Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Welcome to the August 12th, 2026 meeting of the Redmond Planning Commission. I'd like to call this meeting to order. We will start with a roll call. Commissioner Aparna. Present. Commissioner Copley.

Present.

Commissioner Coleman.

Present.

Commissioner Gagne. Present. Commissioner Van Nijmen. And Vice Chair Whittier.

Present.

And I am Chair Weston. I'd like to thank the following staff for being present tonight. Odrick Cardenas, Jeff Churchill, Lauren Anderson, Cameron Zapata, Ian Lefcourt, and Chris Wyatt. I look for a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. All right. That's approved. And any corrections to the meeting summary from last time? No. In that case, I look for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from July 22nd, 2026.

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great. Thank you. That's also approved. Next up is public comment and items from the audience. Who do we have tonight?

We have one person signed up to speak, Mr. David Morton.

Great. And if you can start with your name and address, and please keep your comments to three minutes.

Good evening, Commissioners. I'm David Morton, Redmond 98053. I want to raise concerns about the tree code that connect directly to a budget request I submitted to Council on August 3rd, which is funding a City-employed arborist to independently verify tree findings under this code. Look at how many decision points in this draft of the tree code run entirely through the applicant's own hired qualified tree professional. Hazard tree determinations, the basis for removing a tree without a permit, rest solely on the written opinion of a qualified tree professional. Tree protection zone, or TPZ, boundaries can be shrunk by a qualified tree professional with justification in the arborist report. Exception requests for landmark and heritage trees are supported by a tree report prepared by a qualified tree professional. And, after construction, it's the same qualified tree professional who submits a final report verifying compliance with the tree protection plan. At every one of these points, the person making the technical call is selected and paid by the applicant who benefits from a favorable outcome. The code does include one independent review option at RZC 2172-130B3, but it's discretionary, triggered only at the discretion of the administrator. and paid for by the applicant. And even then, the reviewer is simply another private consultant chosen by mutual agreement, not city staff. In this entire chapter, there's no point where a city-employed professional independently verifies a hazard call, a TPZ reduction, or a final compliance report on the city's own initiative. Even the code's construction phase monitoring depends on that same applicant-hired professional to self-report noncompliance to the city, meaning the party with the clearest incentive to overlook a violation is also the one reporting it. This matters. A tree retention standard is only as strong as the verification behind it. If the sole technical gatekeeper for hazard status, TPZ adjustments, exception eligibility, and final sign-off is always chosen and compensated by the party seeking approval, the numbers on the page won't necessarily reflect what happens on the ground. I'd ask the Commission to formally support the City Arborist budget request for the 2027 to 2028 biennium, and to consider building mandatory city-directed spot verification into this code itself, starting with landmark and heritage tree exceptions and final compliance reports, rather than leaving independent review as a discretionary, applicant-funded option. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. And with that, we are going to head to our study session on the update on the tree code with Lauren Anderson and Cameron Zapata.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the Planning Commission Study Session for the Tree Code Update for Redmond Zoning Code 2172. I'm Lauren Anderson, Senior Planner, and I'm accompanied by, hi, I'm Cameron Zapata, Senior Park Planner. So we are here today to give an overview of the Tree Code update in preparation for the September 23rd study session, which will kick off the Redmond Zoning Code Amendment sub-recommendation process, which will go over the final draft of the code. So here's a look at our agenda for this evening. So first we'll walk through the project timeline and then describe the intent of today's meeting, recap what we heard from the planning commission in July, and then summarize community questionnaire results and review major changes from the current code to the second version. We'll also explain the tree credit system, share common scenarios, highlight culturally modified trees, and end with next steps and then open up for discussion. So here's our timeline and schedule. Some background is that back in 2019 and 2020, Kathy Beam had started the tree code update. That was then put on hold due to the litigation between the Master Builders Association, and City of Kirkland. And then our code was further put on hold because we had our Redmond 2050 and then our middle housing requirements in order to meet our state mandated density requirements. So that's when we decided to do a complete rewrite, which we started in February of this year through April. And staff worked closely with planning, code enforcement and public works and park staff. And then we just wrapped up the community engagement piece last month and we'll be providing a summary of the results in the upcoming slides. This month we'll be going to the technical committee. We actually provided an introduction today and then we'll be going back again in September for their recommendation. Today we'll be providing more detailed briefing on the tree code update to the Planning Commission and we plan to spend a couple more sessions with you throughout the process and we anticipate this will go from August into December. The revised third version of the draft will be released in September and will reflect the planning commission and community feedback that we have received so far. There'll be a public hearing in October where the public can submit comments, invoice their feedback. And then after the planning commission recommends approval to the city council, we'll then start the council process, which will go from January to March in 2027. and then have the post code adoption starting in April, 2027. So having learning sessions for the public and then training for staff and the public. And we're proposing to have the effective date be a couple of months after adoption to allow for sufficient training for the public and staff because this is an entirely new code to make sure everyone is fully understanding the proposed changes. So the intent of tonight's meeting is to first introduce the updated changes and the second version of the draft code. And then second to gather your feedback that will work with our facet consultant to help shape the third version. So the third version will be our final staff draft that will kick off the planning commission recommendation process at your next scheduled meeting on September 23rd. So at the July 22nd meeting, we heard several key questions and concerns. So first we had asked about lessons learned from the litigation between master builders and Kirkland. So from that, we learned that we need to have tree protection that doesn't prohibit the minimum allowed density in that zone. And then the next item was clarification on culturally modified trees, which we'll go over in the next slide. We also heard the question about how this code addresses urban heat islands, which will be addressed in the next meeting by FACET. And then also asking about prioritizing conifers and the science behind the tree hierarchy. So these questions were shared with our consultant facet who will be at the next meeting and can share more technical responses on that. And then the next item, so we were asked about drones and transit centers, which is outside of the tree code update scope. And then lastly, the Planning Commission requested scenarios, which we'll go over in the upcoming slides. So we have culturally modified trees, also known as CMTs. So these are trees that have been altered by indigenous people, such as peeled cedars or basket trees, and are considered cultural resources. They're typically found in old growth cedar stands, and the removal is prohibited unless the State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation, also known as DAP, grants permission. And here's an image on the slide to the right that shows an example, and that's from DAP. So from June through end of July, we received 60 community responses from our Let's Connect tree code questionnaire. People generally found code navigation workable and supported mature tree preservation, but asked for more clarity around tree removal rules and the tree credit system. Overall themes included canopy loss concerns, frustrations around complexity and fees, and equity issues, particularly between homeowners and developers. So next we'll go over some of the key changes from the current code to the proposed draft we're calling V2. So here's the proposed code sections. The current is in the middle and then the proposed is on the right hand side. So several new sections have been added and the purpose of these is to make it easier for people to navigate and find the regulations in the code. And these new sections includes landmark and heritage trees, public trees, minimum tree credit, tree protection standards, exception processes, maintenance and enforcement. So this restructuring is meant to improve clarity and transparency for both applicants and staff. For trees on properties that are already developed or not associated with development, the current code sets a maximum number of trees that can be removed based on the size of property. And the replacement requirements are based on whether the tree is categorized as significant or landmark, so requiring a one-to-one or three-to-one replacement. The second version sets a maximum number of regulated trees that can be removed based on the size of the property as well, which is slightly lower than the current version, but it also sets a minimum number of trees that are required to remain on the property. So that's a new addition to make sure that folks aren't clear-cutting their property by applying for tree removal permits every 12 months. So the replacement requirements are more specific as it's based on the DBH, so diameter at breast height of the tree removed. So the larger the tree, the more replacements are required. And then also requiring hazard tree removal replacements for landmark and heritage trees, which was not in the current code. And then for development associated tree removal, the biggest change is the tree retention going from a 35% calculation to a credit-based system that is tied to tree canopy site area and scaled by zone and project type. So credits are higher for trees removed with a higher diameter at breast height and for conifers. We find this method to be more customizable to the goals and values of the city and making it geared towards the type of development and the zone. So to set limitations to removals, the code will require that 35% of the minimum required tree credits need to be achieved by retaining the trees. If the minimum required tree credits cannot be achieved by only retaining trees, they can also achieve it through replacement trees. So the credits for conifers is 1.5 and then deciduous is one credit. So having the higher credits for conifers trees. For tree fee in lieu, which is the fee that is required if someone is unable to plant replacement trees on the subject property or plant offsite. So the proposed code offers more uses in the fee in lieu collected and also increases the rates. So currently the in lieu fee for significant trees around $600 2,500 for landmark and then we don't have anything for heritage because that's not in the current code. We're proposing 1,300 for significant, 3,000 for landmark and 5,000 for heritage. Right, and then we added into the code culturally modified trees and then the proposed code prohibits removal of CMTs and requires review and approval with DAP.

