Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

And we can begin.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the November 18, 2025 Planning Commission meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Chair Drukovich? Here. Vice Chair Manley?

Here.

Commissioner Lewis has indicated she would be absent. Commissioner Starr. Here. Commissioner Sunsmo.

Here.

Commissioner Burke. Here. And Commissioner O'Leary. Jerome. Okay. All right. Commissioner O'Leary has indicated he is here online.

Thank you. We have a quorum. Before we get started, I'd like to say that the Planning Commission is principally an advisory board to the Pierce County Council. Actions taken by the Planning Commission on almost all agenda items will be forwarded to the County Council as a recommendation for its consideration and final actions. First item on our agenda is the approval of the November 5th, 2025 minutes. I'm assuming everyone's had a chance to review it. Are there any questions or comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Call for the vote. Okay.

Chair Drukovich? Aye. Vice Chair Manley?

Aye.

Commissioner Starr? Aye. Commissioner Starr, could you repeat that?

Unfortunately, my space bar to unmute myself momentarily isn't working. That is an I from me.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Sonsmo. Aye. Commissioner Burke. Aye. And Commissioner O'Leary. Jerome, are you muted by any chance? It doesn't seem like we can hear you. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner O'Leary has indicated yes.

Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. First item, actually, it looks like the only item on our, oh no, wait a minute. Sorry, I've got my agenda. First item on our agenda is the 2026 Planning Commission Work Plan. And we have a presentation by staff. So I'll turn that over to the staff.

Thank you. Along the long range planning manager. Good to be back with you today. We have a A few new folks on the Commission's take the time to celebrate all that we've done this year in 2025 and talk a little bit about what's coming ahead in 2026. This slide has the greatest hits from 2025 of things you may recall some works, I think, than others. Had a couple of legal housekeeping packages, the large development regulations with all the changes to the housing code and the zoning code. landmarks and historic preservation, changes to cultural resources and how we do that as well as act tourism. And then the year's not quite done. So transfer of development rights that you heard from Justin Patterson on earlier in the fall is going to community development and environment committee on December 1st and likely will be with full council at their final session of the year on December 16th. So lots of things moving on our side this year. If you're keeping track, this would have been seven packages that made their way through this year. I say that because many more are coming in 2026. So I'm going to start with the things that we do that are not land use related. They're land use related, but they're not part of the work program for our land use team. I want to start with the unsigned heroes of our division, Sarah, as well as Danika, who runs six boards on commission. including this one. And while the stuff that they do doesn't often get a line item up on a slide, we couldn't do any of the things we do without them. So thank you. Also acknowledge our data team, our geographic information systems specialists. There's three of them currently who do this work and they answer all the what, where, how many questions. They make all the pretty maps at the end, but really the hard labor is asking all the questions and get a line item on this map. So I wanna call them out as we couldn't do our work without them as well. Few things are moving. I think the things that have the light green at the end suggesting the legislative process or items that will make their way to you eventually. So I'll call out two things that aren't from the land use and housing team. One is a solar package really focused on battery energy storage systems. We've had these allowed in most of Pierce County, not on farmlands, but just about anywhere else for a number of years now through a director's decision. We're trying to codify that. That will likely make its way to you in your January meeting for a briefing. We're going to try real hard in 2026 to at least go from briefing to hearing in two meetings and not in one ever. Thank you. As much as we can control that. So that'll come in January. We're also working on a Pretty big deal transportation package. This will be similar in scope to the land use regulations. The less will be impactful to this body, but it's the implementation of the transportation element in the comprehensive plan. So it will have changes to complete streets, changes to how we think about active transportation, work on reciprocal impact fees, September timeframe next year once it goes through an engagement process. And then the things that you all will care far more about because they really the kind of planning commission type of topics. So this is our land use teams work program. There's a few things coming quickly. Cottage housing and childcare should both come to you early next year. Cottage housing I'll date myself a little bit to think of the singles or the show Melrose place just having houses around the courtyard with a little open area. we're trying to harmonize our regulations with the 11 cities and towns in the county that also have regulations and make sure that we're all being consistent with each other, so that should come to you for a briefing also in January. For child care, we have a report from our economic development department from the beginning of this year. They published that in February. On all the things we need to do to make it easier for there to be more child care facilities across the county. So we've essentially just taken their seven recommendation, turned it into a code package, and we'll be bringing that for a briefing in January as well. So January will be busy with three briefings. We're also doing some work on impact fees. We expect that to come early in the year, though not likely to the January meeting. This is a continuation of work that was done by a council committee for the last several years with Chair Hitchin, as well as Council Member Denson. Several members of the NBA participated, as well as the school districts, all about impact fees. So we have a little bit more engagement work to do on that topic before we bring it to you. So that'll come early in the year. And then there are, oh my, so many things that are moving. They'll come to you as the year wears on. We have our annual, biannual comprehensive plan amendment cycle next year. We're going to try to do that hand in hand with the legal and housekeeping package. So that process opens up in July and we're expecting there to be significant It's been a while since this is open. We expect that to come to you in the fall sometime as a package. I should note on that that we are also working to change that to an annual process. We think it's two years apart, and then taking off the comp plan years is just not often enough for people to be able to submit. So we're going to try to turn it into an annual comp plan amendment cycle, which is allowed under the Roof Management Act. Other things that are coming, pre-approved accessory dwelling unit designs. We've started work with the cities in the county on doing this together as a regional approach. Kitsap County recently did this, Thurston County before them. What we're hoping to get out of that is, we're not quite sure on process, figuring out the cast of characters. The end result will either be a number of designs owned by the county that anybody could just buy for a small fee.

Assuming...

Their parcel allows for putting an ADU on it. They would now have any further work to do on the permitting side. We need to hire an architect. That might be more than likely as the model that we're going towards. We're exploring a licensing model as well where fees go directly to the architects and we don't pay up front. So more on that as the year comes. We are finally getting into short-term rentals. The executive has promised robust engagement on this topic, and I know you in the past have all asked us what we've done for engagement, and I guarantee we will do a lot before we bring this topic back here. It will obviously be a very heated topic, and we're well aware of that. My guess at the onset of this work is that it will very much not be a one-size-fits-all type of situation, but there will be a lot of nuance what fits, but we'll get there. We're excited for that work. We've also got two community plans that are going to start next year. They may move fast enough that we might bring them to you next year, though I anticipate full completion of those and making some of them to council in 2027, but we might move fast enough to get them to you next year. Plans will be for Parkland and for South Hill, explicitly thinking about South Hills pre-incorporation community plan update. Parkland is mostly a community plan update because they are there in its entirety as within Tacoma's pre-annexation area. So maybe those two make it here towards the end of next year. The second round of ag tourism work is under engagement right now and we'll make it to you towards the end of next year as well. And then we are very, very busy in conversations on all things in corporations and annexations. Some conversations are progressing faster than others. Very good conversation with Dick Arbor in particular about a couple of islands that are really very logical places. The city, I think, would prefer to be able to do their own permitting in those areas and get us out of the way. We generally support that. So those conversations are moving quickly. There will be a resolution going to council fairly soon. That doesn't have to come to you. That'll go straight to council, just directing us as a department to do this work, which is what's necessary for us to work on the agreements. But eventually that certainly will, whatever we work up towards with the city as an agreement will make its way to you. So I expect that one to come. But there's a number of other active incorporation annexation conversations happening at the same time. If any of them move faster, we'll get them here as well. And with that, happy to chat about any of these things or anything else.

