Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright.

Good evening, everyone. Happy April Fool's Day. This is vice chair, plants, calling to order the Rent and Planning Commission for Wednesday, 04/01/2026 at 06:01PM. Our first order of business will be to call the roll. Commissioner Bayan, I believe you'll be calling the roll.

Yes. I am. Thank you, vice chair. Let's start with chair Artsy. Commissioner Bayan, I'm here. Commissioner Fixdal. Here. Commissioner Kelly. Commissioner Matson. Commissioner Patek. Vice chair plans, you are here. Commissioner Paul.

Here.

And secretary Rosha.

Here. Ma'am.

Vice chair, we have a quorum.

Oh, so we have, I think, six commissioners in attendance, and therefore, have quorum to hold the meeting. Moving on. So we did not receive any emails since the last planning commission meeting, which was held on 03/04/2026. We'll move on to public comment. Those attending virtually be offered an opportunity to speak after the in person comments are completed. Each speaker will be provided three minutes to address an item. Interested parties may also provide written comments to the planning commission at written law dot gov. Groups or organization or organization spokespersons to speak on a group's behalf as of today. We do have one person, I believe, that is signed up to speak, mister.

Thanks for having me. My name is Derek Skiba. I'm the CEO of an organization here in Renton called Vision House, and we serve families experiencing homelessness across Washington state. Most of our clients are from South King County, and this has been the home to Vision House, the headquarters of Vision House since it was founded in 1990. Right now, one two hundred and fifty two families are currently on our list at Vision House, families who we're working with who are currently experiencing homelessness.

And 90% of those families would love to move into a transitional housing apartment at Vision House. However, we have 22 units available in Renton, and they're full. There's an item on the agenda today that is pertaining to affordable housing and the construction of affordable housing, and we intend to build here in Renton to increase family sized apartments so that more families can have a year to rebuild their lives after a period of homelessness. We have found that this is extraordinarily effective. About 90% of families move from the Vision House program into permanent housing.

And, unfortunately, calls are coming in every week. Just this week, our director of our program let me know that numerous families have come in finding significant medical debt as the cause for their period of homelessness, families with kids at Children's Hospital. So the reasons vary, but the need is real in our community. And we have a plan to grow, and I appreciate, the consideration here as we are are going through that

process. K.

Just pausing for a second to see if there's anyone else. Alright. We will, keep charging ahead, and move on. And is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from 03/04/2026?

I move to approve the meeting minutes.

Motion.

Second.

Right. We have a motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes. Is there any objection or any discussion? Hearing none, those who are in favor of adopting the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Those who are not in favor, please say nay. Alright. The motion passes, and the minutes are approved. Alright. I believe we are on to the director's report. And, Matt, I believe I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks so much, vice chair of members of the planning commission. Good to see you tonight. I just wanted to echo, commissioner's pool's kudos to you tonight. He says tonight on the chat, vice chair of Plants is getting good at this. Just a couple of things to report out tonight before we get to our agenda.

Our next meeting scheduled for April 15, we're gonna go ahead and cancel that so you guys can clear your calendars. I think I mentioned this last time, but just to remind folks, April 15 will be canceled, and we'll reconvene here on Wednesday, May 6. Because we are missing our chair, we decided to push back our Roberts rule rules of training. We think it's important for, chair Arcee to be here to hear that as well. So if we could amend, item eight on the agenda tonight, we will push that back hopefully to our next meeting on May 6 if, Patrice Kent, our city attorney, is amenable to that.

And then finally, we had a busy short state legislative season this year. It ended on March 12, and there were some, a couple of bills that were passed that were consequential to us, I I believe. One is regarding step housing, is transitional housing, supportive housing, emergency housing. That was a bill that was passed. There are some preemption language on that, so the planning commission will likely see some text amendments coming forward.

Not this year. I believe we've got a couple years to make, those changes, but I anticipate in 2027, we'll see some some updated language regarding that transitional housing. And then, housing in commercial zones, that was the big hot topic, down in Olympia this year that did pass. There were several amendments to it. I anticipate, we'll start getting to work on that likely, later this year because I believe it needs to be implemented by next year.

So, some big changes likely coming. We're still analyzing kind of the final outcome of the bill because both bills were amended rather heavily throughout the session. So once we know a little bit more and and do do a little dive in and see how that affects our code, We'll be sure to brief the planning commission and let you know what is coming. And that concludes the report tonight. Vice chair, thank you.

