City Council - Regular Meeting

And with that, we're going to go ahead and kick off this study session. Uh, this is on our comprehensive plan update and we'll be talking about implementation and metrics today. And for that, we'll just turn it over directly to Miss Lust.

Perfect. Thank you, Mayor. Um, with me here today, Marty Snell, WSP, our project manager, um, for the comp plan update. So, today, scooch that over. talk about um slightly different component of Envision Ridgefield 2045 that we've been working on for the the past several months kind of picking away at it to to get you some draft information to review and kind of share our framework for an implementation plan. Um so that's kind of the goal for this evening is to share not not every detail in it. um we've come up with a lot of stuff, but sure to share the framework, share some examples, um and importantly get get council's feedback on on sort of the direction we're heading um with this implementation plan. And then at the end of the meeting, we just have some general schedule updates as well to the extent that we are informed um on council for the plan update moving forward. Oh, next slide, please. So, kind of how this all started was at the beginning of this comp plan update process, kind of reflecting on the 2016 plan, what was successful, what what wasn't, what could be improved upon, um what were kind of main goals besides just compliance for this update. And one of those one of those things was to work on an implementation plan. we really identified kind of a lack of meaningful ways to track follow-through um as a a weakness of the 2016 plan and started thinking about okay, how can we how can we make something that incentivizes us to pick this plan up off the shelf regularly after it's adopted um and hold ourselves accountable. So that's what we're doing. Developing an

implementation plan for the comp plan to translate these long range vision goals and policies into clear and achievable actions. Um the key question we're trying to get at through all of this is how does the city actually make this plan happen and achieve specific outcomes that are important to the community. Okay. So, we're kind of responsible in a couple ways through these actions. Um, the first is just kind of being accountable to our own plan. Um, ensuring that the updated comp plan is active and actionable, giving ourselves ways to track progress on goals, policies, and metrics and providing a framework for ongoing updates and refinements. There are also a couple ways um new requirements where we are accountable to provide commerce a department of commerce with progress reports at a five-year kind of midway check-in for the comp plan. Um those are required for both affordable housing and greenhouse gas emissions reductions. So this will give us a framework to be able to report back on those specific items. All right. You've probably heard me say in a lot of these study sessions, remember policies, policy level, super high level. We'll get into the details next. Um, so just kind of as a a a framing example of of what we're trying to do here, policy versus implementation. Um, policies again, high level decisions, um, identifying important issues, meeting common goals. um they take time, they're big, they're high level, they're sort of these grand aims to meet the needs of the community. Implementation is how those are executed um typically through regulations, standards, and services. Next slide, please.

A example from our own draft plan. Um, you know, something we've heard a lot from council, community, other stakeholders is this idea of preserving downtown smalltown charm. Translated that into a policy in the draft plan. Um, preserve downtown smalltown charm with pedestrian scale and ground flooror commercial uses, promote special events and inclusive public spaces, and encourage a mix of uses to increase utilization. Um h as an example of how that is translated into a couple implementation items we've picked out um establish a downtown development review process and adopt a new downtown um sub area plan. It's kind of a good example of how some of these implementation items were really starting with a bit of a blank slate and thinking, okay, what what could we do? And some of these implementation items are something that we already know we're going to be doing and then kind of working backwards to match it to a policy. Okay. So the examples we we can go through today are a little bit um simplified for just the sake of digestion. But in our full draft implementation plan, we are identifying six key things. Um starting with the comp plan policy, then looking at implementation strategies, timeline, metrics to track, potential um lead departments and or partners, and then general funding parameters. We're not getting into attempting to get into detail of exactly how much these things are going to cost, but more trying to get a handle on, okay, is this something we could do in existing budget? Is it going to require um some sort of budget request? Um is it something where we'd really be relying on grant funding or

