, which is in title 11. Our municipal stormwater permit is different from other permits the estate administers because it is not a single discharge point with numeric limits on the pollutants allowed in that discharge. We have over 7,000 outfalls from our built system in the county. So the state developed a programmatic permit, 11 different programs that in combination when implemented as intended, protect and improve the water quality in our streams, rivers, and Puget Sound. One of those programs is the requirement to manage stormwater from development, redevelopment, and construction sites.

That's in the permit, and in the appendix of our permit is minimum requirements that any developer has to meet based on the proposed land disturbance and impervious surface that will be in place after the development's complete. That refers to our stormwater management manual, which we're updating now because the manual describes how to meet those minimum requirements. And some of the things in the manual are when the manual is applicable and when there's exemptions, what the minimum requirements are for each of the the types of disturbances, construction stormwater pollution prevention, so it's required to prevent pollution during construction as well as after, what permit submittals are required to be reviewed by development services in order to be permitted to build? Flow control and water quality treatment are some of the major elements of the manual operation and maintenance because the systems put in place have to be maintained after they've been built in order them for them to continue to work correctly. Source control, which is best management practices for the activities on-site to prevent pollution from the site from getting into stormwater.

And then there's an individual BMP design criteria that describes how these systems must be built to treat the amount of disturbance and impervious that is on the site. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Emma.

Before we move on, I just wanna say commissioner O'Leary is now online.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. So we have three main goals with the stormwater manual update. First and foremost, it's compliance with our federal and state requirements. Of course, that has to be kind of top of the list.

You know, we wanna stay compliant. We wanna do the right thing and kind of be in line, with those regulations. But the unique thing, with this opportunity to make our own manual is we have the opportunity to be more reflective of our community needs. And so we have the opportunity to go and kind of tweak some of these things or create, different guidance documents, things like that to really make sure that we are making this manual applicable to kind of the unique communities and landscapes that Pierce County has. And then, of course, with that comes improving clarity, usability, and practicality.

If folks don't understand what they're supposed to do, how can we expect them to comply with it? So that's a really important part.

Here we go.

Yeah. And

so this is has not been a short feat. This has not been a short project. We started this all the way back in 2023 before this current permit was even issued. In the 2023 is when the Department of Ecology released their draft manual and draft permit. And so that kind of gave us a a bit of an outline of what we needed to start thinking about when we were updating this.

And so then in early twenty twenty four is when we convened our technical advisory committee internally about spokes from throughout the county that as we go into our decision making process, I'll talk about that, I guess, a little bit more. And then in July 2024 is when we got that final draft and that final manual where we could really start to make a list of the things that we needed to update as well. So then between then and, November, we kind of went through updated the manual. We submitted that to Ecology for their review to make sure that, they deemed our manual equivalent in functionality. And then in November, we went out for public comment.

And so that public comment period lasted from November through January 31, so a nice long public comment period. And then, you know, here we are now kind of going through the steps, going to the planning commission, EIDC council, you know, getting approval from the right people and making sure the right people know what's kind of coming down the line with these regulations. And then we are planning on having that new manual available for use in June 2026, to give us a good full month for the folks that need to be, complying with this, a good full month to kind of look at where things landed finally before they have to start implementing them in July. So our decision making process, I mentioned the TAC on the previous slide. We had three different kind of parts.

So first, we had our technical subgroups. Those were subject matter experts within the county, and they would get together and talk about really specific subjects, specific types of BNPs, specific volumes, things like that. And they would then make recommendations that they would take to our full internal tech. That was a group of folks, again, from across the county that would then give kind of the final approval to make those changes within the manual. And then we also have the opportunity to have an external public tag that was made up of a lot of engineers, folks from the community, developers, etcetera, that we were then able to kind of run these decisions by them, see if they could poke holes in it, how is it gonna affect them and kind of get their feedback.

So that was very valuable too. I talked a little bit about our public comment period. Again, that was from November, through the January. A couple reasons for that long comment period. One, the the manual is a beefy document. Right? It's it's a lot to go through. We wanted to make sure to give folks adequate time. We also recognize that November through January is kind of around the holidays, and so it's gonna take people a little extra time to maybe within their own groups and organizations get together and have conversations and get meaningful comments back to us. We did ask for kind of focused areas for input.

One was clarifications to technical requirements and guidelines. We wanted to make sure folks could understand and implement what we were asking of them. Also, readability and practicality of the manual. Does it make sense? Do things make sense where they are in the manual? And also editorial and other suggestions or recommendations. Of course, we were open to other suggestions to things that we could add as well even if we weren't able to implement them. This time around, it kinda goes on a list and maybe we can maybe we can look at that for the next manual update. We also went through oh, no. You're fine. It's a it's a quick one. We went through, SIPA public comment period and got a determination of non significance.

Okay. Back? We're trying to go back.

I think we're going forward.

Oh, press the left button.

Button on the left.

We are, but it's going forward. Sorry. I think it's going back. Yeah. No. It's yeah. Okay. There we go. There we go. Sorry. Now we'll move forward. Oh, now forward? Yeah. There we go.

So besides the main categories of usability, we have categories for these codes and update changes kinda split into two. One were those code or those, updates required by the Department of Ecology. Those we had less opportunity to say yes or no or fiddle with. Right? Like, those were kind of our baseline compliance measures.

And so I won't go through all of those now. You're welcome to read them. If you have any questions, definitely reach out to us afterwards, and we can, explain those to to you. But what we're talking more about today is our Pierce County specific changes. And so these are the ones that kind of go above and beyond where the Department of Ecology landed.

So things like additional environmental protections. We'll talk about what we did as far as, changing precipitation patterns, a little bit about six PPD and, some also some other water quality and groundwater protections. Also, more sustainable development and customer support. We were able to streamline some some middle requirements to make that easier for folks and also provide more templates and tools, to both help our the folks in our permitting department. So, and also help the folks that are trying to submit for these permits as well.

We also have some new b BMPs and updated terminologies and, of course, some editorial changes, as we'll go through as well, things like the table of contents and kind of switching some things around to make it flow a little bit better. So starting off then, one of the the things that we proposed related to water quality and six PPD, we really wanted to focus on for enhanced treatment, key green infrastructure, projects. So we know that in addition to treating metals in organic chemicals, that green infrastructure, especially containing an organic, matter layer or compost is shown to be very effective in treating six PPD as well, which, as Maureen mentioned, is that chemical that leads to preswarm mortality in coho salmon and also has effects on other, water quality or water dwelling species. So we really wanted to encourage these methods and projects that would already be required to implement enhanced treatment. So we're asking them to prioritize these three green infrastructure BMPs before they move on to the other BMPs.

So we didn't take anything away. We're just prioritizing these three, as well. And so we thought that this proposal was a good compromise between following the science and being environmentally protective, as well as not getting too far ahead of the regulations and where ecology is going as well. And now I will hand it over to Kunya.

Okay. Thank you. Another topic that we discussed a lot with internal and external tech is about how to address future climate change issues and then rapidly changing our precipitation patterns in the re in the region. So in this table, you can

Could you turn the microphone a bit closer to you?

Okay. So in this slide, you can see the table showing the Northwest Northwest region of the precipitation patterns. So the three largest storm event happened in the data record history of the precipitation, which is the eighty five years. All three largest storm happened after the 2000. So that shows that the precipitation change is very rapid and then occurs very recently.

The problem with the customer BMP sizing model, though, is that the BMP size model used a historic dataset of a precipitation from 1940 to 1999, so it doesn't capture the our current precipitation patterns in the model. So we decided to update that other model to reflect more of a changing climate and then increase the storm water or the BMP sizing and then convince the system modeling. So we've been working with consulting firms to update the the precipitation data from 2000 to 2024 into the model. So that will likely change the BNP and then convince the sizing in the future. Another part is the increasing our protection level to the groundwater.

The Pierce count Pierce County has a a very critical groundwater protect. Groundwater is a critical drinking water resource, and then this map shows our, wellhead protection layer and then also source source of aquifer. So the hashed line, the pink line indicates the source source aquifer. That means that there is no alternative drinking water source other than, the groundwater. And then in addition to that, Pierce County, in general, has a very well draining so soil character.

Therefore, the we the people often use infiltration, especially using in underground injection control, which is called the UIC, is a very common practice for repatriation. But the issue is that when you inject the storm water into the ground, there is a high risk of contaminating groundwater, and, also, the injection can be very challenging for the future cleanup or the even our regular maintenance can be very challenging. So from the next menu, we decided to prohibit the deep injection deep underground injection well installation in throughout the whole Pierce County. So that means that there will be no injection going through the the teal layer and then directly injecting to the confined layer. So that way, they we are expected to protect more of the ground in the Pierce County except for the bare very rare situations.

And then when people address that there is no other BNP available or feasible in their site, then they are required to do the more in intensive survey. And then they have to prove that there will be on very minimal, impacts to the groundwater and that that might be allowed to inject the deep UIC well on the site. And then another part that we decided to go a little bit above or beyond from the state level and the federal regulation is how to address the cumulative impact from the series of development. Oftentimes, the development occurs in a multiple series, not just a once in a single plan. So this is an example of the single family residence of development that could occur multiple series.

