Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. If you're here for the written planning commission for Wednesday, June 17th, you are in the right place. We are waiting to achieve quorum. So I appreciate your patience.

How many are we waiting for?

We're waiting for one and... I'd say we wait till at least 610.

Okay. Can you confirm on the record whether you believe there's going to be at least one more person in attendance? Thank you.

I missed that last comment. I was trying to fix my audio. It was regarding attendance.

For a person, if she is aware, if we are expecting to have at least one more council member, so we can figure out if we're going to have quorum or not for the evening. Got it. Thank you. Absolutely. There he is. I was just going to say, Commissioner Poole was going to be here. So here he is. Okay, we should have quite good evening.

So this is vice chair plants calling the rent planning commission for Wednesday, June 17, to order at 602pm. Would you please go ahead and call the roll? Oh, for the first order of business, will you please call the roll, Secretary Roche?

Sure. I'm just trying to figure out how to make this larger because I'm like, I can't read it. Commissioner Artsy, are you there? I don't think so. I'm sorry. I'm really having a hard time seeing this document you sent me, but here.

Would you like, since I'm here in person, would you like for me to call the roll?

That would be lovely. I'm sorry, this remote thing, I should have practiced it before I got on live. No problem. All right, thank you, Chair.

No worries, it's a sunny June evening. Let us know that he is out this evening. Commissioner Mayon?

Here.

Uh, commissioner fixed off. All right. Commissioner Kelly.

Yeah.

Commissioner Mattson. Mr. Uh, I am president. I commissioner pool. Yeah. Uh, secretary Roche. We have five commissioners in attendance and therefore we have the quorum to hold the meeting this evening. So thank you all for being here and welcome. Moving on, no emails have been received since the last planning commission meeting held on May 20th, 2026. So those attending virtually will 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 writtenwa.gov. Groups or organizations may select a spokesperson to speak on a group's behalf. As of today, no one has signed up to speak on non-agenda items.

Commissioner, I note that there is a guest in attending online. Mr. McKinster, are you, and I'm making a lot of assumptions there, I apologize. Ryan McKinster, are you interested in making a public comment at this time? If you are, please raise your hand and you'll be allowed to speak on this. Seeing no response, I'm going to work under the assumption that you would not be wanting to make a comment tonight. Thank you.

We'll move on to the approving of the meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from May 20th, 2026? Motion to approve the meeting minutes. Motion by Commissioner Poole. Is there a second?

I second the motion.

Second by Commissioner Brown. Is there any objections or any discussion? Hearing none, those who are in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Those who are not in favor, please say nay. The motion passes and the minutes are approved.

All right.

We will move on to the director's report. And I believe this evening we will be having Angie presenting the director's report.

Oh, it is on. Okay. I do not have much other than I want, I was hoping more of you would be in person because I have a little flyer to hand out to you. But if you have not been down to legacy square, especially in particular for a watch party, you need to get down there and spend some time down there. It is a, an absolutely amazing environment to be in and to watch a soccer game at and word is getting out and it's getting more and more crowded and more and more popular. So yeah, get down there this weekend and enjoy the heck out of it. We got to be there on the opening day for the Mexico, now I can't even remember who they were playing. Oh, South Africa match. It was the first showing of a game there at Legacy Square, and it was during the weekday. It was a Thursday at noon. And the place was it wasn't packed, packed, but it was very full. And when the Mexican national anthem came on, there were a bunch of people that stood up and they were waving their flags and singing the national anthem. And it was amazing. And then when Mexico scored their goal, the crowd, it was electric. It was just absolutely a really, really fun place to be. And the restaurants are doing very well. On Friday for the USA match, Salty Blue sold out of food. They had served so many meals that day. So it is very fun. It's quickly gaining a reputation of being a really family-friendly restaurant. watch party. And so it's actually starting to draw from a wider range of areas, people coming down and wanting to be down there. There's always a food truck and they try to have it be a food truck that is related to the foods of at least one of those countries that are playing the match. They also have beer and wine that you can And as long as you stay in the park area, you can drink open drink. And they have last time they had an ice cream scooper too. So if you're interested in hanging out, there's all kinds of places. There's a kid's playground now for little kids, like up to like five or six probably. And then a soccer pitch and kids were using that and playing soccer there. So yeah, It's a really, really fun environment. And I highly recommend that you get down there before it's all over. After that, they will be doing lots of events. There'll be movies, there'll be concerts, lots of things. But the World Cup down there is a heck of an experience. So please, please partake. I'll send you a link so you can see which games are when and stuff. That's it. Thank you.

Great. We'll keep going. We'll move on to briefings this evening. First up, we have docket group B21B, D-251, child care centers. Maya, I believe you're presenting.