For tree protection under the current code, tree protection relies on a five foot setback from the diameter of the tree. This area construction cannot take place and then a four foot barrier has to be located at that five foot setback from the drip line. In our version two, it establishes a more robust tree protection zone, or TPZ. This TPZ is determined by the critical root zone, where for every inch of the diameter at breast height equals one foot of tree protection, from the trunk or the TPZ can be adjusted only by a qualified tree professional in their report. And then you can see in this example, the trunk of the tree is 10 inches in diameter at breast height, which would yield a 10 foot tree protection zone. Additionally, the TPZ requirements are phased, requiring tree protection, fencing, installation, and then certain reporting requirements at pre-construction, construction, and post-construction. And this is to ensure consistent protection throughout the project construction. So on these next few slides, I'm gonna summarize the tree density credit memo, and this was linked as part of your packet. So we're switching over from a percentage based retention requirement to the credit system and Facet and staff, we looked at the existing conditions and found that Redmond's tree canopy is about 38% and facing annual reductions where the city has set a goal of 40% tree canopy over a 30 year timeframe. Facet did an analysis of the existing parcels within Redmond, and in their analysis, they found that development pressure is highest in neighborhood multifamily and neighborhood residential zones, and that in the neighborhood multifamily, neighborhood residential, and Overlake Village has experienced the most canopy loss from 2009 to 2023. And so in version one of our tree code draft, the minimum credit levels were significantly higher than the city of Bellevue and Kirkland. And this created an outsized requirement in downtown, the neighborhood multifamily and neighborhood residential zones. And that could lead to feasibility concerns and increased likelihood of offsite or in lieu fee payments. And so our version two now shows a lower tree credit requirement. The tree credit system is based on a calculation that provides a minimum credit requirement and it's calculated on this equation shown on the screen. It's also based on the type of development and then the corresponding zone. Credits can be achieved by retaining and planting trees and most zones we will require at least 35% of the required credits be achieved by retained trees. Staff did perform code testing and in reviewing 25 approved projects, the analysis found a clear difference in how various sites would fare under the proposed system. So larger sites, which are generally sites that are over an acre, often met or exceeded the tree credits. But many have done so through offsite plantings or in lieu contributions and then smaller lots struggled under the higher credit threshold in draft one. This is due to limited planting space, required setbacks, utilities and density requirements. And as a result, the higher V1 thresholds risk discouraging development in downtown and the neighborhood multifamily zones by mandating larger number of offsite tree plantings or costly fees. And so these findings demonstrate the need for the adjustments that you see in version two to ensure that the code is both enforceable and then compatible with our housing goals. In the neighborhood residential zone, the minimum credit system resulted in higher retention expectations in Redmond's current percentage-based approach and exceeded comparable credit requirements in neighboring jurisdictions. The related permit data shown in this table referenced, it illustrates this difference and includes the proposed B2 adjustments. So our analysis of large sites showed that more projects met the minimum required thresholds. And then again, those smaller sites did find it more challenging. So based on these findings, we've lowered the minimum credits for all zones. We also separated out the neighborhood multifamily and downtown core and edge from the broader all zones category and exempted downtown from the strict retention, except for landmark trees and to reduce credit requirements overall to minimize resilience of all zones. of offsite plantings and in LUFI payments aligning more closely with reality and regional practices. And so here's some of the scenarios that were suggested. And so this first one, what if I have a tree that's severely leaning and I want to remove it? And this assumes that the tree is under 30 inches in diameter at breast height, and it's on a single family lot. To determine if this tree is a hazard, this person can submit photos, and the photos have to be fairly obvious that the tree is a hazard. If it's not obvious, then we'd ask for them to provide an arborist report. That would then go through our hazard tree removal permit if the tree was deemed a hazard by the arborist. If it was not deemed a hazard or a photo couldn't show that it's a hazard, then it would go through the standard tree removal permit process. Second scenario, what if I want to remove a tree for views of the lake? So we would first want to determine is this in a shoreline environment? If so, it would then have to comply with our shoreline master program code as well as the tree code. And just as a reference or a side note, the shoreline master program is not part of this tree code update. If the tree is not located within the shoreline master program, or sorry, the shoreline environment, and there's no development that's associated with this tree removal, then we would require that standalone tree removal permit. We do also want to note that topping of trees is prohibited. And if a tree is topped without a permit, then we would have to refer to our enforcement and penalties section. And then the last scenario, what if I wanna build two accessory dwelling units on my property with an existing single family residence? This would be considered a tree removal associated with development. And so it would have to comply with the code section 2172.080E tree removal associated with development. And then that's when the tree credit minimum requirements would kick in. and those credit requirements would have to be met. For next steps, we currently have version two posted to the web and still accepting comments that can be submitted either through our Let's Connect or email. We'll connect the planning commission's questions and comments from this meeting tonight and share it with our consultant to help us inform version three, which we plan to work on and release in September. And that would be our final draft and then which will then kick off the planning commission recommendation process. And then here's just a look at this upcoming schedule. So again, we have our next study session planned for September 23rd, and that would be to go over our final version three of the draft and then public hearing on October 14th, an optional study session on November 4th, if necessary, and then the recommendation November 18th with the report approval for December 16th.

Can I just clarify on that one side? There was the start of recommendation process with the final code draft. Do we get the final draft before the 923 meeting or after? It would be part of the packet materials.

923?

Yep, it would be in that packet material. Great, thank you.

Questions and comments? All right, thank you so much for the presentation. We will start with Commissioner Van Nyman. Yeah, we'll go around a lot.

Definition.

She'll pull up the final or the full definition. Essentially, it's a tree that's over 50 inches in diameter at breast height.

It's a very big tree. I think I only saw the one reference in the presentation to this, and it referred to the number of the amount of money for the fee in lieu. And what that spoke to me was like, oh, we're going to just let you pay to take it down, as opposed to we're going to make this really, really hard for you. We really, really, really want to keep this tree, which is where I would think we would want to be coming from.