other outside sources just to get a sense of magnitude? Um today we'll focus on the policy implementation strategies and and metrics outcomes. Um kind of the meat of the matter. All right. Any questions so far about why we're doing this? um sort of the general framework. Okay, great. Next slide. Oh, some questions to sort of guide our our work today um on the screen before you, but I'll go ahead and read through them. Does this framework reflect how you expect the comp plan to be implemented in practice? Would organizing actions in an implementation matrix in the structure be helpful for decision- making and tracking progress over time? Which strategies or actions feel most important to focus on first? Are there any priorities that rise to the top? Um, understanding that the information presented today is not exhaustive. We we have as you know so many draft policies and we're not going to show you like all five implementation ideas we came up for with for each of them but um understanding that is there any major topic um or consideration that is missing here basically do you have any ideas that you think we absolutely need to look at as we go through these things? Okay. All right. So, for the presentation, we've kind of split out into the comp plan elements and just given a few examples for each. Um, so I think you know the easiest thing is probably just to chunk these out into land use,

housing, economic development and use these examples as a means to kind of start a conversation about what what types of implementation items council thinks are important for some of these topics. Um, not going to read every word on the slide. You're welcome. But um on the slide before you are a couple what what we think are pretty core land use policies around establishing land supplies and densities and um supporting targeted expansion of the UG um following council's preferred land use alternative. And then just examples of how we would structure like cutting into the next level of specificity which is the implementing strategies. And then more detail after that would be like metrics to track to try and make sure these policies are being are actioned basically. Call maybe let you take a moment to digest and see if there are any questions or comments on land use. Yeah. middle housing. How do we work with

uh just a question on middle housing? How do we work with developers to encourage them to do middle housing and am I correct middle housing would be duplexes, triplexes, forplexes?

You're correct. Middle housing, duplex, triplex, forplex. um depending on your definition, town houses, um cottage housing clusters, ADUs, kind of anything in that land between single family, detached and apartment buildings. Um and a very good question about working with developers. This is one of many areas where we kind of have carrot and stick options. um our our code is is one of our biggest tools. Um how we write it is is important here. I think it's uh you know there's encourage you can encourage you can require um I think there's a lot of legislation a couple years ago about for larger cities requiring middle housing. we're under those thresholds. But um as part of looking ahead too, sorry.

Well, just to be clear, the requirement to provide missing middle is a requirement on cities. It's not actually a requirement on developers. So, a developer isn't required to um build anything because they're a private developer. You can't force them to build anything. Um, it's a requirement on cities to allow that development and pro and create codes that are more amunable to providing that sort of housing type. But that is one of the that's the crux of the issue that we deal with is that director lust is a thousand% correct that we have these code opportunities before us in how we can make it easier to do that work and provide places for where that can occur. But at the end of the day, the private market determines whether it gets built and whether it gets lived in.

I I was just going to say too on that, it feels more like a marketability factor, right? Like we can we can adjust the code, but if we adjust the code and it's not marketable, they're not going to build it. So maybe the metric would be a little bit more specific to that where we'd say increase middle housing and highdensity housing developments over time through but I I don't know adding some language in there that says should this be you know is there a market factor in there that we need to consider as well so that actually gets done because if it if we set the policy and it never gets done then we I feel like we failed because we haven't created something that developers can work with. It feels to me like the only way that we could accomplish something like that is you if the city, you know, somehow funded some of the property or something. I mean, the developer when they buy the property, they're, you know, they pretty much have to create a house, build a house that's a certain price, right, for the funding. I mean, I don't I don't know of anybody that's doing this, but I mean, you know, if somehow if the city had a way to fund some of the property so that the developers didn't pay so much for it, they got it kind of a discounted price and they could build if they were going to build low-inccome or middle housing. I don't know how that would work, but

Well, yeah. And uh council is whispering land trust in in my ear and and that's something we've talked about before, too. I think that's something that could certainly be considered. I think on top of that, it's also what I I think what we haven't seen and staff I'd love some input on this as well, but what we haven't seen is a lot of middle housing specifically in Ridgefield only because it it hasn't penciled for a lot of builders, you know, and when you look at things like permits and fees like impact fees and the permitting process and everything like that and goes so high when you start like entry- level housing or middle housing, then that almost makes it untenable. So I almost wonder if we need to find incentives in there without also giving away the farm on our end because I think there's some of that's really necessary. But how do how do we how do we find the balance there that incentivizes them to build middle housing and make a pencil for them. So we provide actually provide that.