I am. How could you tell? All right. Maya Simon, associate planner for the record. Here to talk to you about child care centers and really expanding access to and availability for child care centers in Renton. I also want to note before we start that all facilities in home centers and daycare centers still need to comply with state licensing and regulations, and that has a whole host of requirements that comes with it. So like many things that we've brought to you recently, this was brought on by a state law. This was a law adopted last year, and it states that cities must allow childcare centers in all zones except industrial, light industrial, and open space zones. We can impose reasonable restrictions on the permit. We have to implement this by July of next year, but we're doing it a little early because we know that there's a demand for better access to childcare, more affordable childcare in Renton. So we want to kind of open up as soon as we can. And then we can't allow childcare centers in those zones that were accepted, but we must provide for conditional use approval for childcare centers in industrial zones. The language here in the state code is a little bit confusing, but hopefully we've written the amendments to kind of not have to deal with what they meant by the state code. Our current code splits these uses into family home daycares, and that's an operation licensed by the state with 12 or fewer children that are in the caregiver's place of residence. So that's the in-home daycare. And then we also have daycare center, which is an operation licensed by the state with 13 or more children or any number in a non-residential structure. And these are currently allowed with the hearing examiner CUP in R4 through RMF2. They are outright permitted in industrial and commercial districts. And they are permitted with certain conditions in the commercial office residential and the urban center one and two zones. So our proposed amendments under family home daycare, we just want to tweak the definition a little bit. The state recently changed their licensing to allow a waiver for up to 16 children. So we just want to make sure the number in our definition aligns with that state waiver. For daycare centers, we would also update the definition to make sure it aligns with that waiver. And then we would permit it outright in all residential zones, so RC through RMF2, and get rid of that conditional use permit. They would remain permitted outright in industrial zones and commercial zones. We would update to remove the condition in commercial office residential, and that's currently a requirement that they co-locate with certain uses, so we would just get rid of that. And then we're considering those reasonable restrictions, what they would be and how to kind of implement them on the permit. And that may include something like safe pedestrian access or requiring drop-off spaces. So our recommendation is to adopt the amendments as proposed. And then the kind of next steps are a public hearing on July 1st, deliberations with you all on July 15th, recommendations from the Playing and Development Committee on July 27th, and then on to full council adoption.

Thank you for the presentation. Commissioners, are there any questions? I think I saw Commissioner by and come off mute.

No, I don't have any question.

Well, I think you're on the hook this evening. All right. Well, thank you. And we'll keep moving along. We'll move on to briefing for docket group 21BD-252, the urban design regulations update. And I believe, Anjali, you're presenting?

Yes, thank you. One moment. Thank you for your patience. Angelia Weiss with Long Range Planning for the Record. And I'm introducing a docket item D-252 related to the urban design regulations. That was not intentional, okay. My apologies, it closed the PowerPoints. Let me open those up again. The web is definitely hiccuping. So I swear it is the technology and not my fingers that are doing this.

You'll see that it just immediately closed when I tried to click the arrow button.

And now it is pestering me, but it is mad at me. Ooh, there we go. Let me see. Oh, yep. Now it works. Okay. Thank you so much, Angelia Weiss, with long-range planning for the record. Sorry for that delay. So just like Maya's docket item, this one is also coming about as a consequence of state law amendments. This one specifically is HB 1293. And what that state law does is it requires us to streamline our design review and development regulations. You'll notice a trend with a lot of these new state legislation. that they aim at removing regulatory barriers and streamlining the permitting process. This one is along that same vein, but instead what it does is it requires us to make sure that our design regulations are clear and objective rather than subjective. Also, we're required to ensure that our standards do not result in reductions in density, height, bulk or scale below what is otherwise allowed by underlining zoning regulations. So many jurisdictions probably in the past before this bill had standards that may have been open to interpretation or vague. or they had discretionary authority that was based on what the administrator determined. So this kind of ensures that that is not occurring in the future. And you'll kind of see when I show you these examples what I mean by this. Let me move this over here. So some examples of current code in our urban design regulations include the following. And it's not limited to this list. There are many. But for example, roof lines, roof pitches, or roof shapes designed to reduce apparent bulk and transition. with existing development. So we cannot have standards that reduce apparent bulk. The next one, the availability of natural light, both direct and reflected, and direct sun exposure to nearby buildings and open space shall be considered when citing structures. So that standard is pretty vague and does not have a measurable standard. The next one, the administrator may require increased setbacks at the side or rear of a building in order to reduce the bulk and scale of larger buildings and or sunlight reaches adjacent and or abutting yards. So that one It conflicts with that second point that I made, which increases the setbacks beyond current code requirements. And then the last example for properties located south of North 8th Street, east of Garden Avenue North, applicants must demonstrate how their project appropriately transitions to existing industrial uses. So that is not measurable. It is subjective. So that is another example of something that we would need to amend. So our proposal is pretty simple. It includes removing or replacing subjective design review language, removing or replacing discretionary standards, and ensuring that our standards do not reduce building scale beyond zoning standards. And that will ensure that we comply with state law, HB 1293. In addition to those, we also received a citizen-initiated request to amend city urban design regulations, one aspect of our design regulations. So that will be reviewed and incorporated as part of that docket item. And Maya already discussed the next steps. So planning commission public hearing would be on July 1st. Any questions?