So the code, it does have like a hierarchy. So first, you know, planting on site. And then if that's not feasible, then doing off-site planting. And if that's not feasible, then you do the fee in lieu. So we definitely prioritize planting on site. But if it's not feasible, that way there's an option to pay into the fee in lieu.

I don't know. Do you remember recently it was over in Laurelhurst where there were people camped out trying to prevent that tree from coming down? People care about these trees and we should care. And it seems like we should be doing everything in our power to keep them owned. It's not clear to me that that's where we've landed.

And then one thing to note, so our definition of heritage tree is a viable historic tree that the diameter at rest height equals or exceeds 50 inches.

So it's historic, it's huge, it's, you know, it just seems surprising to me that we would just put a dollar value on that and say, okay, as opposed to like really, insisting that they work around that with their development.

So with the heritage trees, we have the exception request process. And so we have our exception request criteria, which was increased from our current code. Currently it's pretty easy to get an exception request to remove a tree, like a landmark tree. So we increase those requirements and ultimately it's kind of similar to critical areas where you first try to avoid and then you minimize and then you mitigate. So avoidance would mean, you know, can you, you know, redesign the project to, you know, change the access location. So like the driveway for example, or you know, can they relocate utilities? Can they change like the footprint of the house to be like an L shape for example? And then if they can show that they can't, then they go to avoidance. So how can they avoid impacts? Can they cantilever the house? Can they, you know, prune the tree? And then the very last is mitigate, which means remove and replant.

So I guess what I want to hear is that we're confident that all of those previous steps are severe enough and that nobody's going to skip to the end and just give you some money and, you know, walk away from a historic heritage tree.

Yeah, that's something that we can make sure that the third version of the draft is more heavy on the first step, which is avoidance.

We're going to go around in order. So Commissioner Copley and then Commissioner Parna online.

I've got a related question. There was a comment made that in the downtown and neighborhood residential areas that the minimum tree credit requirements would be exempted except landmark trees was the comment made. And I'm curious whether heritage trees by default count as those landmark trees. Are they under the same umbrella because they're just larger?

Yes, they would count as landmark heritage. We included heritage as another category to show its significance. And what I meant by that the downtown and neighborhood residential would be exempt is that we wouldn't require the 35% minimum retention for those credits. So, because additional density would be added to the downtown and that's what our comprehensive plan has guided us toward.

Would the amount be zero or would it be less than 35?

It's whatever the applicant proposes as long as they're meeting that minimum credit. So allowing, they could either retain, replace or do the fee in lieu.

All right, Commissioner Aparna.

So I had a question about the replace or the tree credit system in general. When we do have a tree credit system and then we say the fee and glue will be used for either planting outside, do we know what kind of capacity the parks or areas, have we identified what tree capacity and replanting capacity we have? Because my guess would be that a lot of people would not want to replace it on their site and would look to plant outside um whether it's big developments or small homeowners what that tells me is that if we are giving them an out we should know where it is if they are going to say we're planting in timbuktu that's not acceptable right so um I would really like to understand more about what the city thinks in terms of where that capacity is going to be, that tree planting capacity. Have we identified green buffer zones? Have we identified park planting areas so that it counts towards building up our canopy? Yeah, thanks. You're getting a lot of nods here.

Vice Chair Wood here.

I'd like more clarity on the magnitude of the problem. I know that we have a target of 40% canopy. In 2019, it was 38%. You say it's declining. Do we have a sense of where we are today? Is it lower than 38% in 2026? How bad is the problem that we're trying to solve for?

I know that we are planning on updating the strategic tree canopy plan, I believe in 2028. So at that time, that's when we would assess the current tree data assessment. And then Cameron, if you wanted to speak.

We do, our tree canopy strategic plan does note we have to do LIDAR every so often. I can't remember what the duration is right now, but we do have to do LIDAR every, I think it's annually, but I'll get a more precise number on what that is.

They're currently flying to collect the LIDAR data for this year. So we'll get information very soon. And I think the goal for the tree canopy for 2050 is 40%. And there is also a dashboard on our interactive maps webpage where you can see the LIDAR. I think it's 2023, the last one that we have.

Amazing. Would it ever be possible to link to that in our next memo? Of course. That would be great. I'm going to jump in with a comment for me and then we can go around to anyone who hasn't talked or anyone who's a second round. So I really appreciate the scenarios in the slides. I think that that adds so much usability to this document. This is one of the areas of the code where I think you're going to get a lot of zoning code newbies who show up, aren't used to reading code, and if they can't find the answer pretty quick, they're going to bail. And if you have a section that's dozens of pages long, I just really think that's not going to work. And so two suggestions I had for version three are, first of all, that the scenarios show up in headlines so people can actually scan the table of contents or chapter titles, like basically scan bolded text to find where they are. That will help a lot. And then the other thing is I don't think most people approach an acronym like DBH and have any idea and same with heritage tree like any idea so that's that almost might be worth redefining for every single section um just so that people have the information they need to actually read the tables um because i think this is like definitely starting to move in a direction where it's much more usable um for just a random redmond resident coming in if they have a tree question. But in my experience, especially talking to neighbors, if they can't find a solution pretty fast, they leave. All right, round two. Commissioner Copley.

Is there any segmentation of types of conifers? And if so, do we assign relative values to how much they help the ecosystem? For example, there are dwarf conifers conifers, intermediate and large, the dwarves can take 20 years to get to that heritage level, which is less time than it takes for any of us to become an adult from showing up. And the large ones can take four years. So I would think that if there was value to some of these trees at varying heights and sizes that we might want to take that into consideration.

I want to just talk on what you were saying about the scenarios I would want to see some very specific like here's a home on a quarter of an acre that has five trees and you know six deciduous trees and they want to put in an ADU and here's what this would look like and step people through and then maybe a different scenario for like multifamily or something. But okay, so the categories that I saw were ended at 30,000 square feet and above, is that right? That all, it looked to me like the final and largest category was anything above 30,000 square feet, the lot size, is that correct?

I'm talking about like the data.

I didn't note the page number. in the slides.

Probably this one.

Yeah, 30,000 and greater. That's a big bucket. I mean, maybe in Redmond, there just aren't as many big losses, I would think. But that's what 30,000 is like three quarters of an acre. compared in like five acres, do we have like five acre lots that could be developed? Like that would be, there's a pretty significant difference there between the three quarter acre lot and a five acres. So maybe we just don't have as many and we don't need the buckets to be bigger at, you know, but that seems like a small cutoff for me. Maybe the data supports what you've done. I just don't understand it.

Yeah. I think when we looked at, um, Like the residential zones, what I'm remembering is that it actually is a relatively small bucket for the not redevelopment scenario.

Am I seeing there that this is limited to neighborhood residential?

So this is for true removal not related to development. So most of the time it would be probably neighborhood residential.

Again, so it seems maybe the, maybe they're just, but even two acres and surely like there's two acre lots. And then if lots get combined, like how does that work? Like if my neighbor, like when we were going through this, like with between my neighbor's lot and my lot that we were looking to sell, that would have been two acres and two acres is pretty different than three quarters of an acre. So potentially seems like you're leaving stuff on the table there. Like we're going to make it too easy for the bigger lots.