Yes, could you expand a little bit on the components of the solar package and what we're going to be looking at as far as that?

Sure. So the upside of the battery energy storage systems is that we need them to support electric energy, whether it comes from wind or solar, and this is how they're retained. They also are good for if there's a break in the system, then they function as backup power. So kind of two benefits, which is why we would want them. The biggest downside to them being lithium ion batteries is if one of these things catches fire, you can't put it out. It's a question of just waiting it out. The larger the batteries are, the more of a buffer you need before other things catch on fire. And so I think the extent of code that we're bringing to you will be really related to the how do we make sure that if one of these things, not that we're hoping one of them does, but in the unlikely awful event that one of these things catches on fire, what should the buffer be? And they're generally currently allowed across the whole county other than on farms. that we're just proposing to cover to so this would be commercial residential uh governmental buildings that we put them on that we're looking for policy to set the policy for what how we how we put it in usually they're next to substations more than anything else i think there is generally a concern there will be a need for more of them particularly as we move more towards

trying to get ahead of it thank you on the um the adu designs is there or are you planning to coordinate with the health department we already are yes because it's a little bit of a can be a little bit of a complicated process if you know you can't just put maybe you on your property if you're in unincorporated pierce county and you don't have sewer yes Are you working with them on septic and what would that look like to expedite? It would be nice to see like an information package or, you know, potential users of this program that includes maybe some health information on. I deal with this a lot. You know, because if they have an individual well, it has to meet certain standards. If they're on public water, they have to have a separate meter. And then the whole septic system is an issue all in of itself. And it would be nice when you're putting this together to actually be able to have handouts to the potential user that it has contains quite a bit of information or resources where they could go. So I'm hoping you're already looking at all of that.

We are and happy to commit to doing that and to making those materials available.

anyone having them both in the developments under and online yeah thank you commissioners online do any of you have any questions or comments on the presentation doesn't look like it um i do oh okay commissioner sorry i was trying to get to the raise the hand thing and i'm like i'll just talk Did I hear right that there is a report that Economic Development did on child care in Pierce County?

They did, yes. That was published in 2025. We can send it out to the whole commission right after this meeting.

Yeah, I would love to see it. I must have missed it when it came out.

I'll make sure you get it.

Awesome. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments for staff? Not seeing any. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate your time today. The next item on our agenda is the Pierce County Parks and Rec open space plan. And this is a study session for us. And at this point, I'll turn it over to staff for their presentation.

Good morning. I'm Tiffany Odell with Pierce County Parks.

I'm here to talk to you about our parks recreation and open space plan, which is our long range plan for the Pierce County Park system. I am going to share my screen with my presentation. There we go. Alrighty, so our parks, recreation and open space plan is updated every six years. And this is our regular update. And I'm gonna go through today a little background about the plan, where we've been and where we're going. We do a significant demand and needs assessment just to understand what we need in our park system, what people want to see in our park system. It includes our 20-year capital improvement program, a regional trails plan, which is really looking countywide at trails. As it turns out, people don't like trails that stop at jurisdictional boundaries. They want to go from place to place. So we try to plan countywide when we look at trails. A land management and acquisition plan, and then opportunities for public engagement. Right now, we've just released the draft plan for public comment. It's open for comment until December 5th. So this meeting is really a study session to get you all up to speed on what's in the plan. You can absolutely submit comments either independently or as a commission that we would incorporate into the final plan. We expect to have the final plan up to the county council by March of next year. So I would anticipate coming back to planning commission sometime early in the new year for a final recommendation. The PROS plan is an element of the comprehensive plan, so it does need to come to Planning Commission for recommendation before it goes up to council. Let's see. All right, well, I kind of covered this. So our last update to this plan was in 2020. And so we are asking you today, or not today, sorry, today's our study session in the future to provide a recommendation. Let's see, this is going slower than my computer. I've covered a lot of this. One of the things I didn't say is that we have to update this PROS plan every six years, not only because it's a good idea for us to have a long range plan and a direction in terms of where we're going for the Parks Department, but also to maintain eligibility for the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office grants. We get a pretty significant chunk of funding from them for both capital projects and recreational programs. In any given year, the grant income for our capital program is 10 to 20% of our full capital program. So this is a really important plan for us to have in place. So I'm gonna jump into our demand and needs assessment. This is really studying our service area. So understanding the people that we serve, whether it's information about their demographics, age, race, income, recreation trends, what sorts of things are they participating in? Where are they participating in them? Do schools have enough recreation programs? Do we need to be providing more? Things like that. And then we also compare our park system to other park systems. both across the state and across the country to understand sort of what level of service we're providing and how that compares to other communities. And I should also mention we fielded a pretty significant public survey to inform this as well in the summer of 2024. And that was our first countywide major public survey since 2013. We had done some smaller scale public surveys during the 2017 or 2018 community plan updates, just for the four communities that were part of that, the four urban communities. But this was our first countywide public survey in more than a decade. Pierce County Parks is a little different than most park systems across the county and even across the state. Because Pierce County has such a significant urban unincorporated population, We find many county parks departments operate more in a regional capacity. King County and Stahelmush County both operate this way. They really coordinate funding and coordinate the park system across the county, working with park districts and smaller jurisdictions. We do that, but our major focus is being the only service provider for most of the urban unincorporated area in Pierce County, with the exception of the two peninsulas that have their own park districts. So we are really functioning as a local service provider while also doing some of the regional coordination and providing larger regional facilities. So there is an entire chapter. I think it is the largest chapter of our PROS plan that jumps into demand and needs assessment. These are just the high level countywide findings. We have a lower level of service for parks, trails, and sports complexes than jurisdictions that we compare to. Our urban areas are growing fastest, which is great. Growth management is working. But they have the lowest rate of service. The county's parks department really was not in a growth mode until about 2020. We didn't have a park impact fee that really supported the growth of the park system until the first collect, let's see, it was adopted in 16. The first partial collections began in 17 and we weren't receiving full collections on this expanded impact fee until 2018. So by the time that money hits the coffers and we had the authority to spend it, we were really in 2020 before we were delivering major projects. So we are sort of in the infancy of a parks department being in growth mode, and that's really reflected in our capital improvement program. And because that growth is coming from urban areas, a lot of our funding in those areas are driven by park impact fees and real estate excise tax when it comes to capital improvements. So that's where we're focusing those investments are.

either in urban areas or in regional facilities. Not all of our regional facilities are located in urban areas when you think about facilities like the Foothills Trail.