One time, the new house and the driveway can be developed in one year, and then several years later, ADU ADU can be come up, and then several years later, that extension to the ADU can be developed as well. So if you look at those development as a single development project, then they may not trigger any stormwater regulations or the requirement might be pretty minimal. But if you think as a cumulative and then look at as a one single phase project development, then the impact could be significant. So to address this impact, that we decided to look at the history of their development in the one project locations in the past seven years and then ask them to manage the unmitigated existing imperfect surfaces as well as a part of the current project in addition to the new surface in addition to the new imperfect surface they are proposing. There.

Okay. Yeah. We can go to the next one. Like to go backwards. It's like we're moving forward.

Yeah. So so far, we discussed about the peers currently, how we are gonna go slightly above and beyond to make a more better protection of our environment. But we also spent lots of time to try to make a balance then not just to go into far of the regulations coming from this the state level, but also make it more practical and then also cost to benefit to support the sustainable development in the region. The way that we approach is to relax some of the survey requirements to shorten the time of a survey time and then also to reduce the cost as well. That's because we believe that some cases, the survey, increasing the precision or accuracy of the survey doesn't necessarily be translated to the increased environmental protections.

So that includes the sum of the limitation of the survey timing. We only previously, we only require them to do the survey during the west season. And then that means if you're outside the west season, then you may have to wait for another six months to get even get the survey done. So we, are going to allow them to, take the the test throughout any four seasons, but asking them to apply more of a safety factor when they are putting a d p and p to be more protective. And then we are also adding some of the increasing some of the threshold for the $3 or well monitoring system.

Yep. And we give a more flexibility of the number of testing. For example, if your ZOE character is generally the homogenized homogeneous, then they are allowed to reduce the number of testing. And then if it's more complex, then we also require them more testing as well. And then some of the simple and then very relatively cheap method can be more available for a small single family residence or development as well.

So that way, they we expect it to help them to reduce the time and then cost for the development. We are also providing some of the the high resolutions, the peer specific information. So this is a example of isoplobial map, which shows our rainfall information in a very detailed level. So the left side is the the previously used information coming from Noah back in nineteen seventies showing the whole Western Washington, and then that is the image file. And then we were able to develop a local Pierce County specific layer, and then this is gonna be available as a public GIS layer so people can actually zoom in and then find their location and then find the precipitation data that they have to enter into their BMP sizing model and then condensed sizing calculation as well.

And we are also expanding our instruction and then guidance about how to prepare and then submit a drainage plan board and proposal. And then this ended up being a new whole new volume two, and then that increased more clarified and then more detailed guidance about how to prepare and then what kind of informations and then quality they are required to have. And then we also provide a multiple template and then guidance document and then also examples as well. So we expect that these guidance and the new volume will help to improve the stop middle quality of the change report, and then people can have a better understanding about what to submit and how to submit. And then, eventually, that's gonna help the review process and then to make the whole a permitting process faster and then easier for both applicants and the reviewer side as well.

With that, we also added some of the BMP options that people can choose from, and then the blue box is directly coming from the Western Washington ecology manual. And then the green box indicates that what we have developed in addition to those the BMPs that are coming from ecology. And there's most of them are geared towards the support more of a small size single frame residential development, so they don't necessarily have to spend extra money to hire engineers to design their BMPs. And then we also added some BMP from to support the better water quality treatment and then added additional guidance about how to manage and then design the pump systems and then the lead of the BMPs as well. Several terminologies got updated to be consistent with ecologies, but also give a better clarifications and then understanding improved understanding of those terms.

That includes the cumulative impact of a phased project that I discussed earlier. And then from the next the manual, we will consider the artificial turf whether it has underdrain or not, that will be considered as a pollution generating impervious surface because we believe that already limit the in infiltration rate significantly. And then natural turb with the underdrain will be still also considered as a impervious surface. And then we also had some guidance about how to treat the solar farm development and then how they should manage the stormwater underneath as well. With that, we also made an extensive editorial changes because because the manual is over a thousand pages long and engineering and the regulatory documents.

So we try to make it more clear and then flows better for the applicants and then how they start the work and then finish the submittal. So that will these are the volume and then editorial changes, basically, try to mimic the the whole work process as well.

Then in the interest of time, I think we can skip this slide and just go straight because this is just a recap of the schedule. And so just a a reminder about next steps. Obviously, right now, we're sharing key changes with you folks in the EIDC. We're also working on reviewing our comments, and creating kind of a response to comments document, as well right now. We plan on going to council to have that review and approval in May, and anticipate having that updated manual, published in June 2026, with that manual adoption and implementation targeted for July 2026 as well. And the only comment I'd make on that

is the July date for the implementation of stormwater manual is part of our permit requirement by the Department of Ecology. So we're require we'll be out of compliance with our permit if we don't have it in place in effect at that date.

Alright. Thank you so much for your presentation. At this time, I'd like to open up to the brilliant minds of the council. Is there any of our commissioners who have questions or comments that I'd to make this time? Commissioner Sunsmo.

I can wait for them.

Rest of okay. We'll start online. We've got commissioner Burke.

Yes. I'd like to start off first. I wanna raise a high level concern. What we're seeing more and more of the atmospheric river changes, and what what that causes is longer duration rainfall, higher soil saturation, elevated groundwater, cumulative runoff effects, and higher peak flows following already wet conditions. So and you've already spoke to that we've used historic data, and we're updating that to most recent historic data.

My concern, are we incorporating any forward looking climate? There's no, reason to believe that the current flows are are the limit right now that we we are gonna see increased flows. And along with that, what happens is, really, does does the modeling show what we when we get consecutive high intensity flows, it leaves the soil saturated as we're seeing with repeated atmospheric rivers. How are we doing as far in from the perspective of adaptation? What are we gonna adapt to future situations? How are we writing that into the plan now?

Yeah. Thanks for the question. Yes. With internal tag and external tag, we actually started that with whether we can adopt the future simulation of a precipitation data into the model. So that was our first attempt, but we got lots of concerns and the pushbacks due to the uncertainty related to the future precipitation simulations.

There are over 12 different models to try to stimulate future climate in Northwest Region, and then we have over four different simulation scenarios that can go into that 12 models that give us about 48 to yeah. Over 48 the situations that we can make decisions. So because we can only enter the one simulation into the model, we cannot possibly choose what simulation that we have to to put into. So that was a kind of a, like, a limitation that we run into. That's why we decided to just use in the existing up to the current conditions.

But, also, I wanna emphasize that our model is the continuous simulation model, which used a fifteen minutes interval of the precipitation datasets. So that will answer some of your concerns about the soil will be concentrated, and and then once it's set the soil will be saturated, and then all the rainfall will become runoff. And because it's a continuous simulation model, if and then that means that historic datas or the previous data saturations of a soil will be incorporated, and then that it it just adds up. So your concern will be already addressed by using the continuous simulation model instead of using the one single event simulation model that the other places to use. I can also add.

I I think let me just add one question to that. We've seen recent some recent significant and incredible flooding that we have not experienced in a long time. So, I mean, the the the most recent data we can see has been even added to. So we we we're seeing and then repeated atmospheric rivers after one storm after the other continuous, really does the groundwater is just the ground is just totally absorbed.

The stormwater manual and the permit associated with it are adaptive management programs that take into account the science and are updated every five years. We this was the first update to the storm order in almost thirty years. But from this point forward, every five years, we will take the new data and incorporate it into our model. So that that we will as things change, this model will continue to take that into account.

Thank you.

And

then I also empathize that BNP any BNP, so we are required people to have a safety factor. So they are required to do minimum of two 20% to two sometimes 200% to increase their BMP size to capture those uncertainties. Can

you repeat that last part, please?

The safety factor

So was it an increase in size of the BMP's?

Yeah. Increase to 20 to two up to 200% depending on the the cases.

How are we doing this year with our annual rainfall?

So the

How do you

model that?

Just checking. Alright. So December, we got a four inches of the rain in three days, and then that was one of the largest flood. But, again, that we we were able to capture the three biggest one, and

then

that was not bigger than the the one that we already have in captured in 02/2022.

What about the ones that we haven't had?

That's that's where the 48 different uncertainty scenarios, and we could only pick one. So we went with the what we what we know for now.

Water purveyors are struggling right now with the deficit rainfall that we're having. So that that was a big mistake last week. Yeah.

Yep.

I'd like to go online to commissioner O'Leary. You have your hand raised?

Thank you. And I'm sorry I can't be there in person, but, I don't think I wanna pass this on anybody.

You hear. Sorry.

A couple questions. I saw you, identify pervious and impervious surfaces. Could you tell me again what you're classifying as pervious surfaces?

Pervious surface means

I I know what it I know what it means, but what what is what's left to be a pervious surface? I noticed that turf is not so what what are you identifying as a pervious surface?

Natural turf is a still pervious surface, and then the grass landscape area or the tree, those are still considered the pervious. But the natural turf with underdrain built in, then that will be considered as 50 actually, the 50% impervious, and then another 50% would be the pervious depending on the soil type under underneath.

Okay. And then

regarding the shoreline, are you through this evaluation, are are you limiting people and expansions or development along shorelines as a result of this?