Questions, commissioners? Not seeing any. I'm excited to see the update. This is quite an undertaking.

All right. Well, we will move on then.

We'll move on to docket group 21B, D253, RMF to rezone the comp plan map amendments. And it looks like we have Angelia to present again.

Absolutely. So this one is a little bit more simple. And you may remember, I think last year, I brought a rezone proposal that included nine sites. This is kind of similar, but it's just two sites. And this proposal isn't just a rezone. It also requires a comprehensive plan amendment. So looking forward to showing this to you. So once again, just two sites. One of them is located in the city center community planning area. It's directly adjacent to transit. Both of these properties are located in the CA zone, and the proposed zoning is the RMF2, and the existing Comprehensive Plan designation is commercial mixed use, and the proposed Comprehensive Plan designation is residential high density. The other site is located in the Highlands, and it is 0.32 miles away from transit. And so the RMF2 zone allows for residential densities between 20 and 40 dwelling units per net acre. And the main purpose of this proposal, the reason why we're proposing to rezone these two sites is to help facilitate infill development on properties that otherwise have low commercial viability. And the reason why they have low commercial viability is either due to visibility from a arterial or site constraints, and you'll see that in a moment when I show you the specific sites. For one of the sites, site number one, we did receive a citizen-initiated request, but both property owners have been notified of this proposal. So the one located in the city center is on the left-hand side, that is site one, and then the site number two is located in the Highlands on the right-hand side. So if we look at site one, it is located along Southwest Sunset Boulevard and Maple Avenue Southwest. It's just a handful of properties, about six properties in total. And it includes some non-conforming uses. So once again, all of these properties are located in the commercial arterial zone, but we have some non-conforming single family and some non-conforming auto sales and a dog grooming daycare. Not all of them have active business licenses. One of the challenges with this property, even though it is located on a busy arterial, the lots you'll notice are pretty narrow. So if you compare them, for example, to the lots that are RMF2 to the south, you'll see that they're Very narrow properties in similar scale to those residential properties. And as a result, it makes it difficult to have a ground floor commercial that is currently required in the CA zone. And when you combine that with also parking needs, regardless of the fact that we may be removing those parking requirements, they'll still have their own parking needs. it makes it very challenging for this property. And that is why we had a very enthusiastic request to rezone this property and do the corresponding comprehensive plan update. And you'll see the picture there of some of the non-conforming uses. So the next site is Site 2. This property, once again, is also in the CA zone. You'll notice that it is between Bremerton Avenue Northeast and I think, let's see, I think it's Duval. No, yeah, Duval. And then to the south, you can't see it, but it's very close in proximity to Northeast 4th Street. And this property includes four parcels, and they are all under common ownership with the uh vision house and two of the parcels are already developed you can actually see in the picture there's some large retaining walls so regardless they don't have a lot of visibility for commercial viability though they do have some ground floor office uses related to the vision house use but the property located on the right hand side they do have a proposal for multi-family a development currently um on hold and or in review And I think they have also submitted for their building permits. But one challenge with this is that because it's located in the CA zone, they are required to have that ground floor commercial. But this lot does just does not have visibility. It's not even located along the street. So it makes sense to rezone this property to comply with the RMF2 requirements. And that is it. Those are the total sites. Any questions?

Questions from commissioners online? I will share more of a comment than a question, but I've been to the Site 2 location, and you are correct. Like, it is tucked really far back there, and it does not feel like you would ever go back there for, like, a business unless, like, you knew it was there and had a direct purpose there. All right. Well, I think you're off the hook again.

Thank you so much.

I believe we are on to commissioner comments. If there's anyone that would like to make any comments.

I did go down to legacy square and it's awesome. I love it. My husband and I went there to watch a game on Sunday and just kind of check it out. And we were also there for the opening day and yeah, just wonderful vibe seeing all of folks enjoying it and the families and you just see the diversity of Renton and it's just so cool. It's awesome. So way to go.

I would pile on and add that CED knows how to put on a event space quite well with many different things going on at the same time and many things locally in the area to really appreciate that approach, which is different than a lot of the other spaces in the city that get activities.

And I would add that the city's marketing and social media team is doing an amazing job of publicizing all of these new amenities and events. And I'm really impressed. And it's not just for Legacy Square. And there's a whole website and everything that is devoted to it. So a lot of effort clearly went into it. So that's great to see.

There's no other comments. I think we are on to our last item on the agenda. If I can get a motion to adjourn.

Move we adjourn.

Motion for Commissioner Kelly. Is there a second?

I second.

I think everybody seconded that one. So the motion made by Commissioner Kelly, second by, I know at least Commissioner Bayan was one of the people who said second. All those who are in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. All right. Well, thank you. Have a wonderful evening. The meeting is adjourned at 6.27 p.m. Have a great evening. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.

Hold it, Maya.