Thank you. Alright. We'll keep plugging along. And I believe, actually, for our first briefing, group 20 DDDash two four eight, large site master plans and development agreements, I'll be turning

it back to Matt. Alright. I'll stay right here then and share. Moving on this. Alright.

So large master site plans and development agreements. This docket I'm in is coming to the commission tonight. This is something that was, requested by staff. And, really, the point of this is, the city's development regulations, while we do, I believe, a really great job, reviewing projects that are short term, so those two to five year long horizon projects, we don't have we have a gap, I would say, when it comes to these larger sites and these larger master plans that might take a decade or more to review or to actually build out, not to review. Shouldn't take that long to review.

So what this docket amendment, attempts to do is is to fill that gap because we do have a couple of projects, one in the works right now and one likely coming in this summer that would meet, the criteria that would would really need some help with the with the development agreement. So starting with, what really is a master plan. I I went I think I probably went into the weeds a little bit on the staff report to give some context and background. I I didn't do this with the PowerPoint because I believe I still believe a PowerPoint should be a summary. So, if there are questions, any questions from that staff report that I provided, please let me know.

But, really, a master plan is, this is our opportunity to to evaluate a project on a broad level. These are projects over large sites, a large single parcel, or maybe an assemblage of parcels. And we're looking at it at a big picture. Right? So we wanna look at it and ensure we know how many housing units there are gonna be, how how many how much square footage of commercial space is gonna be, how much, public open space do we need.

So we'll have an idea of where the street alignments are gonna go, where that public open space is gonna be, But we're not gonna dive deep into the weeds on what are those buildings gonna look like, where are, where are the people gonna be, and where are the where are the commercial space is gonna be, because that might change over the course of the master plan. But we wanna identify what the cumulative impacts are so we can mitigate for them. So for traffic and, school impact fees and and those types of things. So, again, these projects are phased, and they could be phased into a number of smaller plans. And right now, when we look at master plans or the ability to look at master plans, these are built into to five years with the ability to to extend them to ten years.

And master plans require a public hearing in front of the city's hearing examiner and, and a decision by the hearing examiner. And then future phases of that master plan come in for individual site plan, approvals. So we'll take those bite sized plans within the master plan and look at them administratively. But overall, it's approved and, actually mitigated through that master plan process. So there's a couple of master plans that I put up on, on the PowerPoint there.

The top right one, that is the Longacres redevelopment master plan. That's really a more conceptual type of master plan, and that covers over 80 acres. We have an idea of where the street alignment's gonna be, where the open space is gonna be, but we don't know, what those future buildings are gonna look like, because it could change over ten, fifteen years. We don't know how many folks are gonna be in a particular building or how much square footage is gonna be in the commercial on the Ground Floor. We know cumulatively how how much is gonna be there, but not individually, and we'll go in in the future and identify that on a phased plan.

But, initially, we're gonna identify the impacts cumulatively cumulatively and mitigate for them as part of the overall master plan. The, the master plan on the bottom right there, that is the Solara redevelopment plan. That's the old Highland Shopping Center. So that's a smaller scale master plan. That was intended to be built over that kind of shorter five year time horizon. Five to seven years, I think, is ultimately what they wanted. Smaller site. That's just 11 acres. We knew at the beginning of the process, at the master plan, we knew those commercial buildings, those mixed use buildings along Sunset. We knew we were pretty far along.

We knew what they were gonna look like. We knew the street alignment. So that master plan, we could kinda front load some of the work as far as the the mixed use portion. But, those massing models, those little boxes that are behind there to the left of the, actual mixed use buildings, those are townhomes. We don't know what those are gonna look like.

I mean, we do now, but at the time when this was was when this was drawn up, we didn't know what they were gonna look like. You know? So we put little placeholders, and we came back later to identify more of the design review to ensure it met setbacks, it met height requirements, and met, design review, components of the plan. So that's that's, you know, two different master plans, one at a very high conceptual level, and one is a little bit more refined and on a shorter time horizon. So what is a development agreement?

Kinda know what a master plan is. A development agreement, that's a this is a contract, between, the city and a property owner. And this is, enabled by state legislation. It's called the Local Project Review Act, and it allows us allows cities and and counties to enter into these agreements. Enables all cities and counties to do this.

And what those contracts do is they establish development standards, and they vest the project. And I think the the second part of that bullet point, vesting the project, really is an important thing to remember, especially for these master plans. When they have a time horizon over ten to fifteen years, codes change. Right? And when you are investing that much capital, you're gonna want to have some kind of assurance that you're not gonna change the rules on them.