I think that's that that would be the shoreline regulations, and there isn't anything in the stormwater manual that directly directly addresses shoreline regulations. It does refer to it, but people are also obligated to comply with the shoreline regulations, but it's not something in

the stormwater manual.

Okay. Alright. And last question. We're trying to increase density here. How probable do you see this is to achieve the density goals that are being talked about with ADUs in relationship to your findings, with the stormwater study?

I I know that the city of Tacoma is addressing this right now. They're much more concentrated than the county is, and they're looking at developing regional ponds for the city. That is something that in the future that Pierce County may need need to look at for very concentrated areas. There is something that I've seen other places that I've worked underground structures that aren't as prevalent for homeowner associations in Pierce County. They are for large businesses with huge parking lots.

They put it under the parking lot, but there there are other options to put things underground as long as you can get to the maintenance portals that would preserve the above ground space for development.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sunsov.

Yeah. I just had is there any provisions in the the new manual to address interlocal agreements with other municipalities, jurisdictions related to storm conveyance. We we have a lot of areas basins, actually, that control storm storm water flow, and there's also different jurisdictions within those basins. Do we have any kind of interlocal agreements with those jurisdictions to dump our storm water in Pierce County into their their facilities?

We don't currently have those MOUs in place. I would need to talk to our maintenance group to see how they interact with the other jurisdictions and that if we need those MOUs, that is actually it says, if you need them, it's in the permit, not in this stormwater manual. It's in our permit that if we need them, we should develop them.

I see. So there's no clear path then?

There isn't at this moment a clear path.

And have you you just didn't like, you know, in wetlands, they just you just didn't take the whole state's guidelines and manuals and adopt them. You're you seem like there's some differences between what Pierce County is doing and what the state has has, given its guidance and that type of thing. Have you done, an impact analysis to determine what that's going to cost the additional regulations gonna cost Pierce County as far as land development, that kind of thing? What's the industry gonna have to pay in addition to what the state's recommending? Has there been any analysis of that?

We haven't actually done the actual the cost and the benefit analysis as an analysis, but we have a lot of developers and then engineers in our external tax group, then that was definitely the first consideration that we did. And then we try to protect when we decided to increase the protection level, and then we always try to find the one that will still be cost beneficial, and so impact would be minimal for the developers. So that was definitely the first consideration of our decisions.

There there may be changes going forward with this because the council hasn't taken a look at it. We haven't made recommendations yet. But will will this document be reviewed again by the state before it becomes a re regulation?

Yes. Because we ecologists review for assessment.

And then in the section where we have this little note that says manual and code updates and changes. Mhmm. You talk about wetlands. One of the challenges that we're seeing, regardless of the rainfall, is that wetlands so many times in our state, because most of them are geographically isolated, have a a challenge with hydration. So it just it's just it looks like there's some kind of vague statement about that. Could you elaborate on that?

Yeah. So ecology so ecology's wetland regulations has a two different method. One is that they are required to do the one year monitoring, and then after one year monitoring before the development. And then after the development, they have to mimic this the predevelopment water levels. So that is the one method.

But the second method is usually the most common one using the simulation model. But that one seems to be impractical or not very feasible in the most development situations. So that's why the ecology allowed to have a sum of the exception month because that's the period that they cannot meet the variations of it. But we see that as some concerns because once you start allowing the more variation during the summer month period or the winter month period, means which means you're not allowed to bury over 20% from the the predeveloped water level situations water level. So the Pierce County decided to take a further step and then asking them to to mimic more closely to the predevelopment condition of the wetland so we can protect the hydrology of the wetland better.

You talked about the accumulated effects of the development going back in retrospect. There's there's we're really, really good at monitoring stormwater, and we're also really great at at at detaining stormwater and that type of thing. And as a result, I we the old timers tell me, and I'm an old timer now, but, I mean, the guys that even older than me tell me that a lot of our streams and and that type of thing are drying up because we don't have the the the rainfall isn't making it from the storm ponds into the stream. You know, we and so as a result of that, there's some challenges, and we see that same thing occurring in wetlands. So I was just

Yeah.

Concerned that the county would have greater concern about the hydrology in our streams and our wetlands related to, you know, climate change.

Yeah. So so the dry note, the wetland is definitely the one of our concerns, and it's not very well addressed in the state level because the state level, they are allowed to hold, like you said, using the detention pond, and a 100% of holding of stormwater is acceptable. And then in Pierce County, we are not gonna allow that. If you are receiving water as a wetland, we are not allowing you to hold a 100% of the stormwater outside of the wetland. So you are required to still discharge, treated stormwater to the wetland to the same level the same amount that you the wetland received before the development.

That is the minimum requirement that we are going to require in our Pierce County manual.

Commissioner for Larry mentioned impervious surfaces. There's there's some concern now that Pierce County is going away from the state's requirement for to use porous asphalt, porous concrete that I think Pierce County is moving away from that for reasons I certainly can understand and, you know, performance challenges and those kind of things. So is that will will Pierce County be allowing, like, fractured gravel, fractured rock? Is that still impervious, or is that regular gravel that's not impervious? What does that look like for Pierce County?

Gravel is considered impervious surface, and then fractured rocks will be still considered impervious surface.

K. And in the new manual, is there any kind of policy on using asphalt and and concrete impervious asphalt and concrete? For permeable

pavement?

For public roads, that type of thing. Yeah. Permeable asphalt, permeable pavement. It's forest pavement, forest asphalt. Is there any restrictions on that?

Yes. Yes. So in the new manual, the public road, we are not allowing the permeable pavement except for the

Privately owned group. The privately owned group. Private property?

Yep. Like, sidewalks. Sidewalks. Yes. Yeah. Sidewalks by. Those kind of Yeah.

Yeah. Public sidewalks?

Yeah. Public sidewalks and then a ADA related walk. It's allowed, but public roads, no permeable paving.

I I

would comment on that. The science and the technologies around permeable pavement continue to change. I just saw a presentation last week on some new type of material that Oregon's using. I would think early on, we got a direction that they didn't that permeable pavement wasn't working for cost effectiveness in Pierce County's roads. That might change in the future.

And with these every five year updates, definitely, we would be coming back. You know, we we'd be working with our internal tech and saying, hey. Try try this. And we would if, you know, we hear more about this ahead of the next update, we'd be working with MNO to try something and bringing them that information so that when the next update comes, when there's a good technology that could provide benefit, definitely gonna propose it.

This new technology continues and and improvements continue in the in the forest pavement area with the county. Is there

a provision in the code to allow test case type of thing? I I think we're always allowed to do pilots. That's

Alright. Alright.

Anything else from the commissioners? Just a few comments. Thank you, staff. This is a very technical issue. I think you've done a great job presenting your case. I'm looking forward to seeing how our recommendation comes today. Question that I have, well, first of I wanna piggyback on that just to say that if you want to see the pilot test go no further than the city I live in, in the city of Puyallup, we have three catastrophic and mitigated disasters between the Safeway parking lot, Shaw Road, and 112. Every one of them see premises. Yes. You know. You can go drive those roads. You can talk to people who are involved in the projects. You can find out that these did not work. And it's not because I think anybody's opposed to technology. It's just simply the technology has not become commercially, viable yet.

So thank you for not increasing the impervious requirements. Related to six p b d q, if there are national changes that impact the use of that chemical, will we reconsider the requirements we're putting into the BPMs at this time?

So manual, we have the section that when the new datas or the regulation comes up, then we are allowed to open up the manual again and then to put the new information into it. So there is always a flexibilities. And then we are not necessarily required to follow the manual all the time. So there is, again, the some variant variances or the exceptions are available or even the demonstrate demonstrative approaches. So if we have the new science coming up and then we I believe that that's so much beneficial, then we can always go to the different route.

And I would just add to that is the the green infrastructure that we are requiring has multiple benefits. It's not just, you know, the six PPD. And I've heard those conversations about, you know, replacing that chemical. In the timeline of this next five years, you know, who knows if if that would happen? And then there's the after effect of, like, that still has to roll out to people changing their tires and, you know, things like that. So, again, it's you know, definitely follow the science and just adaptively manage. Right?

How's the county treating that in their detention ponds? We're having a lot of low in the detention ponds based on arterials. And then what happens? I mean, these things, you know, dry up in the summertime, and there's a there's a low layer of pollution that sits on top. What happens to that? I know there's maintenance, frequent maintenance, but what happens to the material after it's

Do you mean in terms of six PPD or any Anything

that I can know. I mean, that's gonna be the the most concerning chemical at this point.

So the detention pond or Detention pond, the infiltration pond, they usually require to have a treatment facilities before even going to the detention pond. So most of the toxic chemicals should be treated before even going to the pond. So that's how we and then that way that it's easier to change the filter media and instead of a

So the standard filter valve would take care of that? Right.

Except no. Not for the six PPD. The most of chemicals that we required to treat will be treated by the proper BMP. It can be the filter bolt or the different filter medias or other systems. I

was just talking about, you know, it's not a county maintained roads like Canyon Road or or 176th Street. Gets a lot of traffic. It also has some drains that goes into I know, I've actually said six to the vault. And it's treated prob probably, hopefully, before it goes in variety of different ways. But then it you're saying that that that the filter vaults don't treat that?