So maybe just a little bit more clarification about how many homes actually fall in those buckets. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Cool.

Commissioner Coleman. And then I'll loop back around. Thank you.

So I've got a question on this particular slide in the scenario that you have, say one landmark tree and no other trees, do you have to plant two trees? If you take one out, if there are no trees left, you have to then plant two trees.

So it depends on the size. So 30 inches DBH or greater, it would be three replacement trees?

So if you had one significant tree on your property and you asked to take it down, you have to plant two significant trees on your property if you take it out.

So if it's a significant tree, it depends on the diameter at breast height. So the proposed code, it has, like instead of just saying significant and landmark, we kind of broke it up even more based off of like the size of the tree. So like the table shows that like, For example, like 6 to 15 inches, it would be a 1 to 1 replacement. And then 16 to 29 would be 2 to 1. And then 30 inches would be a 3 to 1. So 30 inches, that would be in alignment with like a landmark tree. And then basically anything over that, it would be plus 1 for the additional 3 inches. Okay.

Okay, so the requirements are, so if you had one tree and you want to take it out, you then just have to put one tree back, is that right?

It depends on the size. So say the one tree you wanted to remove, if it was between 6 to 15 inches DBH, then yes, it would be a one-to-one replacement. So like the larger the diameter at breast height, the more replacements are required.

I was just, maybe it's just me, I was confused between these two tables. I was looking at the top one, and then I was trying to look at the bottom one, trying to square the circle. And it wasn't particularly clear for me. That's all.

Yeah so the top tables are for the true removal like allotments and then the bottom table is the replacement and then the left is just not in a table just in text but the current code it is one to one and then or three to one.

Commissioner Aparna.

So I have emailed a couple more questions, which would be added just for the listening public. But there's one question I want to ask right now is that I don't believe all cutting, taking down of trees in every scenario should be treated equally. So a hazardous tree needs to be taken down. A tree taken down for development, say, should be treated differently from that. And definitely should be treated differently if you're cutting it down for views, right? Because in my mind, we can't treat all the taking down of trees at the same, with the same level of... I don't want to say levity, but people are doing it arbitrarily in cases, right? Oh, it's darkening one room, so I'm going to take down this massive tree. Didn't replant, didn't take a permit. Seen that happen in my neighborhood. So for me, I would like to see a way to show that we are taking this seriously and have harsher penalties for just because. So I don't know if that is possible, but I certainly think it would be good to explore. Thank you.

I'm going to go, do you have any? No, okay. I'm going to do one more and then we're tight on time. So let's see if I can be fast so Commissioner Cobley can get one more in. I had a question about the public comment suggestion tonight. I know that we don't have control over budget, obviously here, or really anything programmatic. But when I read the civil penalties fee, I did feel like there could be more there. that not only goes after the property owner, but also goes against the professional that authorizes it if there was found to be a problem. I know Redmond has, for example, endorsements on business licenses and that sort of thing. So I don't know if there's an option if people are found to be violating this code on behalf of clients frequently if they can be prohibited from continuing to work in Redmond. And then also I think there should be a fee schedule here against professionals that knowingly just cheat a few inches. And whether that's helped with spot checks or whatever other programs Redmond decides later to implement, at least there'd be like an underlying something to build off of in the code. Because I do think that is a concern. I know a lot of people who've tree professionals shopped until they got an answer that they liked, especially about is this tree hazardous or not. That's very easy, especially with our cedars because some people look at a cedar and they assume the branches are going to fall off and like maybe yes, maybe no. But so my neighborhood has seen a lot of the cedars removed over the last five years because People are just passing around the same few tree guys. So if we could avoid that, that would be great. Okay, Commissioner Copley, last one.

I don't need an answer to this, but if you look through all of Redmond's zoning code and you ask yourself the question, which of these violations can't be remedied in under 20 years? I think that's the way we need to think about cutting a tree that would take 20 years to replace.

It's a lovely point. And then also, I think really looking at when we're talking about replacement trees, which species do we even mean? Because being really specific about are we getting the right trees? Are people planting miniature Japanese maples or something? Or are they planting something that's actually going to help?

Mm-hmm.

Yes, okay, everyone needs one more turn. This will be really quick. I won't expand on it. I'll just ask my question. Does the TPZ include driveways or roads? And is there any grandfathering? Like if that road already existed next to a tree that has grown up and is now, that meets that qualification.

Great.

Do you have just a question?

Commissioner Coleman? Just a comment. If you remember a few meetings ago, we had somebody here talking about lighting issues because someone had cut down a bunch of trees in front of, and so folks were like, hey, we'll just pay the thing and put up a few small trees. So it felt like there wasn't the enforcement you're talking about. And so the public comment, I just want to reiterate a little bit, the public comment I also looked up, What do other cities do and what do they have? And it seems sort of random. Some cities have them. Some cities don't have a city arborist. I know we're not in charge of budgets, but what is the enforcement and who does the enforcement within the city? And making that as strong as possible, I think, is going to make people think twice about shopping for an arborist. Sorry, for a specialist.

Great.

And Vice Chair Wood here. I'll start with a comment. My Japanese maple has gotten very tall. But seriously, how do you strike the right balance between mitigation funding and deterrents? Because that helps us frame what the penalty should be and are they sufficient enough. For example, if someone's cutting down a significant tree or they're flouting the rules, should the penalty apply to both the homeowner and the business or is it just one? So I think I'd love to be able to understand the magnitude of the problem and how do we strike the right balance with given all of our objectives of which Redmond 2050 is one of them and the housing.

Great. Okay. So we will leave it here reluctantly. And if anyone has major questions that they want to include in draft three, can they email them by the end of this week? Is that reasonable?

Yep. Yep. By Friday.

By Friday. Okay, great. So if anyone's tempted, they can do that. and we will see you in September. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

All right. Next up is going to be our briefing on the Housing and Human Services Action Plan with Ian Lefcourt.