So in in our situation due to our population we are not required at this point to have middle housing. There's a specific middle housing bill that we're not yet required to comply with because we're under 20,000 I believe is the number in population still. Um but we'll reach that number during this planning horizon. Um unless something like really weird happens. So I think that's kind of the thought here is preparing ourselves for when we do need to meet that. Um we have a lot of provisions in our code already that are meeting that. um they're just not necessarily to your point used

right. Well, I think one of the things that we're looking to do with this and the kind of the implementation strategy on this is to prove up to say that here are all the measures that have been taken by council to lay the foundations for missing middle housing. Are they working or not? Because not only internally and locally is that important, but it's important at a statewide level because you have legislators from all over the state who are throwing all kinds of requirements onto local governments with the expectation that it is going to promote and provide the housing that they seek. We don't know that that's true. Yeah.

And certainly the experience that we've seen in a variety of different areas around the state has not shown that to be true. So, at some point, we're going to need to go back to the state and show them and say, "All right, are your are your methods that you would like us to use, are they working or are we going to need to look at more drastic measures such as, you know, uh somehow addressing the the the price of the the land or creating land trusts or whatever those things may be that actually have funding uh associated with them versus kind of requirements. Sorry. I I feel like a lot of that though, like we talk about land trust and I I love the idea. I you know, for a small city to implement a land trust program or something along those lines or create those levels incentives. I think that there's like we tap out really quickly on what we can do and it almost becomes a state problem. You know, like like I I even think about this is really fresh because I sat at a lunchon today and I listened to the lieutenant governor rail on cities for not doing enough to provide entry level and middle housing. And I I kind of take exception of that because of our city where we're doing everything we can. But at the same time, I realize as a small city, there's only so much you can do to provide for that. And I I think that there are certain parts where we got to look at the state and say like this is also like this is also your problem. I don't know if we fold that into metrics or not if that's something we need to do but we just focus on the limited things that we can do but real solutions I think are going to kind of happen at both levels right

yeah I think that it could be an interesting angle to look at our metrics through is like what what metrics even make sense for a small city to track and that is helpful for us and also could be helpful feedback back for the state as we go through this sort of brand new like affordable housing report back exercise in five years. Yeah.

All right. I don't necessarily want to linger in anything too long, so I can go ahead and move ahead if that's okay. All right. Um, the next slide just has this is the example I already gave earlier, but I I figured this group might have some thoughts and ideas on important things for us to be tracking for downtown um land use planning. So, I if there are any of those thoughts at this point, please please go ahead and share. We have a a couple ideas in the in the box. Regarding downtown, have we as a council made any decision at all regarding the three lots that we currently own on on Main Street? No, the council in the conversations we've had with council, the decision was made to hold off on any redevelopment uh ideas for those parcels that are publicly owned until there is a sub area plan in place that's been updated that's had community input uh that really has a community vision for what is what you want to see in the downtown. And then you'll have a better sense of what makes the most sense. and then we can go to work with the private uh property owner that's adjacent to us and start working on a redevelopment uh process.

Did we ever talk about design code for downtown specifically for the empty lots? if someone wants to build something new that it has a very um niche design code to make sure that that small town charm, it kind of flows with the rest of everything. So, you're not, you know what I'm saying? Coming into town and then there's a brand new modern home amongst all of the rest of some of the older buildings.

Yeah, we're working on a um scope of work for the downtown sub area plan update. That's definitely inevitably design's going to be a big chunk of that work, but also something we can look at for this planning document to include as well. Just a comment. Have we thought at all about when the port develops their area downtown some kind of connectivity between downtown and the waterfront?

We have certainly and this is longstanding there. You know, for many many years before any of us were uh involved, there were plans to create the Pioneer Street overpass to get rid of the grade separated crossings at Mill and Division. Uh that work was successful and in doing so, it created a safer crossing where you don't have the the train the interactions with the trains, you don't have the train whistles, you have a better opportunity for the waterfront. That said, um during that process of building the overpass, the right of way at Division was maintained by the city and is still publicly owned by the city, which is something that we had to fight a lot for a number of years with BNSF over, but that is currently a private crossing and we've done pre-esign through a federal lands access program grant to look at a multimodal crossing at Division that would go over the rail and connect uh connect the northern piece pieces of the downtown uh with the waterfront more easily. It wouldn't be a vehicular crossing other than the emergency vehicles would still be able to use that rightway uh if necessary. God forbid the the overpass was not available. So yes, there has been conversation about that.