It's

Is what I heard?

Six p p d if you're talking about six p p d q, then some of the filter vault and then some of the BMPs shows some treatment, but there is no approved like, it's state level or federal level approved BNPs for six PPD yet because the science and the regulation is not there yet. But there are a lot of, like, a pilot studies going on showing that permeable pavement or bioretensions or compost amendment as bioswales, they tend to treat some of the six PPDs. So we know that both lots of BMPs we already have to install for other purposes tends to treat some of the six PPDs, but it's not approved by the state level or recognized by them to treat the six PPD yet.

Doesn't that mostly go away with infiltration? Like, I know the county has a lot of infiltration ponds. And I guess I was concerned about once it is infiltrated, it stays in the upper few feet. If if that what happens to that material over time? Does it just stay there, does does the county remove it and and dispose of it somehow? Or

Depending on the chemicals, some some of the metals will stay in the soil layers. Mhmm. But we if they are using the infiltration BMP or water quality treatment, we require them to test the soil layer to make sure that soil layer has the adequate filtration capacities. And then that that and then they are allowed to use that for treatment. And then six PPD cases are the so far based on it's evolving, so I cannot say

for sure. But Probably go away. I don't believe it's soon.

Yeah. The the the half half time is relatively short. So And

just one thing to add to that. Ecology and there are studies going on on the longevity of those bioretention systems. And so a lot of

them are showing, like, promise, you know, of still being effective after, you know, ten, fifteen, you know, 20. But, yeah, that's that's an ongoing question of how long do these some of these BMPs last once we install them, and there's there's research going on to answer that question more specifically. And when soils are removed, whether it's from street sweeping or a pond gets enough sediments in it, they have to be removed, they have to test that. And depending on the test results, there's I mean, if something got in that pond and it's really bad, then it it could potentially have to go to a hazardous waste landfill if things aren't that bad, if there's other uses for it, but it isn't removed from there and just put out into the environment.

Sure. I I didn't mean to get into the go down the rabbit hole

on this thing since Jared brought it up. And I

oh, it's an interesting conversation. I know it comes up a lot of times. I'm on a group sit in a group of all the water purveyors in Pierce County, and that comes up PFAS and that pop up a lot. So just curious. Kinda get an education. We're all getting an education today in

a very technical field again. I have one more question, which is and I think I know the answer because I typically do ask this question when we get into these kinds of interventions. What kinds of costs are going to be associated with building a larger retention ponds, other BMPs, and the maintenance costs of those new projects? That answers it. Yeah.

I would say, yeah, incremental increases, I'd say or you could almost say based on known costs, and and this is an old number from me working at Seattle Department of Transportation. They said every project, 15% of it. Now this was road projects. 15% of it, the total cost was dealing with the storm water. So I would think if you have a bigger system, whatever the incremental increase is, it's gonna be incremental increase.

There is recommendations, and it depends on with the increased flows. If there's increased sediment, there may be, just in order to keep the system working, increased costs. It's actually to have a smaller system, there's gonna be increased maintenance because they're gonna have to remove sediments in more often in order to keep that system working.

So a thousand square foot house that now costs half 1,000,000 is gonna probably cost 3 quarters of 1,000,000.

Not from this one thing, but it's done with a thousand cuts. I think if we make the recommendation to the council to move this forward, then we should at least consider some sort of an analysis of what the costs are to developer. I think there'll also be increased public works expense. So if we're doing more maintenance on behalf of the county, let me take a look at that. I don't have any of that information. I didn't see it in the packet. I just think that's really valuable. You know, we make these decisions a few what, six months ago, we were deciding about the wetland setbacks. We lost developed lands. Over a year and a half ago, I asked the question, what is the net impact to develop the lands?

What's the economic impact? You know, we we have ways to forecast rainwater, but we don't know what the cost of development is. And I think those are equally important. When we look at the amount of rainwater that's coming in, that's important. When we look at the economic impact, that is also important. So that would be our recommendation if we're to move this forward, just that we have something that gives us some handle on what the costs are gonna be to the county, to the private landowner, to the developer. It's very helpful to know what the new technologies that we're proposing in the BMPs are going to cost.

Even to the county itself. I mean, the the stormwater management's huge. It's a gigantic Yeah. Corporation now.

So, again, thank you for the presentation. At this time, we will open it to public comment.

It's actually just working today.

Oh, it says public. Oh, it I see the we got an action item then. But just no? Yes. Presentation. That's it. We don't have anything. Thank you.

Yes. The hearing is for the next swag.

Got it.

Alright. Anything else for presentation then?

That's it. Thank you. Alright.

Thank you very much.

At this time, chair calls for a ten minute recess. Churn, it looks like we'll say at 10:40.

You

may reconvene. Reconvene. Thank you.

We will reconvene

at 10:41AM.

K. I'll turn the camera on. Oh, yes. Thank you.

You need to see us at Harris.

Yes. Perfect. Good morning, everybody. My name is Sydney Smith. I'm an associate planner with Long Range Planning, and today, I'm gonna be walking you through the child care code update.

So the purpose of this code update is to remove zoning barriers to the day care use. The county is one of many jurisdictions that regulate child care facilities, and by removing zoning barriers, the county can make the code sections on daycare centers more concise and consistent. I'm gonna begin by going over the policy direction for this update. This package has been guided by three different documents. The economic developments childcare report was completed in 2024 and studied the landscape childcare facilities owners currently face with some owners being regulated by as many as 10 different jurisdictions.

Many owners found navigating the various regulations across different agencies pretty difficult to navigate. Senate bill fifty five zero nine became effective in July and requires cities and towns to make childcare facilities permitted outright in the urban area. The county is not required to follow this legislation at this time, but acknowledges that aligning with its cities and towns whenever possible is important for future annexation. And lastly, during the comprehensive plan engagement process, we heard from many members of the public that childcare is difficult to afford and often even harder to find. Many individuals asked for an improvement to the way childcare code currently exists in the county.

So this table here is an overview of the proposed code changes to the use tables for the day care use type. These have changed since the briefing, so I'm gonna go over them again. Starting with the issue that we discussed last briefing concerning the rural area, the rural area was initially proposed to be administrative at level one and conditional at level two, and we found that that was too restrictive for the Lambert zones, which are RSE, RNC, and GC. These this ultimately conflicts with the comprehensive plan's descriptions of these zones, and it would make child care facilities the most restricted use in those zones. And that doesn't really align with our intentions for this update, so our new update has proposed to permit childcare facilities regardless of level in Lambert zones.

Remaining the same since the last briefing is that all childcare facilities in the urban area will be permitted outright with those in industrial areas being conditionally permitted. Additionally, this code update is also adjusting the accessory use of home based daycare to be permitted in all zones. So every rural zone would be permitted to have these home based daycares, which are more appropriate in the rural area. A few differences between accessory use of home based daycare and the principal use of daycare includes that home based daycare facilities can have up to 12 children and have significantly less standards in the codes than the principal level of childcare facilities. There is also a small portion of this code update that includes some technical edits surrounding home based daycares and then play equipment.

These include clarifying that home based daycare centers are not subject to home occupation standards, and they are allowed in all zones. Additionally, the prohibition of play equipment within the interior and the front yard setback areas has been removed. And lastly, with these changes, play equipment and structures will no longer be regulated by county code and instead are going to be regulated by the licensing requirements of building code, fire code, and the Department of Youth and Families. With this code update, we aim to increase clarity and ease of use when navigating the child care code due to the fact that child care centers are regulated by many different jurisdictions, including the health department, the state of Washington, the Department of Youth and Families, US department of health and human services to name a few. The county is only one of the many steps prospective owners must take in order to be compliant with the many regulations concerning childcare.

Additionally, one more deliverable that Long Range is going to work on in the future is a fact sheet. There are numerous jurisdictions that regulate operating a facility, so the county would like to make a guide that provides all the information that prospective owner would need to start a child care facility. This fact sheet is going to have a step by step guide as well on converting a home into a home based day care, which is one of the more common forms that we're seeing now. Most of this information is all over the place, so trying to consolidate what's important onto a fact sheet so people can move forward with creating childcare facilities and increase the chances of success and reduce some of the difficulty that's already difficult in this process. These next few slides, I wanted to take some time addressing some questions the commission had on this package during our initial briefing.

One concern that was brought up was the pressure and congestion that commercial level facility could have on a residential area, and I wanted to highlight that our circulation and our parking standards have not changed with this update and still apply to commercial facilities, including those within a residential area. Additionally, the commission, had a concern around the proposed conditional permit for childcare facilities in the industrial area. One of the factors that deem when a conditional use permit is appropriate is when considering the location and respect to surroundings. This gives the examiner a chance to review the permits, modify modify with conditions or deny. The industrial areas in Pierce County are complex and diverse, and the conditional permit is the most effective way to ensure that ensure that care facilities are being placed where the impact of the surrounding zone will be appropriate.

Today, you'll have the opportunity to make a recommendation to council before we meet with them in April. We will then move on to committee and county council and, lastly, the county executive. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you have at this time.