Good to be back. Hello, I'm Ian Lefcourt, he, him pronouns, long range planning, and I'm joined by Alaric Bien with our mighty but small human services team. And we're here to talk to you about the housing and human services action plan refresh. A lot of words in this title and a lot of content in the plan. So we'll talk about the background of the plan. This is a bit of a departure from past plan structures. Then we'll talk about the community engagement to date. We'll move into the plan priorities. And finally, we'll talk about the way that our framework creates actions, strategies, focus areas to help segment the conversations to get more specific actions. And then finally, we'll have the timeline and hopefully have a discussion. We will remind the Planning Commission that this is not a land use item, so we do not need a specific recommendation. But we are, of course, very eager to hear your thoughts about content of the plan, questions that we could answer, and most importantly, the actions themselves. That's the real mechanism of change of this document. Challenging conditions, I mean, we don't need to spend much time on this. Everyone is aware. Things are tough across the board. And one of the most important facets when it comes to housing stability is that, of course, it is a multifaceted problem. If my gas prices go up, that decreases my housing stability because I have less money for rent. If my childcare costs go up, my housing stability decreases because I have less money for rent. All of these components swirl together. And this plan tries to take an appreciation of that multifacetedness and alleviate some of those problems, which is one of the terrific reasons for combining the Housing Action Plan with the Human Services Plan. As a reminder, we do have a top-down planning structure in Washington State. We have our Growth Management Act, which then informs regional planning, which then goes to our King County planning policies, finally to our Comp Plan, which was updated in 24 and Phase 2 in 25. We then go through and find ourselves with our strategic plans. These are the documents that put into action what we set our goals, visions, and policies from the comprehensive plan itself. And this is one of the most important components that drives many of the conversations of this plan. 73% of our net new housing needs to be affordable for households earning below 50% or at 50% AMI. That is almost 20,000 dwelling units over the planning horizon. That's going to be tough. It is almost a guarantee we will not meet that estimated housing need. But we will do our best because Redmond has a commitment to equity, quality of life, and housing. One of the silver linings here is that, wow, if we have that much housing need at those levels of AMI, If you look at the top income bins, we're actually doing pretty darn well. Over the last half decade, despite a multitude of mercurial, socio, and macroeconomic conditions, The City of Redmond still generally brought online hundreds of housing units per year, sometimes even into the thousands. So we're doing pretty darn well when it comes to market rate and above 80% AMI housing units. And that is nothing to sneeze at. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of commitment from our community, elected, commissions, and staff to make that happen for our private development partners. So we'll keep this in mind that we do need to focus on households earning 50% AMI or below, which is why one of the through lines of this plan is a focus on cost controlled, income restricted, affordable housing units. And the reason for that is that when we look at what households come online at 50% AMI affordability, In this area with such high housing costs, that is almost exclusively those cost controlled income restricted housing units. So the affordable housing generation is really one of the main keystones of our success for this plan. We have two housing elements that are particularly relevant to informing this plan. One is the housing element. It sets the framework for coordinated action, sets a bunch of the frameworks and policies, and it is explicitly required by the RCW. Human services element, voluntary. Local jurisdictions do not need to do that, but because of our values, we chose to, and it also sets a clear vision for helping those who need the most help. And human services is essential. is a very interesting element because it's so much more programmatic than many of the other elements that are in a comprehensive plan. It's much less about land use, zoning and regulations and about how we operationalize many of the society, regional, faith, community and municipal resources to help bring a high quality of life to our community. And that is needed now more than ever. So the planning approach here is to combine our human services strategic plan with our housing action plan. Peanut butter and jelly perfect together with an especially relevant matrix, excuse me, nexus between housing and human services when we are focusing at that deep level of affordability. And the second and third bullets are very interesting in terms of the timing of our plan. We really wanna focus on relatively big swings because we've already done such a good job at taking care of most of the low hanging fruit. If we, um, if we want to make it easier for a developer to build a mixed use department building, one of the ways we did that is we streamlined our development review process. Another way is we consolidated many different multifamily and mixed use zones to make it easier to know what you need to do. Aside from the staff time, that's the cost. There's not any ongoing programmatic effort. You just need to do the work, educate staff, educate our development partners, and when you're set. In contrast, most of the efforts that will be needed in this kind of work is ongoing, and it is programmatic, and it does have a big price tag. And so because of that, we wanted to focus on broadly fewer actions relatively. We feel that if there's fewer actions in the document, it is more likely that any of them will be pursued, especially because again, these are pretty big asks at this point in our city's history. And that last bullet is that we wanna focus on internal staff work. We did not need to do a consultant for this because we were able to build upon the great work we did very recently. Our comprehensive plan, our human services strategic plan, and our housing action plan did an enormous amount of community engagement, an enormous amount of research, and an enormous amount of adjusting to the flood of high quality legislation that has come out over the last half decade. And so we were able to build upon this because we already had a good sense of what are the biggest challenges. What are our community policies and priorities? What's our vision? Let's build on what we need most with a focus on equity. And so we were able to build upon that with new community engagement. So the first three columns you see here are statistics based on what we did previously over that old HAP, old Human Services Strategic Plan, and most impressively of all, the Redmond 2050. You'll note that there's, it's five digits worth of community engagement, if you take everything in sum. And so for this recent effort, we have been doing community engagement for the last eight weeks or so through a variety of different approaches, small group conversations, email correspondence, a Let's Connect questionnaire, focus groups, all of this coming together. We've got about 35 respondents on the Let's Connect so far. We've had about 16 different Small focus group conversations and then email correspondence from places like our library system hope link and other relevant providers so all of this is coming in with a With a nice mix of checking whether or not we're on the right track How did we make that conversation easier We took a three focus area approach which forms three pillars of the equitable housing structure The first is to get and keep people housed. This ranges from direct homelessness services to getting people into shelter up to stability programs for those at risk of losing the housing they have. It is that most urgent level of housing stability. The second pillar is building more housing faster. We need to support the faster delivery of more housing to increase supply and variety. We've heard that consistently. We need more units that have a higher bedroom count to supply bigger households. We've heard more aging in place friendly housing, a variety of option that we need. So we'll keep working on that. And then that last pillar is where a lot of the supplementary human services work gets done. Food assistance, financial coaching, small business incubation, connecting people who are new to the community with existing resources. That's connecting and strengthening our communities. And so we recognize that, again, all three of these are one component of housing stability. And really, all of that is just one piece of the even broader conversation of things like we discussed earlier, job security, food, gas, childcare, all those other components. The main purpose for this is to get clarity and specificity on how we want to act, implement, and empower our community. And so when we look at some of these examples here, I've touched on some of them, homelessness support for getting and keeping people housed, development capacity in zones will help build more housing faster, growing city and community relationships will connect and strengthen communities. Some of the main themes here that First bullet is probably the most important. It's gonna take direct investments. It's gonna take not insignificant direct investments. And so we're trying to make sure that we can frame these conversations and actions where, this is one of the biggest asks to the planning commission, is to help us make sure the action language is both specific enough that the action plan serves as an action plan, and we actually have clear guidance to move forward, but it's also not overly specific where we don't have flexibility in these continuingly volatile external conditions. The city can only do so much ourselves. We also have our programmatic efforts, sufficient staffing is a big one. And as I mentioned before, one of the through lines is that these are big significant efforts. Plan priorities, we're improving housing stability, we're expanding human services capacity, and we are focusing on those who need the help the most. Now, interestingly, with a community like City of Redmond with a very high area median income, there is still a, what I thought was surprising amount of folks who are severely cost burdened when over 50% of their income goes to housing and 12% are regular cost burdened, which is 30 to 49%. And When we think about some of the costs of the housing, it makes sense. I mean, you've got mortgages that are well into the five figures every month. It really highlights the fact that our households, they can be vulnerable. You know, most households, you're only a couple bad months away from having some real crisis. And so we're trying to ensure more resilience broadly in our community, but with special attention to those who need the help most. Our seniors on fixed income, Historically and currently disenfranchised populations special needs populations and so forth Our timeline or wrapping up community engagement After we received the input from the Commission tonight. We will then work on our third and final asterisk plan 3.0. We'll have that substantively completed by next week. And we will then begin the legislative council review process with anticipated adoption in early October. Now, as a reminder, council is going through their budget process. And so there is a lot of conversation going on at council. So these timelines may need to get adjusted slightly, but our hope is to complete the work by Q4 of this year. So with that, we thank you and we welcome questions, conversation about this plan.

All right, thank you so much for the briefing. I'm sure there's going to be questions once we get going on this topic, who wants to start? All right, Commissioner Copley.

Well, first off, nice to see you. It seems some time away has served you well. Nice presentation. I wanted to ask whether there is any kind of precedent that we looked at with other cities of combining these commissions. My sense is that we did some homework and decided that this was a good idea. I'm curious what that process looked like.