Let's see, trails and access to natural areas are among the most highly desired facilities across all demographics across the entire county. People are really looking to have access to natural areas and walk, bike, skate, whatever it might be on trails. whether it be soft surface trails or our larger regional paved trails. Urban residents are much more interested in indoor facilities than we've ever seen before in this last round of surveys. Things like community centers, we see a lot of unincorporated residents going into the Parks Tacoma community centers now. We're working on a redesign of the Springer Recreation Center to functionally act more like a community center than a specialized recreation center. So a lot of work happening there. You see the Parkland Community Center effort happening in Parkland by a community group there. So just a lot more interest there in our urban areas. And then safety, just feeling safe in parks, feeling like you can go to parks by yourself and do what you want to. and as well as safe non-motorized access. So being able to bike or walk to a park are two of the biggest barriers to accessing parks that we're hearing from our communities. So not having a sidewalk system that connects to the park in your neighborhood or not having a park in your neighborhood are big issues for people. I have a couple of handouts and I did not make a PDF of these. I'm happy to hand them to the folks in the room. Thanks a lot. This is just a chunk of what is in the plan. It's a section of the demand and needs chapter, and it's the breakout of demand and need by community. So we have these countywide general findings, but we also break out by community. We've followed community plan boundaries in order to create these findings, just because people generally, you know, when we look countywide, we just don't see a lot other than these high-level findings. But when we look specifically at South Hill, we're able to really hone in on like, where are the gaps in our park system? What are the people doing there? What do they wanna see there? So this is a section of the demand and need section that I just made copies of. I'm happy to share with the folks online, either to send you this clip or to send you the page numbers in the pros plan that you can look at to pull these out. I'm gonna move to, and this is a study session. Feel free to interrupt and ask me questions. I can stop between each of these sections. This is a big plan. So if you have questions about demand and need or kind of background, I'm happy to take those now before we jump into capital. I have a couple of questions.

Sure. When you said that you review post plans for other park districts in the state and across the country, do you also look at some of the local park districts like peninsula and gig harbor to review their pro pros plans to kind of coordinate with what they're doing to what because you talk about the disconnect with some um trails or parks or whatever it is um and so i just was curious if you were coordinating with those park districts to make sure we've got some interwoven plans absolutely so we've worked um

closely with both the peninsula and the key peninsula, Penn Met parks. It's the easy way, easy way to say it. And key Penn Park districts. We collect real estate excise tax and park impact fees in the unincorporated areas that those districts cover. And so we send some of that money back to those districts for their capital programs. And every bite, I don't know if it's annually or biannually. I'd have to look at the agreement. I think it's every biennium. They submit their capital facilities plan and they have to show how they're spending our impact fees and our real estate excise tax so that we can make sure that it's aligned with the regulations or the RCW related to those two funding sources. So we're absolutely looking at capital.

Again, we're looking at trails closely. Where are the trail connections? How does

You know, how does the new Spoil Posh Trail come through Tacoma, connect to the Scott Pearson Trail, into the Cushman Trail? So we're absolutely working with them on those. And then looking at regional facilities over there, how are the regional facilities there bringing people from this side of the bridge and vice versa? How are our regional facilities serving people on the other side of the bridge?

Do you know what the percentage of, funding is that comes from impact fees and the excise tax that goes to those park districts?

I don't know off the top of my head. I can look it up for you. It changes with each biennial budget.

I want to say, and I would say don't quote me on this because I haven't looked at it in probably more than a year.

I want to say the collections from on the other side of the bridge are in like the seven to nine percent of the impact fee collections. the county i can double check that number and let you know it goes back to those no that's what's collected we hold a portion for regional facilities and that again that's adopted by the county council with each biennial budget and it depends on what they have in their capital facilities plan that they want to fund during that time period we have made some recommendations and thought about kind of how we can hone in on like a specific percentage And there are some recommendations in this PROS plan about what that may look like. And the reality is we really need to understand that so that we can project our revenues going forward. Because if, you know, if the county council is going to send 15% over one year and 5% the next year, it's really difficult for us and for them to understand what funding we're going to have available for our capital programs.

Because I know that Penmet Park is trying to expand their facilities, um, to more sites within the Gig Harbor area over there.

Yeah, and so they can't collect impact fees themselves and they can't collect real estate excise tax themselves. Those have to come to the jurisdiction, to either the county or to the city. And so we are ultimately responsible for how that funding is spent. So there's sort of this check where they submit their capital facilities plan, they show us what they're going to spend it on, we check and make sure that it complies, and then we send the money over.

Great, thank you. Any other questions or comments at this point? Thank you. For sure.