We'll open it to

the commissioners. Do we have any questions? I see commissioner

Burke?

Yes. My question is really about how will the county evaluate where the code update actually increases childcare avail avail availability?

So that's one of the things that we've been asked to do as well. Once this code update has had time, we're gonna go check back and see if this has actually resulted in any improvement in our system, but that is something we'd like to keep in mind. It's going back and actually seeing if this code has had an impact. So once the code has spent time to be out there and get utilized in our fact sheet, should hopefully also increase, the likelihood that people can use Thank

you.

Mhmm.

Any other commissioners with comments or questions?

I think I don't know.

With respect to conditional use permits for industrial, have there been any thresholds, set for administrative or or conditional? Not yet? Not yet. No. Okay. Same thing true with circulation? Yes. Alright.

With no further comments or questions, we would like to open up to public comment. Before I read our procedures, I need to know, is there anyone online who would like to make a public comment at this time?

For those online who would like to make public comment, please press the raise hand icon on Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. This is specifically for the childcare. There's nobody on the line.

Back, commissioners. Any other comments or questions before we entertain a vote?

We need to close the

At this time, public comment is closed.

Thank you.

Would anybody like to make a motion to be able to recommend or reject the child care code update that's been presented today?

I, Jim Burke, move to approve.

Looking for a second.

I'm a

for sure.

I'm sure. That's a second. I think it's just a little laggy, but take that.

Okay. Any further conversation? It's, without without the specifics, it's it's challenging to, you know, move forward. I'm I'm I'm not clear exactly on what we're going for here today Mhmm. Other than the general concept that we're gonna do this.

Yeah. We're just increasing the permitted level across the board for most of the zones. So I I agree with James Burke that we'll need to look back to see if these are significant, but we're trying to comply with state law as well and just increasing our level of overall permitted. So we're all

all we're doing to use, then we're not specific. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.

Alright. Seeing no further comments or questions, I'm gonna call for the vote. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

I think Commissioner O'Leary also indicates aye with his raised hand.

Any opposed? Any abstentions?

Alright.

The motion carries. Thank you, staff. Appreciate your time today. Of our three items, you will definitely have the easiest. All for the kids. Alright. We're on to item number six. This is a public hearing and action item. We're gonna be discussing cottage housing development regulations updates. And, Ben and Sydney, are you going to

be presenting again for this? I'll be presenting for this one.

Sounds great. Alright. Take it away.

Alright. Hello. My name is Bennett Cord Becker. I'm a senior planner in the long range planning division of Pierce County Planning and Public Works. I'm here to provide an overview of the proposed cottage housing development regulations package as well as answer any questions you may have.

Oh, I'm on. Let's see.

There we go. Alright. K. So today,

we'll briefly go over the phases of the project, the policy direction, and guiding documents, as well as highlight a few key topics that are covered in the package and then follow-up on the commission's questions from the January briefing and then take a few minutes to discuss any further questions that you may have. So first, I'd like to provide just a quick overview of the timeline of the project. Scoping for, this code package began in May 2025 during the legislative process, for the implementing regulations for the comp plan update. Staff conducted scoping engagement by attending community events and through an online survey specifically requesting public perspective on what characteristics of smaller homes were appealing to them. This included questions about opportunities for homeownership, unit size, community feel, amenities, and parking.

And based on staff research and public perspective, we staff drafted regulations, and these were reviewed by our interdepartmental team. This led to a second engagement period where we shared our draft regulations and asked for feedback from the public by attending further community meetings and through an additional updated survey. This winter, we are in the process of finalizing these regulations and beginning the legislative process today by presenting to and then for the hearing. Policies from the land use of housing and design and character elements of the comprehensive plan, encourage the implementation of cottage housing to increase the diversity of housing types in the urban area and to create more opportunities for homeownership in Pierce County. These policies encourage more housing development or types of housing that allow for higher densities and create more options and may be more affordable than traditional detached single family housing.

During scoping, staff conducted a regulatory review of other Washington jurisdictions based on their recency of adoption and with recent projects conducted. Additionally, staff reviewed all of Pierce County's cities and towns for cottage housing regulations for local examples and to maximize our proposed code, and its compatibility with their existing regulations. So for reference, there are nine cities and towns within Pierce County that currently have cottage housing regulations. Staff also utilized recent updates to state law to introduce, you know, subdivision regulations as a way to support homeownership through the cottage housing use. The scope of the of the changes for this package include three categories.

The first is related to adding the actual cottage housing use and the accompanying development and design standards. The second is the creation of the unit lot subdivision regulations, which allow for the subdivision of a single parcel into multiple sub lots for private ownership. And the third is universal design guidelines, which provide additional options for residential building design principles, which prioritize accessible building design. Several new definitions have been added to provide clarity on what unit lot subdivisions are as well as defining the cottage housing use. So first, unit lot subdivisions divide a single parcel into sublots called unit lots, which hold the dwelling unit and may include a section of yard or parking.

These unit lots are within the original lot, which is defined as the parent lot, and the parent lot contains all of the unit lots and any remaining property that is not subdivided into those unit lots. These boundaries are then recorded on the plat with any additional information that may be required. And then for cottage housing, this is a a cluster of four to 16 dwelling units surrounding an area of shared open space. And one thing I wanna connect between these two kind of sets of definitions is that, you know, lots of divisions would allow for private ownership of a single cottage home, including a small area of private yard, while the remainder of the parcel would be shared through a binding shared use or maintenance agreement. And this could mean a homeowners association or a similar kind of condominium style agreement.

From a a use perspective, staff has proposed regulations that allow cottage housing to be a flexible use based on the intensity of the zone. Cottage housing has been added, as a category under the single family housing use, specific to the urban area. So this fits within the use similar to where middle housing or attached single family are located within that use. Coverage housing also limits the size of the individual units in exchange for additional density above the base zone of up to a 100%. So, for example, in the suburban residential zone where base density is four dwelling units per acre, the development of cottage cottage units could be up to eight dwelling units per acre.

At this density, no attached units would likely be required in order to achieve this. But in, for example, the middle housing zone where the base density is 10 dwelling units per acre, the maximum achievable density for a cottage development would be 20. And in higher intensity zones, we've proposed allowing row homes in cottage housing developments so long as they meet all of the applicable development and design standards associated with that use as well. So I wanna spend a a couple of minutes just going over the actual proposed development and design standards to give an idea of what the units might look like. So first, as I mentioned, in more intense residential zones, cottage housing would be allowed to, have attached row housing.

We, have proposed staff has proposed allowing parking standards in any combination of separated or, shared parking areas and require between one and one and a half parking spaces per dwelling unit depending on the site's proximity to high capacity transit areas. Individual unit, sizes allow for a maximum of a thousand habitable square feet per unit with a maximum height of 25 feet unless built above a, attached garage. And the reduced roof height is, to make the cottages as compatible as possible with surrounding cities and towns regulations. One of the core characteristics of cottage housing are the common open space areas. These areas have a minimum size standard per cottage unit on the parcel and our jurisdictional review showed that this is usually between three hundred and six hundred square feet per unit.

Based on staff's review of statewide preferred practice and with the Pierce County cities and towns, the county's proposed a minimum, threshold of 400 square feet per cottage unit. However, to make the use more flexible and able to adjust to the intensity of the zone, staff has also proposed an incentive table as you can see here that would allow for the provision of less total open space if the common area has improvements associated with it. So the proposed amenities are improvements that would provide additional benefit to residents beyond the baseline requirements of the use, And the benefit for the developer would be that the the provision of the open space is a less total area, allowing for more of the the proposed site to be used for development of units. So, for example, the sheltered area could be a covered porch or a gazebo, and the benefit would be that that area of the common open space would count as count for twice the amount of square footage that it occupied.

The

the subdivision regulations are already required for cities in Washington. These are not required for counties, but these regulations allow for a a parcel with more than one dwelling unit to be further subdivided into these sub lots called unit lots. These unit lots are able to be owned separately, but are recorded as part of the parent lot at the time of subdivision. And this process accounts for shared ingress, egress, utilities, and parking for property owners in the unit lot subdivision and require that all of these conditions are recorded on the plat as part of the permit's middle. The core regulatory constraints are that the overall parcel must meet all development regulations of the zone and the user uses, and that the unit lots must be defined on the recorded plat.

So any development constraints on the individual unit lots or on the parent lot as a whole must also be recorded on the plat in order to avoid future modifications that would create or increase any nonconformity of the parent lot. And then, lastly, in terms of the kind of three categories that we're covering today, universal design is a priority outlined in both the design and character and housing elements of the comprehensive plan. And the four principles of universal design are equitable use, which means that all users should be able to move into, about, and out of the space. Simple and intuitive, meaning the paths to units and spaces should be direct and lead to the primary entrances. Low physical effort include means including accessible fixtures like lever door handles, and size and space refers to being able to have adequate space for both standing and seated users to be able to turn around and navigate corners.

Staff approached implementing the universal design policy priorities by implementing guidelines in the residential design section to provide a baseline of direction for developers and permit staff. These guidelines are not required for development, but are available to allow different design priorities to be utilized and allow for further implementation of universal design standards sometime in the future based on how these guidelines are used in the coming years. During the briefing in January, the commission had several comments and questions about proposed changes. So I'd like to spend a few minutes providing some additional information regarding these topics. So first, roof pitch requirements were initially proposed and presented during the January hearing part of this package.