So right now, projects vest, at building permit or in the case of a subdivision when you come in for a complete application for a subdivision. Right? So a typical kind of mixed use building, if you were just gonna come in and do a a mixed use building without a subdivision associated with it, we would do the site plan review. And while we're doing that review, before you get your building permit, you're not vested to the code yet. And then once we give you that decision, you're still not vested to the code.

You have to get your building permit in, and we give you two years to do that. And if you don't come in within that two years, your project expires. Theoretically, we could change the rules. I would tell you from a practical standpoint, you know, that's not something that we would do. Sometimes when we do text amendments in the middle of, a development cycle and we know it's gonna affect the project, what we'll do is go into the ordinance and actually carve it out and say that it doesn't pertain to this.

But I think from a developer standpoint, that's not enough assurance. Right? I can't have assurance from staff now that you're not gonna change the rules on me because I don't know if you're gonna be there in five, six, or seven years. So what this development agreement does is invest that project. These development agreements also give the ability to modify development standards within the code.

However, just because you modify them overall, the project has to meet, the city's comprehensive plan and other planning documents. So if you're in an area of the city that doesn't allow it a certain type of use through a development agreement, you can't go in there and say, okay. Through this, we're gonna allow this now here. So it has to be consistent. But, you know, development standards, you know, such as setbacks, height, you know, where you put certain things on the site, you can move those chess pieces around.

And that's what you can do should this, text amendment go through. This process is completely discretionary, and and, ultimately, city, council would have to approve a development agreement. But a typical entitlement, I think I went over it in the staff report, through the GMA, if, if an applicant comes in with a a site plan review application and they follow all the rules, I've gone through the code book, I've designed my project per code, we as a city, we have to issue a decision, an approved decision to that, or that's an unconstitutional taking. That's how GMA is set up. They want us to do all of our planning front loaded.

That's what the comprehensive plan is for. So we it really takes a lot of the discretion out of the review and decision process under our state, growth management management plan or growth management act. However, with a, with this development agreement, again, this all goes back to it's completely discretionary. So we can negotiate things and, potentially get, public benefits out of it. Development agreements also are binding on the property, not the owner or not who owns the underlying permit.

So once this gets recorded, or once this gets approved, it gets recorded on the property. So if there are sales of the property, if there's future subdivisions, all those future property owners are bound by this development agreement. So, again, going back, why are we doing this? Again, it's just our development regulations don't contemplate these large projects. You know, our city's an urban environment that's built out.

We don't have a lot of land left to do these big types of projects. I think if you go out to the outer suburbs, you'll see more, you you'll see cities that have likely larger master plan developments because they're greenfield sites. We just simply don't have them. So, again, we wanna do this because these projects are phased over a long, over a long time. They can extend across economic cycles.

They can go through recessions, different ownership groups. And, again, it's just the current code structure doesn't allow for modifications if we were to do a a development agreement right now. The only way we can modify development regulations is through a permit that we call a planned urban development or PUD. And PUD is, again, are that type of entitlement that we we we administer on a short term. Those are two to five year permits.

Those are not meant to be, these longer time horizon type of permits. So, again, this development agreements provide certainty for developers, that the development regulations are not gonna change over the course of the term of that, contract. But the city in return, they get some certainty because these development agreements often have or they should, and they they will have benchmarks and timelines. So, you know, there might be a a a timeline where we know construction's gonna happen, and there might be some flexibility built in. We'll you know, we're gonna take a break over a a certain amount of time to recoup capital or look for additional investors, and then we're gonna ramp it back up again.

So, you know, you've got a construction timeline, more certainty of when these things are gonna get done. And then the the again, the development agreement does provide the the opportunity for the city to negotiate public that we couldn't otherwise get through our regular development regulations. So what we anticipate the the proposal to be would be really it it would not be much language. It would be a rather small text amendment to our existing code. And, it would go it would be within the master plan regulations, and it will allow time limits to exceed the current ten year limit only for proposals that have an accompanied development agreement.

And that development agreement has to be within the Valley Community planning area and for projects encompassing 40 acres or greater. And then we would be explicit about providing flexibility within the development standards similar to what we do with the planned urban developments and would likely put some carve out language or purpose language in there that that while we're doing this, the reasons why we're doing this, and also to get public benefit options in exchange for development agreements such as economic, environmental, recreation, design infrastructure, and mixed income housing. Again, the development agreement would have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan in the forthcoming Valley Community Plan. And, we would also be looking for cost recovery for increased staff time. These are gonna be negotiated, likely with outside councils and, the applicant's council.