Of course, just one question just on on the implementing strategies. So adopt a new downtown sub area plan by summer 2027. Is that I'm assuming that's actual, right? It's it's probably realistically that far out. Yeah, I think so. Is there is there a a way to make that happen sooner? Probably depends on the full scope of work, but yeah. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I know we're talking about it's it's there right now and you know, I I just want to call attention to that as well. So certainly I think we're being conservative with that. Okay. But yeah, something we can talk about for sure.

I just got a comment on that crossing on division. Is that a multimotal? Will it be for bicycles, walkers, and I want I can't think of a golf carts. Fourwheers. Yeah, I was going to say go-karts. Golf carts. I mean, I don't know about go-karts, but Yeah. Okay.

So, the the next element where we pulled some examples just to to talk around is is the housing element. And I know we covered a bit about missing middle and the land use lens already. Um, as we've, you know, said over and over, there's certainly a lot of overlap between these elements. Um but yeah, again just to think about like in terms of housing policy, what what types of strategies make sense and what what kind of things do we want to track? And sort of a follow-up question on this one is if you you know look at the the metrics column, we have a an item that's talking about it in like increased numbers of ADUs. And then we have another item where we've you know come up with a number um to achieve by a certain year. And we definitely appreciate feedback from council on sort of like how we want to frame some of these metrics. Um if we want to keep it keep them more broad um like increase certain housing products or if we do want to be a bit more bold and specific and and actually create goals for for things like number of units. I I I'm I'm curious on this one. How much of this is con contingent on our um our alternatives being accepted? So, we have we we're currently pushing alternative two with the county council. If if they end up going with say alternative one, I think that sort of changes how we approach this, right? So, like it doesn't really feel like we can encourage a mix of a mix of housing types under that because we we'd be forced into a lot more multif family or higher density housing uh with that versus getting our expansion areas and

being able to provide kind of a broader mix of housing. Yeah. So, I I do think what what our plan looks like depends a lot on what the county selects in terms of their proof alternative. I think whatever they land on, we are responsible to those requirements from the state to create capacity for housing at different income bands. Um I don't think that that changes for us. Um it the map for how it happens might just look different. Okay. If that makes sense.

Yeah. But if it if it makes sense for us to kind of hold off on some of these until we know for sure what the county selects, I I think we have time to do that as well.

I don't think I'm comfortable like putting a specific number in this uh plan. I more like a a goal or a percentageish but not a specific number. I feel like that locks us in. And then for, you know, simple math. I've never been good at math, y'all. But for the 25% increase, when we have, let's say, two new apartment complexes come in, how is the 25% captured? Because if we have two new apartment complexes come in and each have 10% allocated to low income, is that now 20% or is it 25% of the total new development coming in by 2030?

Depend on how we wrote it, I think. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, who established the 25% for middle income and uh by 2030? Is that a state us or just a estimate um for the for that number? That's I mean that's just kind of a draft we're giving y'all to act too. That's not a a specific requirement coming from the state or anything. Thank you. Yeah. I guess when I look at the a under implementing strategies, I can't even imagine putting two ADUs on a residential lot. Does that mean in addition to the primary house?

So we that was a required code update that we've actually already done um just recently allowing to per um with development standards that you know you still have to meet setbacks and impervious surface. So as long as the HOA allows it right and or do we override the HOAs? They're just separate regulations. Oh,

and this is another one where, and we can work on this a little bit, where I think there's value in us tracking the reality uh versus the code because we do have a lot of allowances for this to occur, but like you just indicated, Mayor Prom, there are HOAs that have restrictions on what you can build or redevelop. Um, there are some and the regulations change over time. from the state can certainly address that if they so choose with HOAs, but they haven't to a large extent. So, the reality of what we will see in Ridgefield for how that how much will redevelop with those may be different than what um what is allowed and what you know what a general expectation may be. So again, that's something that we might want to and be able to track for you to see what's what have we actually seen based on what we put forward as options.