I'm going to move on to capital improvement program. That was a great introduction. This is our first PROS plan that includes a 20-year capital improvement program. The two big reasons for us to shift from having a 10-year capital improvement program, which is what we did in the last PROS plan, the two big driving factors are preservation. So we have a huge park system and we have an aging park system. And when we go in to do a major renovation to a place like Sprinker, we're talking $20 million and we really need to anticipate those sorts of expenses moving forward over the long term. We're starting to install more like artificial turf fields. Those are spendy, you know, the playground systems that we're putting in are getting more complex. So we need to anticipate what we need to replace in the future and do a better job of doing so when we had a much smaller and sort of under-invested park system. It was difficult to do that, but we just had fewer assets to keep track of. Now we're growing, and so we just need to have this longer range view, as well as trails. Trails, they take a long time to build, but one of the biggest challenges is property right acquisitions, whether we're buying, we're leasing property, we're getting easements, we're getting... we're actually purchasing fee simple property that takes a long time when you're talking miles and miles of trails. So we need to have a solid handle on what are our priority trail projects? Where are they going? What are the routes and where do we need to look for opportunities for acquisition? Um, so we went from a couple of pros plans ago. I think our first pro pros plan was maybe 2008. Um, That one really was sort of, you know, here's our wishlist of projects if we had funding to actually grow the park system, but we didn't have that funding during that sort of planning period. I think 2013 was the next, maybe 14. The math is bad here. Shouldn't do math out loud. 2014 was the next plan. And in that one, again, it was sort of a wishlist, but we were starting to roll into these discussions about how can we make this more growth-based? And then we had the park impact the working group and the ordinance of 2016, where we actually got that growth. So our last PROS plan, that 2020 PROS plan, was really our first pros plan that was dialed into, you know, this is what our revenue generation model says that we'll bring in. These are the projects that we can deliver within the next 10 years based on that revenue generation model. And so that was sort of our first wishlist cap or first non-wishlist capital improvement program. So this time around, we've decided to push out to 20 years because that 10 year time period was a little constricting when it came to those longer term projects. So that's sort of how this is changing over time, to give you an idea. When we talk about capital improvement, we're taking a look at that demand and needs assessment that really tells us where we need to make investments in the PARP system and what types of investments we need to look for. We're looking at our resources, so our revenue model. We're looking at the capacity that our system provides. We're looking at what are the priorities, call it out by policy. We have a HAB-Masyn Moyer- parks fiscal policy that calls out specific projects and types of projects, the county council sets policy, we have comprehensive plan policy, so all of those. HAB-Masyn Moyer- come together to sort of build this larger capital improvement program to set the trajectory for where we're going and what the growth is going to be in our system. So these are the priorities that are really driven by those things that we're seeing in this coming 20 years. We want to continue to increase capacity at existing parks. So we're not just going out and building new parks, we're improving the parks that we have. The photo here is a drone view of our Sprinker improvement project, the big outdoor improvement project that opened I think last summer. um it was a massive project the goal was really to open the site up for the public on a daily basis sprinkler in the past had functioned as sort of you know a special events site but you would go there on the weekend if there wasn't anything going on and there wouldn't be a soul i mean you could walk around and not see anybody and there were a lot of operational challenges with that in terms of starting to have issues with encampments and that sort of thing so The big goal here was to bring people in on a daily basis by installing a really nice playground, a splash park that brings people into the summer, artificial turf fields that really expand the window of time that we can have sports events programmed there and the types of events that we can have. We installed a section of the Parkland Community Trail and did improvements to Breezeman Forest. There was just a massive effort there. So that's an example of how we bring more capacity to our existing parks to really better serve the public. We want to open new parks. We absolutely want to look for opportunities, especially in those fast growing urban areas to build new parks, increase access to green space. We saw in our demand and need findings that people really want the ability, you know, not just to go and play sports or play on a playground, but to go walk through the forest or, you know, be in a natural setting and We see that trend as areas are organized, that people lose their access to nature and they really start to wanna see that. We wanna connect more communities with trails. So again, working with our jurisdictional partners to really build a trails network that works both for recreation and active transportation. Prioritize opportunities for investment. So again, as we look out at that 20 years, We know that, you know, we want to connect the pipeline trail to the foothills trail. So who's working on that connection? Can we work with public works on maybe road improvements that they're doing to build a trail section or a developer? You know, what are those opportunities? Can we talk to Puyallup about what they're doing? Those sorts of things. Or look for opportunities where maybe we have a huge development coming in in the urban growth area. And they have a large amount of open space. And can we talk to them about the configuration of that open space and maybe dedication of a park for park impact fee credit? So really understanding where we want the system to go and where our needs are is critical to planning for capital improvement and taking advantage of opportunities as they arise. And then we want to preserve and sustain existing assets. We don't want to not invest in the park system that we've already built. So it's really important to continue that.

Commissioner Manley, I see your hand up.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. A question for Tiffany. Tiffany, you mentioned increasing capacity, expanding outreach, looking at better engagement for constituents of Pierce County. Can you tell me what kinds of methods you deploy in order to track park usage? It's kind of a remedial question, but I'm just not even sure how you track how many people are at a park or how long they stay at a park or if we have trail cameras or any kind of methods we use. Can you break that down?

Absolutely. And I can, I can give you an idea, but, um, some of it is a little, you know, little estimation. So we look at our recreation programming numbers, first of all. So what are people signing up to do in parks? What's, you know, how many people are coming to sports tournaments or playing in leagues or signing up for a class, those sorts of things. So those are really good numbers. We have, um, trail counters that are, um, installed in all of our parks and trails and they track people coming and going. There's a little bit of, you know, magic to how you interpret those numbers because the Foothills Trail has, I don't know the number, maybe let's say that there's 10 trail counters out there. Well, if I decide to park in East Puyallup and I just walk to McMillan and back and I forgot my water bottle in my car, I might get counted like six times. on the trail counters, or if I ride my bike and I go all the way to Buckley, I'll get counted on, you know, all 10 trail cameras twice. So we have to do some math to kind of try to guess on those trail counters, how many people are coming and going. And then we have staff that also just go out and do like point in time counts. So there are lots of different ways where we try to hone in on exactly what that number for usage is.

Yeah, so I didn't see that. Maybe I missed it in any of the goals that we had, but it seems like if we're talking about increasing park usage, that that data and a presentation might be helpful. Did I miss it or is that just not something that's provided?

It is in the pros plan. So there's absolutely a section that looks at parks usage. We don't have counters at every single park. Some of our small local parks that haven't had a lot of improvements in a long time Um, think like Mayfair play field, um, and Parkland that's adjacent to the old Brookdale golf course. I don't think there are any trail counters there. Um, I don't think Donye has any Donye will get them when we go through the big improvement project in 2027. So they're also going in sort of, as we build new projects and most of the reporting that we do is on our larger parks.

Okay.

Yeah. We're getting there. It's a new technology. So we're trying to, you know, learn how to use the technology well, you know, not have it say, we had a million people at Sprinker yesterday when maybe it was 200,000 because people were coming and going the whole bunch.

All right. Thank you.

So Tiffany, my question is more at a very high review. It's really how we take our vision and purpose and connect it to what we do. I can ask it now or later. I just want to know when the appropriate time to bring that in.