It gets really expensive. And and just the overall monitoring of these development agreements can, again, span more than a decade. You're gonna see staff turnover, so we wanna make sure, that the extra time it takes staff and any outside counsel that needs that time is, is covered by the applicant and does not come out of, the general fund. We anticipate seeing this go again just like a a regular master plan. It would go to the city hearing examiner because development agreements are required by state law to have a public hearing.

So we have the hearing examiner administer the hearing, and make the record. But, ultimately, then we would have to go to city council for approval. So for, what we're looking at as far as cadence goes for the rest of this docket item, obviously, tonight, we briefed you, and, we'll be back for a public hearing on, Wednesday, May 6, and deliberations on May 20. And, hopefully, we have a recommendation from the planning commission to go to planning development committee on June 8, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

I guess I have one, and it might be a bit of a basic question. But I guess, ultimately, what happen like, I'm a bit of a Debbie Downer. What happens like, we've got this agreement in place, and then it it doesn't come through. Like

It would there would likely be some kind of it's a contract, and they would likely be there there's gonna be breach terms likely on both sides. But if it just didn't materialize, I'm sure that there would be something written into the contract that gives each party an out is what I would assume, and I might look at our city attorney, Patrice Kent, for just basic contract law. Maybe there would be an opportunity for each party to get out.

Patrice Kent, city attorney's office, for the record. Any agreements would need to go through the city attorney's office and would very reasonably be accept expected to address those questions, chain significant changes in mark markets, remedies for not meeting the requirements, etcetera, etcetera. But thank you.

Why 40 acres? Why was that the the cutoff or the minimum?

I would tell you the forthcoming application is for Seattle Children's Hospital. They recently purchased, 40 acres or just over 40 acres in the valley for the redevelopment of their campus. So, again, we don't want this to be a tool. Again, it's all discretionary. If the city council wants to enter a development agreement with a property owner, they're able to.

The state law gives them the ability to. But what we're trying to do here is really limit the way we do campus planning and the ability to modify development regulations. So we're limiting it to, basically, these two applications in the valley right now. We're not historically a city, that utilizes development agreements in the, for for development applications. Like I said before, I think, we do a really good job of reviewing projects under our existing code, and and many of those are within that two to five year time horizon.

We just don't see a lot of we don't see a lot of opportunities for large campus. The these just happen to kinda be generational type of projects, so we wanna make sure that we're we're able to, you know, review them appropriately. Mhmm.

I've done 25 acres. They were more commercial mixed use type things, and, obviously, those are not ten year projects. You know, these are four year Right.

Right. And we have alright. Yeah. But our existing code does a good job at at reviewing those projects for sure.

Last call for questions. Alright. Thank you, Matt. Alright. We will move on then to group 20 d d dash two four nine planned urban development open spaces, and I believe Maya is presenting.

Alright. I am let me make sure you can hear me and see a presentation. Alright. My assignment associate planner for the record, and I'm here to talk to you about PUD's, which is one of the flexible development options that we have, as Matt was saying, and specifically open space required in those PUDs. So why are we limiting this to PUDs?

Well, these are, again, developments that allow modification of our regulations exchange for public benefits such as protecting natural features or being innovative in their development. And that includes kind of new construction techniques or larger buildings such as curtain walls. And the PUD section of our code requires both common open space like a deck or a patio or a pool or a gym space and private open space for every residential unit in that development like a yard or, again, a balcony or deck. Projects permitted under other code sections can replace that private required open space with more common open space but the regulations for PUD's do not, so they should allow the same flexibility as other routes for residential development. We looked at some other jurisdictions around and what they require for open space and this is general open space not just PUD developments but every other city I looked at does not require private open space.

Can be replaced with common open space, or they just require an amount of open space, and it doesn't matter what kind it is. But here in Renton, we require private space for cottage housing developments, ground floor units in r 10 and r 14 zones, and attached dwellings in Urban Design District B, as well as for all units in a PUD. But how much open space is required? I'll go through all these just at a high level, but Seattle does it based on the site area no matter how many units there are. So does Bellevue and the city of Kent.

And then other jurisdictions do it based on amount of square footage per unit. So Federal Way has a 100 square feet per unit. City Of Spokane, which also has some larger buildings, does it based on the zoning, the type of space provided, the unit size, the number of units. So there's a lot of different requirements based on what the type of development is. Interestingly, the green boxes here, they also allow only 36 square feet per unit regardless of the zoning or unit size if the development has pedestrian access to a park within 800 feet.