Absolutely, we did a review of other jurisdictions that had a variety of different Let's say commitment to the values that are present in our comprehensive plan We tried to find ones that were either relatively the same population size as us or as always our East King County neighbors We did not find anyone who did a very explicit combination, but we did find several plans that spoke to many of the kind of like the underlying project principles. So for example, the city of Bellevue actually has a human services plan, housing plan, and then also an affordable housing plan. That's right, a distinct plan just for affordable housing. And that kind of served as the middle link between those two other plans. And in fact, the plans talk to each other. And so we felt that this was an appropriate approach. One other component that thank you for reminding me is we've really strived to make this plan accessible and reduce the page count and make it as easily translatable, accessible and understood as possible because we felt that oftentimes when a community member opens. And so we felt this was a useful tool to help broaden out our audience. And that theme of getting shorter was something we also found from other jurisdictions as well. There is a premium on brevity, which is something I've never been able to do.

Anyone else? I'll jump in with one. It's great to see this come to us. I'm glad that we earned a briefing here. This is always a topic of interest. But just this didn't quite make it clear to me how the city is evaluating fairness. Because what I think we've seen is that sometimes there's just enormous need. And there's a question of like which group needs support, how much support do they need? How much is this city's responsibility? Basically, what do they do if they're at a point where they're losing their housing, having to move frequently, et cetera. And so maybe getting a little bit more clear that either the city does somehow rank on different kinds of fairness or need or whatever, or specifically say that the city doesn't would be a helpful in here because I think I heard what I completely understand what you're saying about needing to stay flexible but sometimes that can look like just sort of a vacuum and so I could reading through this with like some of the people that we've talked some friends have had to leave Redmond due to cost like that sort of issue in mind I don't I didn't necessarily see like what was there for them in that moment, like senior residents that are worried about like not being, like they're on a fixed income, they're worried about not being able to stay. I didn't necessarily see a like toehold in this document that was specifically for them. And so... This would be very hard to do, but it's just the more specific that we can be about what even cases would the city consider stepping in on, or what would they say, like, you could work with these agencies if you're in this realm, like relying on those third party partnerships. I think just the more that it can be specific, I think the more useful of a plan it's going to be. Mr. Coleman.

Just a question for you. The docket process that we went through, there was a part of that that we didn't take on, but was exactly in line with this. Are you thinking about that as one example?

That's one example for sure.

I did have one question about I've asked this question before, I think, which is around essential workers, right? So we get people coming in in our fire department, our police department, and others where they're coming from a long way to come and work here. They're not in the community. And when I've asked this question before, it's like, we can't do something specific for a specific group. But when you look at other cities, it just seems wrong that in the modern day, For example, you don't see police officers who know the people around whom they're kind of supposed to be helping or whatever the right term is. I don't know if there's anything we can be included in there or there is something about that particular topic that could be addressed in some other way. It just feels that housing is related very directly to that community of people who, by the way, are risking their lives often for the community.

Commissioner Gagne.

Love the presentation, love the slides. This is very easy to digest. One of the questions that I have is about the equitable housing slide. And it seems like Redmond has been very ambitious and visionary in terms of how do we, it's not just how do we get people housed, but how do we keep people housed? And I'm curious if there's, if the city feels as ambitious and visionary in terms of, for example, on rent increases. Is there any talk within the city for us being more ambitious and following some of what Seattle has done in terms of things that they're capping and making it easier for folks once they have secured, like gone through that very difficult process for a lot of people of securing housing. How are we making sure, is the city providing protections that they can keep that housing once they have it?

Thank you for that. And without giving away too much, yes, there's ambition there. I do want to... manage expectations, right? Ultimately the actions that go through and get adopted, they're gonna be reviewed by our electeds, but we have been, staff has been given the green light to make those big swings. And so those will be reflected in the document. And yes, some components like code enforcement for a lot of protections, habitability calls. So if there's black mold or something in your unit, Also, even up to including pilot stability financial assistance. So there is a nice spread that will be proposed moving forward, and we're excited to see how our electives react to it.

Michelle Perna. So, Ian, thank you for that. As usual, you do a wonderful job of breaking down this very complex topic, and I really like the idea of both the human services and the housing action plan coming together because I think it's really key. You said something in your presentation which really kind of intrigued me when you said we need direct investment because we can't do this alone. When you talk about direct investment, is there something in this document which is going to kind of really bring down the barriers for that direct investment? If you have, let's say, a project which is proposed, which is going to provide very low AMI, like maybe a permanent supportive housing or anything beyond that, but it doesn't have to be even that low, maybe 50% and below, but bring down the barriers completely. I know we have incentivized for larger projects where there's percentage of like 10%, 20% units, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about entire projects end to end where we're getting an investment, whether we can make that process easier on everybody. So that's something that I feel it should have a fast track and a clearer path. So both programmatically as well as from permitting and the whole development process. But thank you for your great work and very, very good.

All right, I'm gonna jump in with another question. I had a question specifically about the get and keep people housed pillar. So I'm curious in this, it's not necessarily an item to act on yet, but I do think that the city could be doing a lot more data gathering, especially once housing is built. What happens? Because there are two things that I've heard just rumors about, and I don't know if they're real. One is that occupancy in some buildings has been higher than would be expected, and possibly rents are raised artificially because of that. And I think that was more of a rumor during COVID, but I've never been able to find actual data on it for Redmond. And then the other question that I have is just around turnover in specific buildings, especially with the apartment buildings, because the fees are so high at move in and at move out. Like that's really where people are getting like a lot of additional payments from that they're having to like deal with in their household budgets. And if you have a situation where people are paying a lot to move every single year, that's a huge hidden expense for families or individuals. And it's just, I think Redmond should know if that's a concern here. So if there are buildings that are either sitting largely empty or if the vast majority of people move every single year, it's just, it's helpful for us to understand if that's happening, because we might be like, oh, we actually have plenty of units, but they might not be quite as affordable as they look. So that would be good. And if Redmond's already doing that, it would be great just to know what sort of metrics they're keeping other than units built.

We mainly rely on, for that specific level, a lot of our conversations from Arch, who I have direct relationships with the property managers, they provide a nice pulse of that kind of situation. And we also get to pull from larger industry databases like CoStar, but that is not as regularly scheduled as it could be. So great comments, and we can consider that for the plan.

Great. Anyone else? No. All right. In that case, I think we are done. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you all. Great to see you again.

I think before we move on to our quick discussion of rules, we're going to take a five minute break. So 825.

you Thank you. do do Thank you for watching. you

All right, we're back. Next up is our study session on the update to the planning commission rules with Jeff Churchill.

All right, good evening, everyone. And welcome back for another session on planning commission rules, a procedure update. As a reminder, I don't have a slide deck, but at the last meeting we introduced this. You held a study session, and there are four topics really that constitute the bulk of the updates. Relationship between the Planning Commission and City Council, lobbying, public participation, and records. At the last meeting, two issues were opened. One was concerning attendance, and a second one is concerning events, but also I would say just open public meetings act and how that applies to different kinds of events and different interactions with different people in the community. So responses to that are provided in your issues matrix. The other element that was in your packet was presuming that the rules look okay to you, a recommendation to the city council, it looks draft one. It looks different than your other recommendations because it's not a code amendment. It's not a plan amendment. I took that template and I just slimmed it down to the essentials, which is a recommendation on the rules. So it's draft. It can be changed before it gets sent to the council, of course, and the issues matrix can also be updated. And that's my recap and I'll turn it back to the chair.