That's a great question. Why don't we take that at the end? Okay. Is that okay? That's perfectly fine. Okay. Thank you. All right. So I'm going to get a little into the weeds here. And for those of you who saw my presentation in, was it August-ish? Yeah. End of summer? Yeah. I came and talked about how we built our capital improvement program in August and So I kept this a lot higher level that was very detailed in terms of capital. I think most of you saw that presentation. So I'm going to keep this, I'm going to go a little faster through this, but again, happy to slow down and answer questions. So our parks construction fund has different revenue sources. So we have our capital special revenues, and these are revenues that primarily go to capital with the exception of park sales tax. That one's a little complicated. Park impact fee and real estate excise tax have to go to capital improvement. Park impact fees have to be spent on capacity projects that are directly linked to growth. Real estate excise tax just has to go to capital improvement. So it can be a capacity project or a preservation project. And park sales tax is our most flexible funding source. And that... A portion of it goes to capital. A lot of it goes to operations these days because it is a flexible funding source and we have less general fund coming to the department for operations, but we're growing the park system. So we need revenue sources that we can use for operations to make sure that we're maintaining the parks and programming the parks. We have special revenue sources, things like our golf courses, And Chambers Creek Regional Park is owned by Public Works, by the sewer division. And they pay for some of the operations of the park. It's their own facility and the park was actually built as mitigation for their development of the sewer treatment plant there. And then grants, I already mentioned, we get a good chunk of our capital funding, 10 to 20% in any given year comes from grants. So I just went through this already. So this is just the breakdown of those special revenue sources and what the rules associated with them are. And these are our capital revenue projections, and it's broken out by the biennium. So 2026-27, we adopted biennial budgets, so we included that here. Our six-year capital facilities plan, and then the seven to 20-year outlook. So you can see that the park impact fees are really driving our park system to continue to grow. Those have to be spent on capacity projects. So I always like to use the example, we can't replace a playground with park impact fees. If we have to replace a playground and we expand the playground, we can bring some park impact fees, but the majority of the funding has to come from one of our other funding sources, whether it be park sales tax or real estate excise tax. So let's say we replace a playground and we add 20% new capacity because we're adding a swing set and a couple little climbing toys. And so 20% of the project can come from park impact fees, the other 80% still has to come from another revenue source. Our park sales tax collections, again, those are going primarily to operations. And you can see the little bracket there on park sales tax. And you can see how significantly that 20 year estimate is reduced based on our primary use of that funding source for operations. So there really isn't a ton of money there that's actually going to capital because of this operational challenge where we don't have other funding sources coming for operations. And then real estate excise tax stays pretty steady over the years. And this revenue model that we use is a very conservative model. We incorporate 20 to 30 years versus date or 20 to 30 years of data. So we're really catching the highs and the lows in the market. So if we just looked at the past 10 years, this model would be a much, we would be projecting a lot more funding coming in over the next 20 years, but because it's conservative, it's projecting less. The model also projects about 10% of our capital funding is coming from grants or donations. That's primarily grants that come from the State Recreation and Conservation Office. And that's pretty consistent with, again, that 10 to 20% grant number. The other factor here is, that this revenue model assumes that there will be no major incorporations or annexations. So if South Hill incorporates and Parkland is annexed by Tacoma, we're looking at a whole other revenue model. We're also potentially looking at turning over some of our facilities to those cities and having them take over operations. So we just have to adjust if we get into that situation. I don't remember off the top of my head HAB-Masyn Moyer- i've got the number somewhere in terms of what percentage, we would have to adjust this justice South hill incorporated if you're interested i'm happy to give you that number we. HAB-Masyn Moyer- We just looked at it as sort of an exercise, because that we knew that was in discussions, we wanted to know how much it would impact our overall budgets. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So capacity projects, I already talked a little bit about this. HAB-Masyn Moyer- With these are the projects that really bring new things to the park system, whether. it's a whole new park or it's new features at an existing park or an extension of a trail or a brand new trail, those sorts of things. So in the short term, so the first six years, and this again is the most dialed in portion of the PROS plan in terms of what's coming. These are very likely to be accomplished. They're in the, either the biennial budget or the six year capital facilities plan. We have community center and outdoor improvements coming to Meridian Habitat, a new park called Hop, a site that we call Hop Farm, which is on the corner of, I think it's 122nd and I'm going to miss the, is it 136th?

It was from South Hill.

It's whatever road Baloo is on. I think it's 136th. Anyway, it's in that neighborhood, just on the east side of Meridian Habitat. Half Dollar Park, which is on the west side of Meridian, just north of Rogers High School, right off 94th Street. Pipeline Trail Extensions. Right now, we've built from Tacoma City Limits, where Tacoma quit building, out to Orange Gate Park in the Summit Waller community. We'll complete that trail connection all the way out to South Hill. It'll connect up to Heritage Recreation Center and the Nathan Chapman Trail Connection. here in the next few years. Frontier Park, it has a new horse arena cover that's going to start construction any day now. I think BID was just awarded. And then replacement of some historic goat barns where they were ready to fall down, we're replacing them with some multi-use shelters so that when the Pierce County Fair is happening, they can be used as barns, but the rest of the year they can be rented out by the community for events, just trying to program that park and make it not just the fair, but really a community park for the Graham community. The Waller Road Prairie Pit new park, that probably needs a new name. That one is located just south of the intersection of Military and Waller Road next to, I think it's Catherine Johnson Elementary, which is a newer school in the Bethel School District. It used to be a gravel pit for public works. They're done using it and it's ready to be turned into a park We're building a new event shelter in the Central Meadow out at Chambers. Orange Gate Park is coming online here in the next two years. That's in the Summit Waller community. We've already opened 120 acres on the south side of 84th, just west of Canyon. We've got another 40 acres that'll be the more active park section that'll include a playground and dog park and walking trails. Gagne Playfield is getting a complete overhaul. That should be built in 27. I mentioned Sprinker Recreation Center. We're really sort of rethinking the community and designing it more as a community center, along with installing four more artificial turf ball fields.

We did two turf fields during the first phase of outdoor improvements.