Well, and when you get I mean I don't know what the number of lots per acre would be that would actually stop that from happening, but I mean the amount of lots that we have per you know what I mean? It's like not not probably not room for maybe even one H, you know, one ADU in some of them and certainly not for two. So yeah, and that's that is the other piece of it, right? Is what are the setbacks, what are the environmental constraints, what are the what's already on the the property, and so there are definitely a lot of complexities. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

I had a conversation with the county treasurer today and one of the things they were talking about is not the income in 98642. And so now Nick 642 has a fairly high income. So is that going to reflect is like Mr. Burkel had asked um does that reflect on um medium income or low density the price of that is it statewide that I'm piggybacking on top of you Mr. Burke. How how is that uh that matrix put together for the income strate?

No, it's not by jurisdiction. It's by it's based on the area median income which is countywide. Countywide. Correct. Yeah.

Okay. I I want to just go back to something that councelor Vavlla said and just just follow up with you on that. So when you said you're not comfortable putting numbers on, are you referring to say for example the goal of 900 affordable housing units by 2035, something like that? Um, okay. I I think metrics are something that we like we should attach numbers to whenever possible, but I want to make sure that they're based in something that are attainable, you know? So if you know maybe maybe just checking to make sure like is the 25% increase in middle housing and the 900 affordable housing units by 2035 is you know just double check to make sure that is attainable. Um are we like what I don't want to do is end up 10 years from now doing our next comp plan update and have the county tell us that we're not hitting our targets when we've sort of been handcuffed by it. So, um, but if we can show it, say, hey, we set this goal, here's the policy, here's the goal, here's the metric, and then we did hit it, then I think that makes a compelling case for whatever's in the future. Just look, just looking at that number, that'd be 90 affordable housing units a year between now and 2035. If I'm correct, that seems rather substantial. if they're affordable. I don't think apartments are necessarily affordable either.

Yeah. Any other thoughts on this one? Okay.

Thank you. That's helpful for us. Um, next element we just want to chat about again. What what does what do metrics and tracking look like is a bit of a different one. Public facilities. Um, this one, of course, we also have our capital facilities plans. Um, but it's also a a comp plan element. Um, so we want to make sure we sort of tie those things together with some tracking mechanisms that can be as simple as, you know, working with our public works and infrastructure staff to um set, you know, set timelines for for CFP updates. Um, and can also be more more specific like looking at storm water management goals um that our storm water teams working on and working with them to create create some goals and metrics there too. and like how these are just a few examples, but public facilities can be a pretty broad uh pretty broad definition. Are we are we also needing to think about like city buildings and what are trackable goals around our that type of facility in the future in addition to the sort of comp plan definition of facilities which is like water and storm water type stuff.

I'm glad we brought this one up because this is something that I was thinking about last night when we talk about bringing density in and adding capacity. Do we in our building of capacity and utilities have the water to withhold these projects in the future? Because that is a a really important topic that we speak about often is water and is do we have two competing factors here.

I think it's yeah definitely a really key thing to be tracking in its relationship to to development. um the the water CFP which was updated in in 2024 relied on these same housing and jobs allocations. So there's a yeah shared numbers between between the two. Again, I got a comment. I had a conversation today about the big uh storm water pond being put in at the fairgrounds really deep. That what they're doing they're going to do there is put in milk crates and fill that with milk crates and pave over the top of it and that'll be the storm water retention area. Hear this Ryan?

No. Retention area. and then and it'll absorb the flow for a while and then meter it out, but they can still use the land over the top of it. You can't build buildings on it, but you can build roads or parking lots or whatever. And it's a lot cheaper than the big culverts like they put in out at the uh RV park by uh Papa Pets. They put them big culverts in the ground, but this is a lot cheaper and simpler. And then you can drive on it. Okay. Just a comment. So that's a storm water pond that's being built. I wonder if it was a swimming pool or

Yeah, storm water pond will be paved over paved over. Okay.

Yeah. I think the public facilities strategies and metrics are interesting and a bit unique in that we have these separate planning documents for each type of public facility. Um, so that's kind of on us as staff to make sure we're not doing anything in here that's duplicating work or sending things in a direction that's not specified by those other plans. So, um, but yeah, appreciate appreciate the thoughts on priorities for these two. No, thank you.