And then Renton also goes by the per unit measurement and that differs again based on the zoning and the type of development it is. The last picture there is for PUD's. We require 50 square feet of common open space per unit plus an amount of private open space per unit and it differs based on whether it's on the ground floor unit or an upper store unit. There's also usually design requirements for what this open space can look like. Most require it to be near and accessible to all units.

They allow a mixture of indoor and outdoor spaces, allow them to find a minimum area or dimension so you don't have like that picture there a two foot by a 100 foot yard and call that your open space and then they also exclude specific areas from the calculation with driveways and parking being really common exclusions open space. There's also alternatives that some cities provide. So Seattle you can contribute to a green street and reduce the amount of open space or you can replace it with public open space. In the city of Federal Way you can pay a fee in lieu to reduce that open space by up to 50% and then the bottom two here with the dark blue are the other options available and rent into non PUD developments and that is to replace the open space with a public trail or park that gets dedicated to the city and then you can also pay a fee in lieu if you're within a fourth mile of an existing public park. So our proposed changes, the goal here is really to add options to the menu for PUDs and ensure that there is recreation space for all residents.

So first we would adjust the minimum dimensions for upper floor units. Right now, you need 60 square feet for all upper floor units, but on the 7th Floor and above, that could be a shallow balcony is the language in the code, and that could allow things like that picture there. So we're gonna add some minimum dimensions just so that if you're having private open space on an upper storey unit, whether it's on the 2nd Floor or the 15th Floor, it has a minimum dimension. And then we're also adding options to the menu. So the first one there actually already exists in the code, but I wanted to point out that it is an option and that is to modify the private open space dimensional standards.

So at the administrator's discretion, we might require a four foot wide balcony, but they could reduce it as long as that total minimum area is maintained. And then the ones that we will be adding is replacing private open space with common amenity space. This would allow one to one replacement and really encourage unique amenities so that we're having interesting space for residents to use in these multifamily developments. And then the third option that we would add is allowing the same alternatives allowed for non PUD developments and that is replacing with a dedicated on-site public trailer park and then paying the fee in lieu if they're close to an existing park. So this will have the same, schedule as the other items tonight to public here on May 6, deliberations on May 20, and then back to p and d after Memorial Day on June 8.

Questions from the commissioners? Alright. I have so adding the minimum dimensions to all the top floors, is there, a point where, like, that becomes, like, a concern for safety or well-being above, like, the 7th Floor? And is that part of why originally they didn't allow, like, the private space balconies?

I don't think there was any, like, safety considerations there. I mean, a shallow balcony with a three foot fence is the same as a four foot balcony with a three foot fence. Right? But we would be adding that the second option here that they can replace that private open space. So if they don't wanna do a four foot balcony on the 7th Floor, they could instead add that space to the common open space and just not do any balcony.

And when it comes to the definition of common space, is that up to the develop like, because, like, I'm seeing a picture of a gem. And for me, like, that's the common space I want and have in my apartment, but my fiance would not use that common space. Like so, like, is there anything that actually kind of ensures that common spaces are aiming for a more common approach than just, like, it's a gem?

I know that we have a definition for open space. I'll have to go back and look if we have one for common open space versus private open space.

Questions? Alright. Thank you very much. We will keep moving along, and we will now move to group 21 a, d dash two five zero affordable housing waive fees. I believe is it just you presenting, Angie?

Okay.

We'll turn it over to you.

Okay. I could play this game with my classes and everything at the same time. Alright. Angie Mathias, long range planning manager for the record to cover the item two fifty, waived fees. So one of the tools that we have, and we've implemented a lot of tools to sort of encourage affordable housing, one of the tools that we have is waiving fees, some of our development fees.

This is entirely at the council's discretion. They can choose to waive a 100%. They could choose to waive just 50 or 25%, any any amount that they so chose. It's based on the public benefit. We've heard that a lot tonight about public benefits, the impacts to their existing facilities and services, and then consistency with our adoptive plans and policies related to how affordable housing specifically.

There is some limitation around impact fees that we can only waive 80%, so the 20% would still have to be paid. It's been most recently used to help projects with from the Renton Housing Authority and Homestead Community Land Trust. And by waiving some of these fees that are important, but not necessarily, like, the hard costs. Right? There this isn't actually building a unit.

It's just sort of to help it get through that process. So it allows them to free up that those funds to actually be used towards the provision of the units. So I did not realize this, but initially, we adopted this in 2001. I didn't realize that we'd had these provisions for this much time, and I should have known that we because we've had it for affordable housing only, but I didn't realize how recently we've made that change. It was initially to incentivize market market priced affordable or market priced homeownership in the downtown.