There are four more to go, kind of like a clover leaf in the back. We have the Parkland Community Trail coming online. That'll connect Sprinker up through PLU to Washington and Keithley. And then we'll start studying additional connections beyond that heading south into Spanaway and north towards City of Tacoma. Expansion of the Parkland Prairie Nature Preserve. That's right along that Parkland Community Trail line just south of PLU. And the Dettles Head Public Access Improvement. And that is the very southern tip of Key Peninsula remember how many acres we own there it's I think it's more than 100 acres that we own right there on the southern tip really starting to work on public access improvements that one will likely be in partnership with the key pen parks district that's a long ways for us to send our staff for maintenance and operations so we'd like to partner with them to get that built and potentially transfer it over to them eventually is there any chance that key pen parks will take that over from the county That is our hope. They have some concerns on there, and just in terms of operations and what their resources are. So there will absolutely be more conversations about how we partner to make that happen, to make it successful on both sides. Thank you. Yeah, we don't like to hand things over and then have somebody not be able to take care of them. Medium term. So these are, again, the projects that We'll revisit this list again before we hit seven years, so things could change, but generally this is where we think our trajectory is for now. Working on expanding the Foothills Trail, doing improvements out at North Lake Taps Park. We have huge user groups out there, especially during the summer, and there haven't been a ton of updates, so there's a lot of work to do there. A new park called Plateau Park up on the Bonnie Lake Plateau, just outside of Tahaleh. building community trails through South Hill. So we're working on that connection from Pipeline to Nathan Chapman and just sort of building on from there, looking at connecting parks and schools and different neighborhoods and then eventually connecting down to the Foothills Trail, putting more turf fields in at Heritage. Again, as we do turf fields, we're really seeing that playing season expand significantly. The turf fields we already have The only time those fields aren't programmed are like the week of Thanksgiving and the week of Christmas. So they really become a year-round asset, which is very cool. 100 Acre Woods Public Access, that is actually, I think it's like 180 acres, but the 100 Acre Woods name is cute. That's on the eastern edge of South Hill, right at the top of the hill, adjacent to the old TPU Reservoir there. We own about 100 acres. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And so just building trails and public access through that area. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And expansion across park so across park right now we've activated everything on the north side of clover creek we own another 60 or so acres on the south side of clover creek so we're looking to develop those. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Continuing work at frontier park or again really focusing on how we can make sure the frontier is not just the pierce county fair, but a Community part that serves the Graham community. improvements out at Spanaway Park. I already mentioned the expansion of the Parkland Community Trail going north and south. The Waller and Pipeline New Park right now, we're working on acquiring, I think, 12 acres right at the corner of 72nd and Waller where the Pipeline Trail comes through. That intersection, it's the other side of Waller from where the Thunderbird Restaurant is. So kind of that northwest corner. And continuing improvements at Swan Creek Park. Parks Tacoma owns the majority of Swan Creek Park. We own a couple little sections on the east side of the creek. So working with them to implement the master plan. The master plan covers our properties and their properties. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Again, continuing to i'm sorry, this is the long term list, so this is 13 to 20 years so again, this is subject to change, but really just focused on where, where are we going in the future and what opportunities might be need to look for. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Extending foot foothills trail most of the foothills trail extension work you're you're seeing on these lists are extension. HAB-Masyn Moyer- From South Korea out toward not reading your national park toward the carbon river entrance. As well as making connections in the urban area so connecting foothills to the river walk trail and some are linked trail, as well as up to the pipeline trail so really again thinking about that broader network of interconnected trails across the county. White River flume trail that's a trail partnership that we started design on a few years ago on property owned by the cascade water alliance on the south side kind of southeast side of lake taps and. things fell apart a little bit in terms of the partnerships. So we have a trail design there. We're hoping to get them back to the table and really make that partnership happen and be able to build that trail at some point in the future. Improvements to Spanway Golf Course, the golf course that you golfed there, it's older, it's ready for some upgrades. So looking at how we can go about making those improvements, um more improvements at spanaway park again just an aging facility that needs some love um the young prairie line trail um the city of yum has built a trail they've actually right now are coming across the nisqually river they're going to come a little ways into pierce county um this would be the connection from where they end up to the town of roy And then we hope to work with WSDOT on an extension that would connect that trail into Spanaway and into that parkland Spanaway trail network that we're working on.

And then new parks.

So absolutely looking for opportunities to acquire parks or even property rights where we can build parks in the urban communities, especially in, we call it central and south region. We're really focused on Parkland, Spanaway, South Hill, and Fredrickson being those kind of key areas where we need to establish more parks. And Chuck actually is sort of familiar with these efforts. We worked together in the last couple of years on a big development he was working on and looking again at opportunities. Is there an opportunity for Park Impact fee credit coming into this 500 plus lot development? where they have lots of open space and opportunities to build. So we're really looking to work more closely with the development community and have them understand the types of properties that we're looking for and the opportunity for park impact fee credit and other resources that we can bring to the table for acquisition to make sure that we're growing our park system. It is very difficult for the county to compete with developers to acquire property, especially in the urban areas. And we're really running out of larger properties that are able to be acquired and developed. So we need to look for more partnerships as we move forward. Let's see. Okay. So those are our capacity projects. Preservation projects, again, our goals are really just to make sure that we're maintaining the existing park systems, That we understand the replacement schedule as we install new things. So as turf fields come in, we understand that they have a 10 to 15 year lifespan. So we need to have them on our capital replacement schedule 10 years out where we're looking at. Right now we're doing this for heritage that that property, I think, was completed in 2017. And so we're doing testing right now of the turf fields to get an idea of how long we have before we need to replace. Is it going to be right in that 10 year? Have they been maintained well enough that we can push out to 15 years for replacement? Things like playgrounds usually have a 10 or 15 year lifespan as well. So really looking at what's that schedule. So short term, these are our capital preservation projects that are on the list. We're working on an old maintenance shop at Pioneer, getting that up to spec to be able to use it as a maintenance shop for our team out there. We have a water system upgrade just connecting Lake Taps to public water. Similar thing happening at Frontier Park. We need to connect to public water there. We have some bridge preservation projects along the Foothills Trail where we're either repairing or replacing bridges. um we had our fishing pier at spanaway park taken out i think twice in the last year by boats and jet skis so um we had to to remove it and now we're building a new fishing pier out there um we've got big irrigation um projects going in chambers signage improvements um and then safety and access stuff happening out at swan creek so lots going on sort of on the preservation and just kind of keeping our existing parks set and then on ongoing preservation. I've talked about this a little bit already, but we've got ADA improvement requirements. We have an ADA transition plan that we've been working on implementing since I think 2018 is when the plan was adopted. So we have a good chunk of money that goes to that every year and we're sort of going park by park and bringing the whole park up to speed. as well as when we do capital projects, when that capital project happens, we do all of the ADA upgrades at the same time. Let's see. So this is our current park system. All of the green dots represent locations where we have public access. The blue dots represent properties that do not have public access. Just big picture, we manage about 5,500 acres across Pierce County, everything from, as you can see, out at foothills of Mount Rainier, right at the entrance to the National Park, the tip of Key Peninsula at Devil's Head, and everything in between. We have a very diverse park system. And by 2046, as we look forward, these are all of the properties that we will have touched, whether it be making improvements or opening new sites, So you can see there is a lot going on across the entire county, but the focus really is in those urban areas. You see most of those dots are within those urban areas. Anything on capital before I move into regional transplant?

Any questions or comments from commission? I don't see any. Thank you.