Great. So maybe we can open the issues matrix and then go from there.

Okay, just working on the sharing. Okay, the first issue concerned attendance and what's excused, what's unexcused, what's the difference? Excused absences are those where the commission, either by general consent or by vote, says, yeah, it's okay that this commissioner's not here. They have a reason. Unexcused is kind of everything else. And the planning commission rules then go on to talk about what happens if you miss a certain number of meetings, whether they're excused or unexcused. Those sentences actually refer back to parts of the Revin municipal code. So if there were changes that commissioners wanted to make that were It would also require changes to the Revenue and Municipal Code. The recommendation would need to reflect that to council to say, hey, we think you should do this, but also you'll need to change the Revenue and Municipal Code to make that happen.

So I've been thinking, this is mine, I'll just comment. I've been thinking a lot about this because it's one of those situations where we have a lot of words here about attendance in the rules as written. And to me, they're not very actionable because the way they boil down is, or I guess I'd say the way it works now is if someone has to miss a meeting, they write in and say, I have to miss a meeting. And then I say they're excused. I'm not voting every time someone misses and being like, should we excuse commissioner so-and-so this week? Like yay or nay, and then be like, nay. And then it just like, it feels so disrespectful and archaic to me. I can't imagine us doing it. And also I can't see us getting to a situation where like, should we vote whether or not commissioner X, Y, Z has missed 25% of the meetings this year and therefore should be challenged or that they've missed these three meetings in a row or whatever. It just, it doesn't really feel like the way we work together as a group. And it doesn't feel like our job exactly. It does not feel like our job to be deciding who's off the island. However, I do think that there's a place for attendance where we're saying, okay, um, if someone doesn't have like their life has shifted, they don't have the time to be making meetings regularly. They're frequently in and out of the conversation. then there is a point where it's like, maybe that should be a discussion and our rules should reflect that in my opinion. And especially as chair, because it's just like, I like to know what the rules actually are and the rules here on attendance don't function the way we function as a group. So I'd kind of like to get them into alignment. And so what I would propose is that we actually recommend council consider modifying the RMC to get rid of the excused unexcused differentiation it's just you're here or you're not and then if and then regardless of that if someone is meeting either missing more than three in a row or missing more than a quarter in a year that we're saying that would automatically go to staff for review because i don't like we're not we don't choose who's who we serve on this commission with and i think that's appropriate And I can see situations both ways. I could see that maybe someone had surgery or something and they have to miss three meetings in a row, but they're still absolutely a valued participant and we just can't wait for them to come back. I can also see a situation where someone's missing a lot of meetings in one season, but then whatever that problem is ends and they're ready to recommit. So it's just like I want there to be more flexibility, but I also don't think we should be responsible for removing each other. And I'm curious if that resonates with people or if I've just been thinking about it for too long.

Vice Chair Whittier. I think it does resonate. I mean, certainly the spirit of that. If we know we're all adults, we all are making an intentional commitment to the city and to this commission. And so if there are extenuating or non-extenuating reasons why someone is absent frequently, I do think there's an opportunity and a need for staff to be aware of that, staff to have the conversation, and that person then either opts in or opts out. That's a lot more preferable, in my view, than to vote someone off the island. It just sends a bad signal. Either you're committing or you're not committing, and you remove yourself if you choose not to.

Right, and recognizing this is a volunteer role that takes an enormous amount of time. Like, I just appreciate so much how much effort everyone puts into this. But sometimes people do commit, and then life changes, and then they step a different direction. That's OK, too. So I just want our rules to reflect that a little bit more respectfully.

Mr. Irvin, I'm in. So I think you did a good job of saying exactly how we're really operating. I mean, there's two components to it. One is the excused versus unexcused. And then the next one is the kind of like the removal and the consequences part. And then referring that to staff makes sense. But back to the excused versus unexcused, we have informally adopted this excused versus unexcused. Technically, according to that, 100% of our absences have been unexcused. Right.

um and so but in our minutes they're always excused and in the way like the way we talk about them in meetings are excused so there's this weird little like unreality yeah between the roles in real life around that um i mean you know commissioner van nyman let me know she wasn't going to be able to make it you know right or even just she'll be absent and it like but not in a in a grudging unexcused absence sort of way you know it's just um i don't think we need that but i mean it's interesting to see that that like effectively nobody's excused by the rules we've been using commissioner gagne

Yeah, it absolutely resonates for me what you said about when I interviewed for the role, I didn't interview with you guys. I interviewed with staff, right? And it was decided whether or not this was going to be a good fit. I think there's some trust between us to have conversations. Many of us have relationships outside of this. And so if attendance does become an issue, leaving it with the folks who opted us in feels more appropriate than the other volunteers. So I like your role. I didn't interview with you guys. I interviewed with staff, right? And it was decided whether or not this was going to be a good fit. I think there's relies some trust between us to have conversations. Many of us have relationships outside of this. And so if attendance does become an issue, leaving it with the folks who opted us in feels more appropriate than the other volunteers. So I like your proposal.

Okay, great. Commissioner Coleman.

yeah it's the excuse and excuse feels like approved or not approved or you know it's been a situation of return to office or discretionary time it feels like that whole zone and it's not that we're not working in that situation but i would agree i think that if there's a problem like if if for some reason i'm not turning out three times in a row i'd expect somebody from the planning department to say to me where have you been what are you doing um maybe slightly more politely than that, but something like that, right? And I feel like it's more of a collegial, it's an official position in a sense of being here and we have responsibilities, but it's also a collegial type of scenario because we're volunteers, but we take it seriously. So I do think it's harder for us to kind of police ourselves, if I could use that term, versus actually having staff just lightly saying, you know, I missed a few meetings. Like, what's good? Is there something going on? Just that, to me, seems a more sensible human way of dealing with it.

Yeah, and is something going on? Is this still working? I think it's a completely reasonable discussion to have. But I would hate for us to have to take a vote on if we thought something was going on. So are we OK? With that change, so the change here specifically would be asking council to change the RMC around excused, unexcused, and just make one category of absent. And then second, to remove all of the pieces about us voting and just say there are two conditions where attendance becomes an issue. One is if someone misses three in a row. The second is if you're missing more than 25% of meetings in a year. And then at that point, we would expect staff to come in and have a conversation with the individual. And I don't know if there's more needed there. Jeff, do you have opinions?

Yeah, I was thinking about what would happen after three absences in a row or after 25% in a given year. To Commissioner Gagne's point, yes, the interview service staff and then the planning commission chair, the appointment comes from the mayor. And so I think in the construct that you're thinking of, it might be appropriate. for the RMC and the rules to actually say then is at the mayor's discretion whether that person stays on the commission based on the circumstances of their absence because it was the mayor that appointed the commissioners. I think, you know, the difference between what that would look like and what's in the rules now is in the rules now if it's three plus meetings missed um it's up to the body um of seven to determine well you know were those three unexcused absent or was it 25 it's a it's a the the individual absences rather are up to the vote of the commission not that not the three plus um so i take that back i'm gonna stop talking but yeah that um i would just recommend that it it go to the mayor and not to like us a staff person okay

So in your view, would it like, who would notify the mayor that that had happened?