It was at the time where we kinda moved the auto dealers out of downtown, and we really didn't have people living in downtown. And so they adopted this incentive and did have some success with it with fifty five Williams, I think, was one of the first projects to do it. And then another couple projects managed to come in and build some of these that they sold as condominiums. At the time, it was required that it be multifamily, so, like, you couldn't have the single family little small development come in or something, but it only had a minimum requirement of four units. So pretty low bar to get in and be able to use that incentive.

In 2007, we did extend it to the Sunset area, that transformation area that we've had for a long time and been trying to incentivize redevelopment of that community. And then in 2011, following the Highlands Task Force recommendations, we opened that up to rental housing, multifamily there, but just rental housing, still market rate. In 2018, we made it that it's only available for affordable housing, no longer market rate. We felt pretty confident that the market had shifted in Renton, and market rate housing was being proposed and being constructed, and so it's not a tool that we need to use anymore for market rate. And at that same time, we made it available citywide.

So it's not just sunset in downtown. Now it's an incentive that is available throughout Renton. And then in 2020, we set a cap on the maximum number of units that it could be applied to. So, like, Solara would only be eligible if the for their affordable housing part to use it for a 100 of the units. So it captures a lot of the development that we actually do see in Renton. They are not these large projects very often, but we did set that cap in 2020. So

you can

see here the list of fees that can be waived for building permit fees, water surface water, wastewater development charges, those sorts of things, technology surcharge surcharge that we've established. Some fees that we cannot waive are the ones that aren't listed here, but more importantly, plan review and permit fees. They wanna be able to maintain that fee. And then worth noting also for the fire impact mitigation fee, we have to get approval from the fire authority to be able to do that. So the eligibility, who gets to use this tool?

For affordable homeownership, at least half the units have to be at 80% of the area median income, and those must remain at that level for the life of the housing. Right now, up to half of it can be up to 120% of the area median income, and there we we require annual compliance certificate that they send us so that we can make sure that this is staying affordable housing. And the minimum number to be able to use this is 10. For affordable rental housing, the area median income is 60%. All those units must remain affordable for thirty years.

Again, annual compliance, and the minimum number to be able to use this right now in the R1 through RMF, so our residential zones, is eight units, and then a minimum of 30 in our mixed use zones. So the staff recommendation is to reduce that number of for homeownership to four. It's a priority of the city council and of staff that affordable homeownership is something that's achievable, and it's a big priority for us. And when we really started talking about this, it felt really weird to us that affordable rental was at eight for a minimum, but homeownership was at 10. That seemed like we had our priorities kinda not going the right way.

So that that recommendation comes from there, and then it aligns really well with our our target to accommodate about a thousand units in the 50 to 80% AMI bucket. It helps fit nicely there. And then with changes in middle housing, right now, we allow a minimum of four units per lot, and so maybe this will help incentivize some construction of affordable home home ownership, and then it'll be an incentive to get used maybe more widely. For rental housing, we're we're recommending that we reduce it from eight to six in those residential zones and then from 30 to 25 in our mixed use zones. We're finding that in many instances, these numbers, these minimums make the project exceed the maximum density in the zone, and so then they can't use that tool.

And that's not what we're trying to do here. Additionally, we're a little bit worried that in those mixed use projects that they're actually kinda artificially not putting in they're trying to achieve that minimum, and so they're not doing a family size units. They're trying to do single single rooms or studios or whatever because they need to get to that minimum to be able to even take advantage of this benefit. So that's the reason for that. And then also we have a need to accommodate almost 6,000 units at zero to 50%.

Once we got started digging into this where is that coming from? We discovered that the legislature has made some changes to the growth management act relating to a chapter regarding affordable housing incentive programs. It specifically lists several of the programs that we have in place, a few that we don't, like in inclusionary zoning is listed as one of these things that you could have as far as an affordable housing program. But fee waivers is one of the exemptions that list is listed there. And this new section, and I don't know if it's entirely new or not because it was kinda news to us that it was there, but it requires that rental housing is affordable at 50% area median income.

Owner occupied cannot be more than a 100% AMI, and that all this must remain affordable for fifty years. So we recommend that we make the amendments to be in line with that chapter in the RCWs so that we're consistent with that. We did review our bonus density provisions, which is another one of the menu of things that you can choose for these programs, and that one is compliant already with the fifty years and the 50%. Oh, and then staff recommendation also is to some revisions. There's a lot of redundancies between the two, between the homeownership and the rental, so just to try to eliminate some of that and make it a little bit simpler.