The commission recommended that staff review whether these regulations are necessary for adequately regulated use, and the specific concern of the commission, was that was a potential impact to building cost and affordability. Staff re reviewed the analysis that was conducted from the jurisdictional scan and found that four of the 13 jurisdictions that we reviewed contained specific design standards requiring six to 12 roof pitch. So those four jurisdictions that required them were focused on specifically smaller cottages on the lower average of our maximum square footage similar to the proposed regulations that we had. However, after further review of our other applicable design standards, the roof standards are not necessary for adequately regulating use, and so they were removed from the proposed code update.

K.

Another question by the commission was how these would be charged impact fees. So Pierce County has three categories of impact fees, parks, schools, and traffic for so I'd like to go through each of those individually. So for parks fees, these are charged based on the number of dwelling units on the proposed development. So for a cottage development, it would be the cost per dwelling unit times the number of dwelling units on the property for total park impact fees charged. For school impact fees, these are charged, based on the school districts the development resides within and by a a maximum fee obligation.

So for cottage development, the total fee would be the number of dwelling units at the single family rate times either the school district fee of or the maximum fee obligation, whichever is lower. And then third, traffic impact fees are calculated based on ITE land use codes, which classify different types of development. A cottage housing development would be charged the same rate as another middle housing use type based on the number of bedrooms in each dwelling unit. Another question from the commission was how, PBW and the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department coordinate on minimum lot sizes. First, I'd like to provide just some background information on what zones have minimum lot sizes.

Minimum lot size was removed from many urban zones, except for suburban residential and residential resource during the implementing regulations for the comprehensive plan update in 2025. One of the reasons for this was to allow more flexibility in developing housing and to remove potential barriers for small lot residential development. Additionally, for higher intensity residential zones, sewer is needed to achieve even the minimum densities. And in areas where sewer is not available yet in those higher intensity zones, there's an a use exemption in our code that allows for relief from minimum density, until, sewer is available in those areas. In terms of the regulatory agency for on-site sewage development or septic systems, the health department is the regulating agency.

And if a cottage housing development was proposed in an area without sewer service, either the development of individual septic or community septic system would be available based on the size of the development, the specific site constraints, and then would be subject to the same review by the health department as any other residential development. The commission also had a question or requested additional information about how the accessory buildings would be treated on cottage housing developments. And I'd like to point to a specific subsection of the code if if you're interested in the exact language. It's 18 a thirty seven zero two o subsection a. The core, of this provision is this.

If the accessory use is intended to be shared amongst the residents, it needs to be located in the shared area of the property. If the intent of the accessory use is to be for the private use of a single unit, it needs to be either attached to the cottage unit or located in the private open space of that cottage unit. And that's meant to just create really clear design standards about what sections of property are appropriate for a private or shared common space or accessory use. Alright. And then the commission requested staff review other jurisdictions that have completed projects like this and find potential prices of what these things might cost.

So, staff has found four, examples that range in, recency. And first, I'd like to start with the Mira Lake Highland project in Federal Way. This was completed in 2021. These homes are between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred square feet and, ranged in price from, 475 to 550,000. The Greenwood Avenue Cottages in Shoreline is a slightly older development from 2001.

Homes are between 800 and a thousand square feet, and then staff was able to find recorded sales from both 2015 and 2021. 2015, a cottage sold for 400,000, and another sold in 2021 for 735. So some variation there. Third, Conover Cottage Conover Common Cottages, in Redmond, Washington Washington was a mixed housing development. So this had both cottage units and traditional, detached single family, And the cottage prices were between 800 and 900,000, where the larger single family homes were between 1.3 and 1,500,000.0.

For reference, the difference in size here, the cottage units were between a 1,500 square feet, whereas the larger homes were between twenty one and twenty seven hundred square feet. Then, finally, the Ericsson Cottages in Bainbridge Island were built in 2003, and these homes were between nine hundred and eleven hundred, square feet and estimated value around 700,000, although staff wasn't able to find, any active listings. However, there's a current rental price of $34.95 for one of the the cottage units. Briefly, like to go over the upcoming meetings for the code package where community members can engage and provide their comments. So today is the planning commission hearing where the commission will provide recommendations to council.

Then on May 4, the community development environment committee will make recommendations on this package to council. And then sometime in summer of this year, council will take action on this code package. Thank you so much for your time and attention. I'm happy to answer any additional the commission or the public may have.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. This time, I'd like to open it up to our commissioners. Comments or questions? And I see a couple of hands raised online, so let's start with commissioner Burke.

Yes. I I wanna go back to the issue of price reality. Is is this financially buildable under today's construction here? So based on the current construction cost in Pierce County, what sales price do you estimate the staff expect for a thousand square foot cottage? And what's the smallest size we can build? What's the smallest of of the cottage?

The smallest would be what's set by the state, which is a 190 square feet for a dwelling unit.

So given those two, what would what given the cost in Pierce County, what would a thousand square foot cottage cost, and what would the smaller one cost?

So the exact cost is really determined by the site characteristics. I think the closest and most recent example we have are the Mirror Lake Cottages in Federal Way that were between 450 and 550,000 for around a thousand square feet to 1,200. And so a rough estimate would be something around there, but that was five years ago. So

that's that's a significant cost for that building, wouldn't it be when you consider that? Wouldn't it I mean, that's that's a a relatively costly my concern is the affordability. What what do we see as the ability for for individuals, retired people, or other people to be able to buy these units?

Yeah. Well, in terms of anticipated cost, the new development is always going to be rather expensive. We did not do specific analysis about the anticipated AMI of Pierce County regarding new build cottage homes.

Right. So this is about affordability. So I'm still concerned about the affordability of these. Thank you.

Commissioner Dirkovich.

Commissioner Dirkovich, I think your Internet connection is a bit unstable. If you could post your question in the chat, we can read it out loud.

And, actually, could we try just discontinuing your video to see if that helps first? Maybe we get your audio. Presentation. Commissioner we are not picking you up. If you could discontinue your video for this moment. Commissioner Derkovich, can you attempt to discontinue your video and ask the question on audio only, please?

I'm lagging some

Yeah. That's why I keep repeating myself. Alright. Let's try it again. Commissioner Dirkovich, are you with us? Oh. And she's dropped entirely. Let's move to commissioner O'Leary.

Thank you very much. Sorry. I I was listening to your presentation and missed, what the outcome was of your, research on the six and twelve PH. I heard that there were other jurisdictions that had those requirements. And what what is your proposal now at this point?

Yeah. Thank you for the clarifying question. The current proposal does not include six to 12 roof pitch requirements for cottage units. The additional analysis concluded that our existing regulations adequately cover the design standards of cottage units? And the the first part of your question, I believe, was what was the conclusion of the jurisdictional scan, which was that four of the municipalities have six to 12 roof pitch, and those are also focused on the lower end of the spectrum of total size for cottage dwelling units.

Yeah. And I I thank you very much for clarifying that because I do think that does add to the cost, and I agree with commissioner Burke that, you know, I am concerned about the economics of this type of development. If we're gonna create incentives for density or encourage density, it has to be economical. There has to be some offset for this. And that was the last part of my question, was at your last presentation, we discussed the possibility of, including some kind of incentive based

recommendations

that ultimately could become part of this. Did you happen to come up with any of those that might be beneficial to the developer?

Yeah. The core incentive that's included in this proposal is the increase in density above base density in the actual density requirements and then the ability to provide less total square footage of common open space through the provision of amenities. So the incentive here for the developer would be by providing additional amenities, you can build more dwelling units at a higher density than is available in the the underlying zone, which then can potentially reduce the per unit cost of the land in the in the development by being able to add more dwelling units. Does that answer your question, commissioner? It

certainly does. And I thank you for putting it in there, and I just can't emphasize enough that the more incentive, based and less requirement based, code that can be written allows for flexibility and creativity on the part of the developer and because the developer is gonna match the market. And if the market responds favorably, everyone wins. And so I think that's what we're trying to achieve here is a way to get higher density in a more confined area and still have it be appealing and functional. So I I just really applaud you for putting that in there, and I hope you continue to try to find places where that might work. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, commissioner O'Leary. Commissioner Lewis?

Thank you for the presentation. Several of my questions were answered. However, when I saw I think it was maybe slide 14 or 15 giving, market prices for a thousand square footage. I think we need to do a market analysis. Because looking at Pierce County median price range for a three bedroom home, and this is for new build, residential.

A three bedroom home, two bath sells for about $5.50 to $650,000. When we start getting up into the 900 to a dollar home price range, that's considered a luxury selling home. So I'm wondering when it comes to building cottage housing for 1,000 square footage, what is our market? Who is our demographic that we're trying to serve? And are we meeting those goals?

Because when I think of a cottage house, I'm thinking of first time homebuyers. I'm thinking of downsizing older adults, people that are workforce near infill neighborhoods that are near transit. So I'm really wondering, are we meeting our goals with cottage housing if we're up in that upper echelon? So I'm going to ask that we we do a a market analysis because those price ranges I I don't know what our goal is now with the cottage housing. If it's more density and density, lowers price range, we're not we're not there there's a discrepancy.