So the regional trails plan is a little bit different than the rest of the PROS plan. It is a chapter of the PROS plan, but it's the only portion of the plan that really fully embraces our role as a regional coordinator across the county. Again, because people don't like it when trails stop at jurisdictional boundaries. We want to build a trail network that crosses the entire county and is really effective for people, both for recreation and active transportation. So this is the first regional trails plan, I think since 2008, where we really had the capacity to thoughtfully bring partners and jurisdictions to the table across the county, understand the work that they're doing and what their goals are for the trail system and to look at that full network and what are the gaps in that network and how can we work together to to work on building out that trail system. So as the county, we're really seeing ourselves as the regional coordinator here. We are the ones who are called to bring everyone to the table to have these discussions. Most jurisdictions are really hyper-focused on the areas that they serve. So Bonnie Lake isn't necessarily worried about how their trail is going to connect to Puyallup. They're worried about building a trail for their city. So that's where we come in. So we're working closely with them. We've updated our GIS, so our mapping database, to include an update to all of the existing trails within cities and the county, what's being planned, sort of what's in the hopper right now, and then what are the gaps and what's the vision for how we connect all of those. So that will be a major update to information available We hope that that can be used as well by development services on this side as a new development comes in. If we see that that development is, you know, there's a regional trail section going through that development, how can we work with that developer to make sure that that's either set aside or developed as part of the mitigation for their development? So really thinking forward to how can we get this done more quickly and more efficiently and understanding what others are working on. if I don't have a big grant project this year, how can I support the grant project that Puyallup has that's also a really important connection to the trail system? So just those sorts of things, trying to find opportunities to work together. So here are our priority projects. So as Pierce County Parks, these are our short-term priority projects that we're working on now. We're working to complete the Pipeline Trail, I mentioned that, as well as the Parkland Trail. And that's the connection from Springer up through the PLU campus to Washington and Keithley. The other piece here you see is the connection between the Foothills Trail and the Riverwalk Trail. That one is complicated. It goes right through the middle of the Knutson Farms warehouse development, which has been held up in litigation for, I think, the entire 20 years that I've worked for the county. So we are very hopeful that that is going to start moving forward. because part of their mitigation for the development is to build the trail connection. And it is a little tiny piece, but you can see where the Riverwalk Trail connection is from the end of Foothills Trail. So we're very hopeful that that will move forward in the near term and we can get that connection complete. Our next priority of projects are, again, that expansion of the Parkland Trail. So how are we heading north to connect to City of Tacoma? How are we heading south into Spanaway? The South Hill Community Trail really building on the network that we're building with the pipeline, the Nathan Chapman Trail connection and thinking about how we connect parks and schools and community across South Hill with active transportation facilities. And then looking at that expansion of Foothills Trail to the south, the sort of priority two or second phase that we're looking at is from South Prairie to the town of Carbonado. You'll see in sort of our long-term and our vision is going beyond that and actually connecting out to the Carbon River entrance to Mount Rainier. That's been in the master plan for Foothills since the master plan was adopted in 89 and part of that sort of long-term vision. But there are lots of challenges in there, not to mention the recent closure of the Fairfax Bridge that throws in a whole new can of worms for us. So hopefully we'll have that sorted by the time we get to that section. And the third priority for us is that Yelm Prairie line trail, getting the extension up to the town of Roy, and then getting discussions with WSDOT about how we can potentially use their right-of-way, their right-of-way cuts through JBLM. So that's really the only public opportunity to get a trail to connect to Spanaway. So that's why we're hyper-focused on WSDOT. South Hill Trail extensions to connect Pipeline and Foothills. And then that White River Flume Trail out at Lake Taps. We also have some vision trail projects. So again, looking even further than the 20 years, this is sort of what we think we can accomplish within 20 years that I put in that slide. There we go, wishlist projects. I couldn't remember if it was in there or not. So one of those, the huge vision projects is known as the Train to the Mountain Trail. which is using the old Tacoma rail right of way that comes out of the south end of Tacoma, right around 72nd and McKinley. And it comes through Midland and Fredrickson and goes all the way out to like where you would turn off near Elby, where you would turn off to go to Morton. It kind of stops and turns in that location. So really looking at how do we get a trail to the Nisqually entrance to Mount Rainier, not just Carbon River, but how can we connect to Mount Rainier at this location? So that's another opportunity. And again, important for us to understand that these are on the wishlist because if there is some sort of action to turn back the railroad or do something there, we want to make sure we're at the table for that. The city of Tacoma sold a good section of this railroad a few years ago to Rainier Rail. And even though we sort of had this on the radar as something we wanted to do, we really weren't prepared to step into those negotiations at that point. So we want to make sure that if something like this happens again, we're ready to step up to the table and have these conversations. And I think city Tacomas, they're actually actively removing the rail from the section in city limits now and talking about building a non-motorized path through that corridor. So as they do that kind of similar to pipelines, We know the next step is going to be, okay, Pierce County, what are you doing? Build your section. So we need to look for opportunities to do that. I already mentioned the Foothills Trail Connection in Mount Rainier National Park. That's on this vision list. Creating some sort of central line in Pierce County that sort of goes from Parkland-Spanaway area over through Fredrickson and South Hill. We're calling it the Central County BPA line. There's a big Bonneville Power Administration power line easement that cuts through this area and we've looked at that as hey maybe that's the route maybe we're working with bpa to get an easement to build a trail through here just because again there are not big corridors of land to build trails without buying out you know a million homeowners through our urban area so we really have to look at where are those corridors that have to preserve often their utility corridors and then um something else happening here is that As WSDOT builds out the 167 to I-5 and Port of Tacoma connection, they have indicated that they probably will turn back River Road to the local jurisdictions.

And that could be a really important trail connection between Puyallup and Tacoma.

The Spoilapops Trail that they're building with 167 kind of heads north through Fife and Milton, that direction. But we're looking at that river road connection is more so the Puyallup to Tacoma. Most people aren't going to go up and around to get there. They're looking for a more direct connection. So looking at how a trail might play a role as that road comes back to Pierce County and Puyallup and Tacoma. And so we've all stated that it's a high priority in our early negotiations with one shot. So this is our overall vision for the regional trails plan. So you can really see that we're looking at an interconnected trail system. I don't remember off the top of my head how many miles this represents, but it is a very significant trail system that would kind of change the face of both active transportation and recreation opportunities in Pierce County, which is pretty cool. All right. Any questions on regional trails plan before I move on?

Any questions or comments from the commission at this point?

Thank you.

Okay.

And then land management is the last chapter of our PROS plan.

Did the land conservation plan come to planning commission?

No?

Okay.