So further recommendations so you can see it there in red ink. So the current program is there on the left, so the proposed regulations on the right and the changes shifting the a quarter or half the units can be up to 100% area median income. The minimum number to participate would be four units. All units for rentals need to be at 50% AMI and affordable for fifty years, and then eligibility would be shifted to six units and 25 units. And why we feel very comfortable with this at this point in time is that waived fees and bonus waived fees and MFTE, we have sunset provisions baked into it so that every three years, they sunset.

So right now, these provisions are set to sunset 12/31/2027. So get this in place, see how it works, see if it does spur some new development. Maybe it gets overused, and we're like, jeez. We're you're giving away all this money, we don't intend it to be that either. So it's got it it's got it really baked in already for us to come back to you guys and share with how it went. And maybe we just leave it alone. Maybe we need to make changes. It even it provides the opportunity to say, we got what we wanted out of it. We don't wanna use this program anymore. I would hope not after twenty six years at that point in time, but you never know.

And so the next steps and I will add that it's not part of the staff report or anything, but we do we do have a few projects that are coming in that are affordable projects that we are very, very supportive of. And right now, neither one of those projects would be able to use these waived fees incentives. And so that was sort of the impetus of us going, you know what? These are great projects, and we wanna help them out. And one of those projects is one of the projects that was spoken of earlier this evening during public comment. So that lays out the I think I got the date wrong on the planning commit and development committee recommendation, but, same pattern as the other two that have already been presented this evening. I'll take any questions.

Questions? The purpose is to incentivize development in the city of Renton. And, obviously, anyone who does anything, me being an architect, I have an a developer in my past. I've had to go through this and pay all these fees, and, obviously, the fees have a benefit. So I I I think it's a wonderful idea to waive the fees, but isn't there a negative potential impact?

I mean, those fees are not just throwaway fees. The fees are valuable because they help pay staff, you know, provide things. So, I mean, what are we what what is, like, this percentage? If it's a, you know, $15,000,000 project, then, you know, what are we talking about are the fees that'd be waived in these conditions?

So I did have a list of the fees, and I can go in. We do have a project right now that's moving forward for the fee waivers, and I can pull that and see what their what that percentage is and what that number is for the project and how many units they're providing. It is only available for affordable housing. So that's that's the trade off that and the choice that we as a policy that we're making, we're saying provision of affordable housing is something that's very important to Renton, and so we'll be willing to make this trade off and maybe not receive these fees. There are not that many projects that take advantage of it. It's a very small percentage of of what's getting constructed in the city for sure.

Not against that. I was just curious because it's No. You I mean, I think this is

It's shifting pretty quickly. I ten years ago, I would have completely agreed with you. And we are definitely more affordable than other communities by a lot. But ten years ago, if you would have told me that we would have houses selling for $1,500,000 in rent, and I wouldn't have believed you in a million years and wouldn't have believed that that was a problem we'd ever have to worry about, but that's the reality that we're in right now, that there are that's that's not even we have townhomes that are selling for over $1,000,000 in Sunset Community. That blows my mind.

It's a good problem to have for the Sunset Community because it's now mixed income and it wasn't before And it's new development that's coming in and there was a lot of public investment that went to that community to make it what it is and the fact that it's now that desirable is a wonderful problem to have. Yeah. It's it I'll pull it for you so we can see a real life example that's very current.

Projects right now. I would really hope that they would take advantage of not having to pay those fees and reinvest that back in the project, not have it just be free, you know, good back into our pocket, but then they take that. They they take the hospitality of the city, and then they reinvest that back to make those improvements that they're making that much better or that much bigger or that much whatever.

I've I've through our shifting and that we now have a bigger role in seeing affordable housing projects and all that kind of stuff and seeing what it takes for them. The numbers of pots of places that they have to draw money from is insane. And so even a even $200,000 is a gift that they gladly would take because that could meet another unit that they can construct now. Whereas before, it it might not get them all the way there, but it's a long ways to getting that extra unit built. And the work that goes into just getting those funding sources put together is is a lengthy process, so this is a huge help to them to help get them across that finish line.

Because by the time they're coming to us to pull their permits and stuff, they've got that funding. And so if they get this freed up, then it can help them better utilize it to make it a better project and those sorts of things.

No. I have a question, but I wanna see if anyone else does. So I was curious for the the mixed use going from 25 to 20 units. Am I remembering that wrong?

30 to 25.

30 to 25. I remembered five. Just the yeah. I was curious about that, why it was a reduction of five. And also kind of curious since you mentioned the need to get into, like, the lower income bands, the the zero to 50%, was there any thought of potentially creating, like like, it's it's beautifully done and it's really well done, but, like, a tier where if you're setting your units at zero to 30%, then the minimum threshold is 20 units compared to 25. Just asking.