Oh, the planning commission liaison could notice. I mean, staff could notify the mayor. Certainly. Perfect.

Okay. So in that, if either of those conditions are met, then staff would notify the mayor.

And I think that might become, you know, a five B here in the rules, you know, the 25% threshold, um, it can trigger a request to the mayor in writing. And I think the planning commission, I think you're asking for it to just automatically trigger a review by the mayor if it's 25% or if it's three plus absences in a row.

Yeah, I mean, when I read something like 5B, what I'm noticing is there's really almost no way to meet our norms that we agreed to each year in our annual workshop and also meet 5B. It's just, they feel very,

disconnected this doesn't feel like the way we work so i would prefer it was automatically um kind of sized up and that we weren't in charge of notifying um commissioner coleman um i've got a really simple practical question to ask because i'm a bit confused when i've said i'm not going to be here i've i've sent um uh an email to the chair and to whoever is is charged and told can you send to the planning commission well i've never seen any but anybody else's planning commission emails on this myself. I just want to know what's the process because sometimes people's absence, they want to say, hey, I'm going to be absent, but I just want to let you know here's why. And some people are like, hey, I'm just not around next week for whatever reason. What's the process?

Great question. So in an ideal world, you are emailing the planning commission alias because that goes to staff. And if you could also put me on that email, then I know to fix my script and not announce you. But what ends up happening in reality is, because there have been times where people are just running extremely late and can't make it. Or like sometimes life happens and people will text me and then I will notify staff as soon as. Man, I've got an even dumber question. Yeah, great.

Who's on the planning commission alias? I thought it was all of us.

Oh, so there are two. When you write the planning commission alias, you get staff. And when it's a good question, then they forward it to all. It's there's a, Jeff doesn't like my characterization of that. All questions are good question. Right. When it's important for the entire planning commission to know, then they send it to the rest of us, but there is a two layer system there. Okay.

So is that attendance? That's helpful. Thank you.

I think we're good.

Good on attendance. Okay. Then there were questions about, well, how should commissioners behave at events when talking to community members, when talking to city council members in the case of often you might be in a booth with city council members that say at Derby days. Um, and so, um, my response draws mostly on a really great guide to open public meetings act, um, which I see that I misspelled here, um, the acronym for, from the Municipal Research and Services Center. Highly recommend that you read all of it. It's really great. And it really boils down to, is there a meeting happening? And a meeting is happening anytime you're really talking about planning commission business. It's very broad. And so you don't want to have meetings except right here. These are where you have your meetings, and those are the only places you should have your meetings. So when you're at Derby Days, You can talk to community members about Planning Commission's business, tell them when the, what topics are coming up, listen to their input and feedback, but if you're talking to each other, you really need to avoid Planning Commission business, because then you're at risk of having a meeting. Same if you're at any other kind of private event with other Planning Commissioners.

Commissioner Aparna, do you want to start first, or should I?

I kind of like the clarity in this. So I would consider it close, but I will leave it up to you, Chair Weston.

So I liked this question, or this answer as far as it went. But it's specifically talking about planning commission business. So talking to city council members about planning commission business. And I think that has been relatively straightforward. Like, I think everyone's doing a pretty good job on that one. What I'm still not entirely clear on is how it works with the Open Public Meetings Act if planning commissioners are talking to city council members about city council business. So we're not in the loop on this, but how does that one work?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it's a little bit nuanced. So, you know, let's say you as a community member have an interest in something that's before city council, that's totally okay and normal. And you can talk to a city council member about that. You could share that opinion with city council member. You could ask questions. It would be, since it's not planning commission business, you should do that. If you're doing it, if you're doing that, through a written medium, it should be with your personal email account or your personal phone or whatever, because you're not acting as a planning commissioner. The only place where things get tricky and what you want to avoid is let's say you talk to planning commissioner one about, excuse me, let's say you talk to city council member one about some city council business item. and then you talk to city council member two, and then you talk to city council member three, and when you're doing the subsequent conversations, you're telling them about your conversation with city council member one. You're telling city council member three about your conversations with two and one, and now you've sort of become a conduit for creating a serial meeting of the city council, which is mostly on city council members to mind, right? Cause they're the ones who need to avoid doing that, but you can facilitate everybody being on the right side of the open public meetings act by not doing that. So if you wanna talk to a council member about an issue, talk to them, you can talk to multiple council members, but don't be sharing your conversations you had with one council member with another.

That is super helpful. I would love that added to the matrix.

Sure. Happy to do that.

All right. Any further questions about rules? No. In that case, should we vote on this now given there's changing or could we see attendance?

i would i understand what the planning commission wants on attendance and i also want to run it by the clerk and so what i what i would recommend is that we hold this over for one more meeting um and it and that doesn't mean we need to schedule one on august 26 just for this we can wait till september we still have the night off even better so that I can make sure there's nothing that the clerk sees that would be problematic before the planning commission votes on it.

Okay, that would be lovely.

So we will save the final step on this until next time.

Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, everyone. All right, so last item is staff and commissioner updates.

Yes, we have quite a few updates. So as we mentioned, the August 26th meeting has been canceled. Our next meeting will take place on September 9th. And at this meeting, we will welcome our new youth advisors, which is very exciting. And we will have two briefings. One is on the design standards update, and the other one is the urban mixed-use master plan study. This project has been supported by two of our long-range coordinators, planning interns that are with us until the rest of the summer. And we are hoping that they can come and present the results of that meeting, which is also pretty exciting. On August 3rd, city council formally established the 26, 27 annual comprehensive planned amendment docket. um city council is scheduled to adopt the annual code cleanup on September 15th and finally the application for the planning commission seat has been that will be vacated in October has been posted on the planning commission website please spread the word and encourage your community members to apply and yeah that's it

I have one more that I didn't tell Odra about. And that is also on Monday, the 3rd of August, the city council adopted changes to the multifamily tax exemption program for affordable housing. That's not something that comes to the planning commission, but it does of course impact our affordable housing programs. And so I thought you would like to know the chief amendment is that now the city offers 12 year extensions of the tax exemption to the existing eight year exemption. So there are parts of the city where you can get eight, and then at the end of eight, plus 12, so for a total of 20 years.

And remind me, was that in response to a state law?

That was not in direct response to a state law. That was really in response to commitments that we made during the plan update process to look at all the tools available to us in state law, which does include the 12-year extension now. And so now we've done that work. We've done some of that work. There's still more of that work to be done. There is also a new 20-year extension for housing around transit-oriented development. There are some questions that we have about the law that we would like some clarity on, either from the State Department of Commerce or from the legislature before we take some action on that. So there's some work yet still to do.

Great. Thank you. Other commissioner updates? Commissioner Copley.

I have started a new business and it is not in conflict with what I do here, but it is related to putting heads in beds. And I also have accepted a position as president of the board of the nonprofit that I work with that is also focused on housing. So very housing related updates on my end. But yeah, you can see why I was so excited by Ian's update today.

Great, thank you for the transparency. And just for a reminder for just everyone on commission, people have been so good about this, but if you ever had something where you're not sure if you need to recuse, staff is a great resource if a particular topic comes up, but they will help us work through it. Anyone else? All right, in that case, I look for a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

All right, then we are adjourned.

Thank you.