Thank you, commissioner Lewis. Any other comments from any other commissioners? Commissioner Sunstone?

We capped at a thousand on this? Yes. Yeah. And why is this different than an ADU? I'm still trying to my head around that. What what's the thing? You need to chapter or something? Title?

So accessory dwelling units have to be accessory to a primary residential use. So, for example, an existing single family home could build an accessory dwelling unit in the backyard, whereas a cottage housing development is, the cottage housing use is the principal use and requires between four and sixteen dwelling units. So the the distinction between an ADU and the cottage housing use is whether or not the dwelling unit needs to be accessory to a principal structure or if the cluster of smaller cones is the principal use. Does that help with the clarification?

Yeah. Kinda. I'm I'm just trying to yeah. I mean, I'm wrap trying to wrap my head around thousand where you gave examples up there of up over there wasn't they were mostly over a thousand square feet. So I was wondering why the since we have ADUs that we can build more than one ADU on a site, why would we be capping this at a thousand square feet?

Why would we have, like, these examples up here, 1,300, 1,500 square feet, that that type of thing? The challenge with development is that it's very, very it's not very much more money to build a house 1,500 square feet even though it's twice the size of a thousand square feet, but there there comes the diminishing costs in building a little bit larger house per square foot. So I was just wondering if we could accommodate more families in these cottage industry homes with additional square footage. We already have a thousand people who can buy an ADU move in there. It's not there's no restriction and ownership anymore.

So why wouldn't we just take the next tier, cap these at 15, and then give people that have families a greater opportunity to buy affordable housing. Just like like the like Champagne was saying, you know, some of these houses now, 2,000 square feet or half $1,000,000 easily, maybe more, probably, you know, in the sevens. I'm just saying that this is this gives people an opportunity. A fam small family get started. 1,500 square feet is is adequate. And if they don't they don't there's no children or something like that, thousand square feet. Why not have a tier?

Yeah. So there's thank you for the question, commissioner. There's a few parts to your question, and I'm gonna do my best to hit each part. But to start, the a thousand square feet is a number that was based on on policy direction that does not a thousand square feet is not, like, a a legal requirement. So if the commission would like to make a recommendation to counsel about adjusting the the square foot requirement, that's absolutely the commission's discretion.

The reason that staff set it at a thousand square feet is is multifaceted, but a couple of the the kind of core considerations were having an additional tool to the toolbox of single family housing. So we have detached single family, duplex, middle housing, and attached single family, all of which are able to be built at various sizes in including the kind of as you put it, commissioner Sunstad, the the first time homebuyer around 12 to 1,500 square feet. The intent of the cottage housing development is to add just another option. And one of the the core principles of cottage housing throughout the state and within Pierce County is limiting the size in exchange for some level of increased density. Some of the municipalities within Pierce County allow a dense or a individual unit size above a thousand square feet up to, I think, the largest 1,600 square feet within the county.

However, those jurisdictions do not allow a proportional increase in density that we've proposed. So the larger the dwelling unit, the less density bonus that's given in in exchange. So there's a a policy balancing act here, where the smaller the dwelling unit, the larger the density bonus we can give. And, again, that's the discretion of the planning commission's recommendation. To return to another section of the the question about home price, the review that was conducted by staff is obviously affected by the community that the cottage housing developments are in.

So the average home price in in Redmond is going to be higher than in Pierce County. In terms of and I apologize. I think this was part of commissioner Lewis' comment earlier. Pierce County has market analysis being conducted for the Parkland, Spannery, Midland area. This is in process with in collaboration with the economic development department, but this is specifically looking at middle housing, site availability, and proposed affordability. So that study is coming, but it's not ready yet nor would it be specific to cottage housing. It would be

It doesn't matter. I mean, the the price at 2,007 or 8 of housing in Pierce County compared to today or 2,005 even compared to today or six. I mean, that that's that's relative market. What we have to figure out is how to create, like, the state growth management sets, a variety of housing types, and then let the the market can decide. But right now, we have 80 units and a thousand, and it's just it's my belief that these should go based on the examples she's had of other cottage housing industries to at least 15 thou 1,500 square feet and let the builder or developer, whoever it might be, decide on on how far they wanna go based on their demographic because it's really different building something over in Gig Harbor than it is building something in, let's say, telecom.

You know, toe toe totally different markets, that that type of thing. So I think that we need to let the market design as a way of of getting greater, but greater variety adding 1,507,000 square feet to this particular code be appropriate. I'll then make an amendment for that. Thank

you. I think has some comments in the chat as well.

We do have commissioner Lewis with her hand raised. Commissioner Lewis.

I I think Commissioner Djerkovic has comments in the chat.

Yes. I can read those. It's the record. So her first message said that she had read the public comments and homeowners on the minimum unit size at 1,500 square feet. And her question was, what is the target of buyers and renters for these units? If if it is families, the unit size needs to be realistic. So that was her first comment and question. Her second comment is that if the median income in Pierce County is $96,000, the most the household can afford is $320,000 or 3% of annual income. And looks like a.

Alright. Commissioner Djerkovic, if you can hear us, we did read your comments. If you have anything else to add, please raise your hand. And at this time, we'll go back to commissioner Lewis.

So, also, after listening to commissioner Derkovitz comment, That's for a household of four. So the AMI for a household of four in Pierce County is 96,500, I believe. And so I'm I'm wondering what is the goal for the cottage housing? Now I'm I'm wondering, again, what is the goal? Maybe I understood it before, but maybe I'm not clear now.

Can the commissioner clarify the the question? I apologize.

Yeah. So I from my understanding, we're cottage housing is part of middle housing and increasing density. And what goal does that meet?

That meets so that's referring specifically to housing goal 1.3 in the comprehensive plan, which is allowing middle housing, including cottages and other types of middle housing. But the to I think to answer the the core question of the commissioner, it cottage housing is just another option within the single family housing and is intended to be available at market rate. So this is not a specific affordable housing provision that would only be built under or with financial or regulatory incentives. They it could be used to do that, but it is not exclusively an affordable housing development. This is just another option to allow for an increase in the variety of housing.

And then in terms of affordability, the the concept, I guess, is relative affordability. A smaller dwelling unit is cheaper than a larger dwelling unit, but these would still be market rate units, not targeting a specific AMI within the county. Does that answer commissioner Lewis' question?

And to follow-up with that, has staff thought about what demographics might purchase these homes? And if the house prices are similar to larger single family homes, then again, I think we go back to the incentives. What would be the incentive to build this style of housing, and what would be the incentive to purchase this style of housing?

The incentive is that the dwelling unit and associated land is smaller, and so it'd be proportionally less expensive than if single dwelling unit was built on the property. But the the regulatory balance here depends on the site considerations, the market considerations, and then the choices that the developer makes about the number of dwelling units, the balance of amenity incentives versus amount of open space, those specific considerations.

And then I I believe I heard in the presentation that within Pierce County, there were other cities and towns that have been practicing cottage style housing. Is that correct?

There are nine cities and towns that have existing regulations, but cottage developments are not very common in the cities and towns in Pierce County.

Okay. So we don't have any actual examples of those?

No. None that I could talk recently.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Lewis. Commissioner Burke?

Yes. I mean, one of the thing one of the benefits to developers is the increased dense density. But isn't that one of the also, the goal overall goals is to increase the density so that we can get more housing for more people. Wouldn't you say that is a primary goal is the increased density?

I would agree with that statement, commissioner.

Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Burke. Commissioner O'Leary.

Just to be clear, and I I wanna make sure I understand. Increasing density isn't in certain areas isn't a goal. It's more of a mandate, isn't it?

That's a good clarifying point. I I appreciate that, commissioner, Larry. So Pierce County has to meet housing growth targets that are set by the the regional governing body, which is commerce thank you, commissioner, Which is a mandate that we need to plan for and accommodate for that projected growth. However, within the comprehensive plan, it's also a policy priority to focus urban density in areas that are more able to accommodate that increase in population.

Yeah. But, I mean, just to simplify it because I I wanna make sure everyone listening is is clear. The Puget Sound Regional Council has passed down, and then the Pierce County Regional Council has passed down, basically, a mandate that says we will reach certain densities in certain areas. Is is that correct or not?

Yes, Kanishka. That is correct.

Okay. So with that, that is part of the reason, at least as I understand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that is part of the reason that this kind of a proposal even exists is to try to reach those standards that has been mandated to us under the general umbrella of the Growth Management Act. Is that accurate?

I appreciate the the question, commissioner. We have existing residential uses that can achieve a density beyond the cottage housing use. We have the multifamily use, which would allow a far greater density in our urban residential areas. So in many of our urban residential zones, we have existing uses that are that are not modified by this proposal that would allow us to accommodate housing growth. The goal of of this proposal is to add another option to allow for a diversity of housing because our our policy direction indicates that community members have different housing needs through phases of their life.

And so having a diversity of housing types is, a net benefit for allowing folks to choose the types of falling units they live in and the area of our our community that they choose to live in. Does that is that clarification useful, commissioner?