So public works. Was this year? When did it happen? End of last year. I can't remember. I think it was end of last year. Public works led an effort to write a land conservation plan that sets really, really great goals across the county for how we conserve land as this county grows, the types of areas that need to be conserved. And some of those areas are parks, not everything, not everything, you know, we don't need another hundred thousand acres in our park system. That would be a lot to manage, but for those pieces that make sense as public access areas and that sort of thing, it makes sense for the parks department to operate Some of that would come here. So this really is sort of building on what is the parks department's role when it comes to that land conservation plan? How do we steward the properties that we have? How are we taking care of our properties? Whether it's a sport complex or whether it's, you know, 200 acres of wetlands that doesn't even have public access because there's no way to get people in there. Or, you know, 2000 acres up near the Mount Rainier entrance. How are we good stewards of that property? And then it also talks about property acquisition priorities for the department and where are those priorities. So what we've really identified as our highest priorities are properties within a half mile walk shed in urban areas. So trying to move toward more local parks that serve more neighborhoods. Properties with environmental and cultural benefits. How can we preserve property? and keep it available for generations to come, um, active recreation and specialized uses. Um, so, you know, sports complexes, we have a good example of sort of the specialized uses is we have a BMX track down in Sumner at Riverside park that needs to move. Um, it's within like the, um, deep and fast flood zone. If anything happens there, it gets wiped out. It can't be rebuilt. It can't be improved right now. It looks the same as it did when I rode my BMX bike there when I was 10 years old. So they're ready for a new location. And so we're looking for a site for them. Disc Golf is another thing that's been displaced at that site and a few other sites across the county. So looking for those sorts of specialized sites for those uses. um trails absolutely i can't emphasize enough the need for us to work on acquisition over the long term for trails to make those continue to happen and equity across our system making sure that we're serving everybody with our park system especially those in communities that have been underserved for years and years so that's our land management chapter any questions on that all right almost done here And then engagement opportunities. So I talked about this briefly at the beginning. Right now we're in our public comment period for the draft plan through December 5th. Today we're doing our planning commission study session. Tomorrow night I'm doing a session with our park citizens advisory board out at Sprinker. We have some pop-up events at some recreation events happening. We're handing out flyers at events like Fantasy Lights at Spanway Park. just getting the word out about the draft plan. We'll be working on revisions through December and January, hoping to have a final draft plan by the end of January, coming back to the planning commission for your recommendation before we go up to council for final adoption, hopefully in March. And that's all I have for you today. Thank you for your attention. Happy to take questions. I think you had a question ready to go.

Sure, Tiffany. I want to step back for a minute from a higher view, and I want to go actually to your executive summary, the first paragraph in your executive summary. And it says, the park system supports environmental health by protecting biodiversity, mitigating climate change, and enhancing the overall quality of life in urban areas. But when you read the full document, it becomes clear the plan is focused primarily on climate adaptation, not mitigation. The plan does a strong job of mapping climate exposure, heat, flooding, low tree canopy, and prioritizing investments in parks, open space, and trails for cooling, shade, habitat protection, and stormwater benefit. These are important adaptation strategies that help communities cope with climate impacts. However, the plan contains very little on mitigation, meaning actions that actually reduce county park systems overall carbon footprint. There is no decarbonization goals, no plan for electrifying buildings, no discussion of energy efficiency upgrades, no policies on solar, battery storage, microgrids, or reducing fossil fuel use in park operations. So while the plan supports resilience through land and ecosystem measures, it does not chart a path to decarbonize the park system itself. Can staff clarify whether the PROS plan had any intention to include any actual mitigation strategies, such as reducing emissions from park buildings, adding solar battery systems, electrifying facilities and equipment, or setting carbon reduction targets for the parks department? If not, is there an opportunity in this update to include those mitigation goals alongside adaptation strategies? That's a great question.

And I think you're right. I don't think that we really get into mitigation strategies in this plan. Um, the County has other plans like the land conservation plan and the sustainability plan that have specific roles for parks when it comes to further mitigation. Um, we do look at those things with our, um, project with like with individual projects, but no, we don't get into them in the pros plan. You're right. We're really looking at the, at the larger picture in terms of just property conservation and how we steward our properties.

Um, but I point point taken.

And it might be worthwhile for us to come back through those other plans and clarify some of those goals coming from the other plans. Thank you for calling that out. I welcome ideas about strategies that we can.

So let me make a suggestion. Absolutely. I want to emphasize that adding a few mitigation elements wouldn't require rewriting the whole PROS plan. Even one or two policy statements could position Pierce County Parks for future funding and partnership opportunities. I also want to point out that the county just completed a solar feasibility study on 33 buildings. And Sprinkler's Recreation Center was one of the five facilities analyzed in detail. That study showed sprinklers had meaningful solar potential and could support a future battery system and microgrid if we choose to pursue one. Given that sprinkler is a major regional asset located in one of the county's highest heat exposure, low canopy communities, It's exactly the kind of building that could serve as a resilience hub during heat waves, wildfire smoke, or extended outages. So as we finalize the PROS plan, it would strengthen our climate strategy to at least reference the findings of the county solar study and include high-level language that encourages evaluating solar, battery storage, and microgrid-ready design when you renovate large facilities like Sprinkler or Meridian Habitat Park. This doesn't commit us to any specific project today. It simply aligns the PROS plan with existing county analysis and with the county's broader climate goals and sets the stage for future decarbonization work without committing to specific projects today.

I like that. Thank you.

I don't need the copy.

That would be great. Yeah, I really appreciate that recommendation. And I will say that some of these things are things that we had identified that we wanted to touch with this PROS plan. And we lost about a year of staff time. We were down to a single staff member working on this plan. So in some ways, this plan is a little more bare bones than I had hoped to come with at this point. But thank you for pointing that out and helping us think about how to redirect back into some of those strategies.

We can put a large thing in there so that we sort of, I want to be ready to, if grants come along or stuff that we had already said this is something we're looking at, especially when we have $3 billion in the climate fund. And they're looking for projects. And we have projects ready to go if we think about it.

Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Any other questions or comments for staff on the PROS plan? I don't see any. Tiffany, thank you for your presentation. It's got a lot of information for us to kind of digest and consider and we'll be ready to make a recommendation in March, correct?

I think we'll have to get here probably early February. I'll work with staff. I know you guys have a loaded agenda for next year, so hopefully we can figure out a time that'll keep us on our timeline as well.

Would you be able to bring back a response to Commissioner Burke's questions and comments that he brought up. Absolutely.

And I welcome comments either again as individuals or as a commission. We'll start reworking the plan and working on our final draft in December when the comment period closes. So welcome comments up to that point or conversations. I'm always happy to set aside time to meet with people and talk through concerns about the plan and kind of how we can improve this to make sure that this really is a solid roadmap for our department. Thank you.

There's no other questions or comments at this point. We'll wrap up this section of our agenda. And the next item is scheduling of our planning commission meetings. We don't currently have a meeting scheduled for the month of December. Our next meeting will be January 27th at 9.30, and we will be here. I would encourage my fellow Commission members to be in person, if at all possible. I think it's always a good exchange of information and it's nice to see it's nice to see people here during our meetings and then also remind you that. You know we're going to have a busy year next year, so if for some reason you cannot make a meeting, please make staff aware because it's important for us to have a quorum at these meetings. And with that I will. adjourn our meeting for today. Thank you everybody for being here. Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the holidays. Thank you.