No. We had not thought about that. That's an interesting idea that we can kick around as staff and see what we think about that. I think it's definitely an interesting idea. 25 I mean, it's not completely arbitrary, I'll be honest, but it's not it's also there's not a lot of science that went into it. Just knowing that if we're going to be doing it, we want it to be a meaningful project in these zones. Like, once it's built, they're not gonna it's not gonna go away. And so if we're if we're saying we want this mixed use project, like, our CV zone, that's sunset. We want it to be meaningful and of a good size, not just going to a project that's some little small scale type thing. So

You'll do the you'll you'll do the math or have done the math to make sure that the numbers that you choose are based on some sort of mathematical that they're right sized. Like you said, we don't need studio 200 square foot studio apartments so that people can get this. I mean, those numbers, I assume, are based on livable family sized housing opportunities.

Not no. Not necessarily. It's a little bit of a a little bit of a assumption that we're making. We don't actually know that that's what folks are doing to try to get to that minimum number, but it is very logical. And if we look at some of the projects that it's applied to, some of them have been those smaller units that have have been done. But, you know, some folks are good about wanting to open up the books and show you what's going on and how things pencil, and others, they keep that pretty close. And that's not something that they need to share with us. It's not

For The number, the greater possibility that larger the unit. Right?

Yeah. That's part part of why we wanna drop it from 30 to 25.

Yeah. I just wonder, like, is 25 then based on some sort of analysis that this makes more sense? Should that number be 20?

No. We have not done that analysis. Because,

I mean, it doesn't make a difference from 30 to 25, but it makes a difference from 30 to 20 or 10 to four or 10 to six or eight to four. You know? Like, I just figure I mean, obviously, that's not our role, but I would just be curious to just make sure that whatever number that's chosen and approved is a number that makes that has some, like, logic and math behind it so that you're not thinking you're making the situation better, but you're in fact, it's the same situation.

I'll look and see if we can come up with something, but I will say that there's times that we just have to tinker with it and make a change. And then if it's not doing what we want it to do, then we bring it back to you guys and say it's not doing what we want it to do, and maybe we need to lower it again or maybe we need to increase it because it's being too widely used or whatever. But I'll look and see if there's sort of a a rational nexus that we can find for you, but that may not be possible. I'll warn you.

You oh, sorry. You mentioned that, like, there's a three year kind of process. So, like, if if this were to be set '25 or '20 in three years, the future planning commission or, like, we can

In '27. Yeah. It by so 2027, we'll be reviewing it again.

Yeah. But we kinda like if if it just doesn't make sense before the end, I if there there are avenues, I assume, Matt, for, okay, that doesn't make sense and just allowing a conditional conditionally change it, or once this is in, it stay it stays till the 2027.

We could come back to you earlier, but there's nothing that says that we couldn't come back to you Oh, the hypothesis. End of this year.

I'll stop talking.

We got plenty of time on, like, the clock still. So, any other questions or comments?

I just think this is incredibly progressive, and I think this is the right thing to do. I mean, I my daughters went to rent to high school, and it was massively diverse there. We have the very wealthy people that were there, and we had people that had generational families in apartments off of MLK that were not situations that were the best situation for families and for growth. So I think this is amazing.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you very much. Alright. So we will move on. And as Matt mentioned in his report, the Robert's Rules training has been rescheduled for the May 6 planning commission meeting. I'm looking to see if I'm gonna need to make a motion. Okay. Thank you. Because I haven't had the Robert's Rules training. So, alright. So we are now on to commissioner comments. Are there any comments commissioners would like to make?

Alright.

Well, then we will move on to one of my favorite motions to make or ask for in this case. This is the that is the last item on our agenda. Oh, what are the wishes of the commission? I didn't read my script beforehand. Wishes?

The request for a motion for adjournment if if it's so plea Yeah. Commission.

Weird wording. Yes. Could somebody like to make a motion to adjourn the meeting so that we can go home?

Before adjourning, can we please acknowledge, commissioner Matson?

Yes. Thank you. Sorry for not doing that.

I must adjourn now that I'm acknowledged.

Do have a motion to put a second?

I second. Alright.

We have a motion and a second to adjourn. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those in favor, please say nay. Alright. The meeting is adjourned at 06:56PM. Have a safe and wonderful trip home.

Thanks. Good night.

Thank you. Thanks for handling it again. Good job.

Easier in person.