Yeah. Yeah. It is, and I don't wanna belabor this. I just I just want folks that are listening and and for my own clarification to understand that you guys are somewhat put in a box here, that there's there's certain requirements, and I applaud the cottage housing as another alternative. I hope that it's economically feasible, but this is this is not a desire as much as it is a a requirement of sorts.

And if I'm wrong, please correct me, but I that was my understanding was that we have to achieve these higher densities, and how we get there, you know, can be a variety of ways, but we have to achieve these higher densities.

Great. Thank you, commissioner O'Leary. Commissioner Burke.

I think you the statement you just made is, you know, we we need to per have alternatives. One of the one of the dilemmas we're facing is that it's difficult for and I'm I'm an elder myself to downsize these days, to find alternative housing that we can move into. And it's tying up much of the market with, elders ending up because of of, mortgages issues to downsize. And so this offers an alternative for for elders or for people who wanna downsize later in life. Wouldn't you say that?

I I would agree with that, commissioner.

Thank you.

Any other commissioners? My 2¢, I just wanna say thank you to the staff because this is although not quite a heroic effort, it is one of the most impressive efforts that I've seen to be able to create a solution when you have many different requests for increasing the infill near the urban course, the, complying with the urban growth management. It creates options. In his book, Strong Towns by Robert Marrone, he advocates for creating as many adaptable pathways towards home ownership as possible. So while ADUs are great, they don't typically create a pathway for home ownership.

We have examples of houses that historically have been much smaller than what we want today. You know? If you look back a hundred years ago, people were happy living in 400, 500 square feet. And even in the sixties and seventies, I happen to look up the project that you'd mentioned near Mirror Lake, and the majority of the houses that were nearby are actually smaller than the majority of the cottage houses. They're just on larger lots. So this does increase the density. It does create options for builders. It does create pathways for homeownership. I will support amendment an amendment to increase to 1,500 square feet if that's the council the commission's choice. I would love to entertain a motion, but I just want to say that I appreciate the staff's effort to make this happen if it helps more people.

And from my heart, being in public aviation and the nonprofit already, I wanna see more homeowners. I wanna see people create pathways. And I recognize when we see a number like a million dollars from Redmond, that can be a little staggering. But the reality is is that we have developable land in South Hill that likely could be used for this in my area, and there are multiple other areas in Fredericksen and, as you mentioned, Parklands, you know, Spanaway, that area. If we can see more of these kinds of projects that are economically viable for developers and create pathways for homeownership, then I certainly support it. With that, I'll entertain a motion. Yeah. Oh, public comment. Yeah. Alright. If the commission has concluded their questions

comments at this time, we are going

to open for public comment. We have nobody in the gallery. Is there anybody online who would like to comment? And if so, I'll read the instructions.

For those online who would like to provide public comment, please press the raise hand of my phone on Zoom or star nine on your telephone keypad. You have one pen raised here.

See that? So I can read this, and we'll get started with mister Hallenberg. So comment will only be accepted on the current agenda items. Please state your name and your address before you begin. You'll have three minutes to provide public comment, and we have received several public comments as well. So with that, we'll open up.

Aaron you can unmute and, go ahead and start speaking.

Great. Thank you for the record. Aaron Hallberg here on be speaking on behalf of the Master Builders Association of Pierce County. Thank you for your opportunity to comment. Sorry. I couldn't be there this morning feeling a little under the weather myself, so didn't wanna break you guys with that. Like I said, we did submit a comment letter, so I'll keep my comments brief, really around kinda how the conversations gone thus far throughout the briefing. First, we would recommend increasing the building footprint to a ceiling of at least 1,500 square feet. Reason behind this, right, is is you guys have discussed, that's right. That one size fits all.

It doesn't work for everybody. We think going up and above to that, 1,500 square foot more closely aligns with other jurisdictions throughout the region, but also gives the flexibility to developers and also the potential homeowners, whether it's a senior looking to downsize, a first time home buyer, or a family. I think that range of options with more square footage helps diversify the options for everybody in the community. And then secondly, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the open space requirements. We think, you know, it's our feeling that 600 a mandate of 600 square foot, so 200 for the individual, 400 for the the common open space is, again, a little bit, an outlier from our research of other jurisdictions.

We see kind of a more a lower threshold seems to be the the status quo. So looking if I think it would be better and more flexible for the development community and the home building community to to look at maybe a little bit lower, so 400 square foot total. I think, right, when those are active open space, you it it cuts into the buildable lot. It can get it, right, cut down on density. So those are our main topics. If you guys have any questions, hope, always open to answering. Please feel free to reach out to us at any time. And, yeah, if you didn't get a copy of the letter, please let me know. Happy to resend it. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Anyone else online who would like to speak? One I saw a hand pop up for one half of it. One second.

Yes. So if you would like to provide public comment online, please press the raise hand icon on Zoom or star nine. K. It doesn't look like Nope. It it keeps flashing, but I believe, David, could you please press the raise hand icon and keep it there just so we can make sure that you are okay. Great. Alright. I will you too. Give me one moment, please. Okay.

You may

be Hello.

Thank you. I appreciate your time allowing me this time. I wanna comment a little bit on the mandate, of course, for, for density. One of the things we always seem to forget about is when we increase our density, we're increasing our demands on our highways and transportation network, and and somehow we need to make sure that, just the mitigation from from buildings doesn't cover what we need for handling all the additional traffic or public transportation needs that will come with density. So that I'm a little concerned about that.

Also, with the cottage housing, what about the adjacent homeowners? Such as small house grouping could easily drop the value of the surrounding homes by removing the quiet neighborhood culture that homebuyers really like. How does the property fit into the character of the neighborhood, and how is, that isn't that a zoning question, or would that be a consideration and zone and re and zoning changes? The other thing is, I'd like to know whether whether the you're you were able to receive any of the, written testimonies and how we might get some answers to some of those questions. So I think, overall, it's, you know, it's a good very good idea to try to, help, affordable housing, which I don't think this accomplishes, but it does reach the mandate that you have for, density.

And I just would like to, from a public standpoint, like to show the, importance of transportation networks and public transportation coinciding with density. Thank you.

David, if you don't mind, could you, just state your name for the record? We didn't catch that at the beginning.

Sorry. David Hill. One five seven one zero hundred sixth Street, Denpio Olive, Washington.

Thank you. Okay. It looks like we have one other individual online who

would

like to provide public comments. Rick, please state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to speak.

Do you want it?

You need to unmute first, please. Rick, if you could unmute by pressing the microphone icon on your Zoom app, or if you're dialing in, press 6 on your telephone Okay. If you are having difficulty unmuting your microphone, Rick, you are more than welcome to submit public comment to us. If you have access to the Planning Commission website, you can send an email, to the contact listed there, the clerk email. It's also available or visible on the Planning Commission agenda.

Well, if there's anyone else online who would like to provide public comments, please press the raise hand icon on Zoom or star nine until I think that's is it just

Great. We'll go back. Commissioners with questions or comments. Could you please post Oh, yes. Catherine's so good at her job. At this time, public comments are concluded. We will move back to the commissioners for any further comments or questions.

I have one. Commissioner Sensmull? So with respect to the open space in this cottage industry building situation, we have in our in our code already subdivisions that if you're within whether it's a quarter mile or half mile of a park or school that has recreational opportunities. Is that different, any different than what we're talking about here for the open space?

Yeah. So the the thank you for the question, commissioner Sunsettle. The provision of common open space for cottage housing specifically has its own requirements on the amount per per unit as well as private open space per unit. So the total amount of open space required per unit would be 600 square feet, 400 in the common area, 200 for private and directly attached to the dwelling unit.

Seeing no other comments or questions, I'd like to entertain a motion.

I have actually two. First one being the the open space. I'd like to restrict that open space to 400 feet or common up the individual unit and also common. So six six and four, four and four. And then the next is to push the number of square feet up to 1,500.

It's more in keeping with the growth management policies, provide a variety. Housing opportunities, we already have a thousand square feet of that for a u, and this is gives development an opportunity to decide whether they wanna build from one ninety to 1,500. Depending on the the demographics are all different in every different area. That planning commissioner Champagne brought up the the case that there are different demographics everywhere, and I think that industry needs to decide what's appropriate.

So just point of order, commissioner Sunso. So it's actually one recommendation to, recommend the cottage housing development regulations with two amendments?

Yeah. Just those two. I guess they're they're separate amendments, but, one would be the 1,500. The other one would be the 400.

I'll second that.

So is the motion to approve, but with the restrictions of the open space or to reduce the open space requirements, 400 square feet for individual units in comp and the common space, and to increase the square footage cap of the units to 1,500 square feet. Correct.

I heard that. Thank you. You should have made it. I could have.

Way better at it than I have. And we have a second from commissioner O'Leary?

Yes.

Further comments or questions? Again, just my kudos to staff. Thank you so much for putting this together and for the commissioner working through some interesting conversation. Thank you. At that point, I'll call for the vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions?

Alright. Motion carries. The only other business business we have is to remind you that we have a special planning commission meeting on 03/03/2026 in the Public Hearing Room and online via Zoom. So thank you for your time today.

With that, we are adjourned.

Thank you.