One more uh on 311 the schools. How are we? What does that mean for us in terms of building out and our impact with schools? Because, you know, there really is no crossover with the city. We can't we don't really do anything with the schools. We don't fund schools. So, what is our what are we looking at there and what is that really referring to for clarity? It's a good question and potentially an an edit to the policy language if Yeah, might be what I'm hearing too. Yeah,

I mean I do think it's important even when we talk about building up downtown and the increased traffic. I mean it's mindful to reme remind ourselves that we have an elementary school right here with a ton of small children and we need the safe routes to school. So, how are we balancing what we're doing, but also honoring the very community that we're trying to uh protect and maintain with our littles. Okay. I just had another comment on imperous services like when you put the uh stepping stones in or in a parking lot. Uh, our soils here don't allow for water to infiltrate. It usually runs off because of the clay. But a lot of the parking lots where they do have infiltration. The cracks usually fill up with dust, dirt, and that and then they don't function anymore. They have to come in and pressure wash them. There's a lot of maintenance on them to trying to keep them uh so that they do the job that they're doing. are supposed to do, I should say.

Okay.

I think the next slide was just a little another public facilities example, but we can probably skip by it and talk about economic development. Um the two examples we pulled out here kind of the two two of the pillars of economic development strategy we've been talking about um throughout this process. One being of course downtown um and the other being those larger employment site opportunities out by the junction. Um, so figured we could have a bit of a conversation around um those two kind of economic development pillars and um again is is how we're framing the metrics. Does it make sense? Do you have different ideas for items to track and how to track them for our economic development planning? So this is is this this is looks specific to downtown and the waterfront as far as economic development um policies. Do do we need to consider I I I would think we do need to consider I'm just wondering if it's if it's appropriate to consider it here to include other other areas as well like commercial neighborhood business zones and then you know regional zones too. And I I call about the CNB because I think a lot of those um what I've been hearing recently is is a lot of those feel like they're not, you know, there there's either downtown or is the junction and the in between feels like it it gets a little bit lost in in the mix sometimes. And so there's there's need to be an economic development factor that includes all types of commercial zones that we designate, not just the downtown sub area.

Yeah. So these examples, one's downtown and one's junction really. And again, these are two of many economic development uh draft policies that that council has previously reviewed. Um so we can go back in and and make sure we have more meat on the bones um around some of those other areas as well to the the goals of this study session for those I guess sort of middle um commercial areas. what what would be important to to be tracking over time in terms of their success?

Well, I I think retention is a big factor for those as well. Um I I don't know. I I I struggle with this one because I' i've talked a lot about the the need to recruit. Um I don't know if that's necessarily our our position. I I kind of place out more on our chambers and our main street programs that you know the business centric organizations but but having um having some type of business retention and also knowing that like at NCBS those are also smaller businesses and so I know we've done a lot of work where we've kind of deferred uh payments on impact fees and things like that but just making you know continue to evaluate how do we create more businessfriendly policies especially geared towards small businesses because that is an economic development factor no matter where what part of the city they're I know this may be really far out, but would there be any consideration or potential that we could create a situation where council members maybe on a monthly basis went out and met with our business people just find out what's going on? How we doing? What could we help you with? I don't know. What do you think? That is actually a process that uh existed for quite some time here in Richfield. Yeah, we did that for quite a while. It was something that was patterned after something that Vancouver did back when Royce Pard was mayor and Pat McDonald was a city manager at the time. Mayor Enslow asked that we set up meetings on a regular basis and it would be for him and myself and then we would take a council member with. We did that for a number of years. I'll be honest with you, when COVID hit, uh, obviously that stopped and since we got back from CO, it really isn't some We tried to get it going again. It wasn't something that really got traction with some of the businesses. Um, but it's absolutely something we can look at doing.

Thank you. Of course.

Fits into the framework well, too. Um there's your implementation strategy is you know council member meetings with the local business community and we can track um how often what you talked about what you see as benefits of that. So I think that's a really good idea. I think it'd be good also just from a metric standpoint if we're talking about th those areas downtown specifically and as it relates to Rise uh looking at something that says like like are we going to be able to measure are there like new brick and mortar or new businesses like I I don't know what the percentage is and I'd be arbitrary to suggest something 25% more business activity in the downtown sub area or something like that but some some type of metric around that that shows that are we attracting new businesses and is this a viable place to come and do business um in the heart of the city not just near the junction?

My personal opinion currently I don't think we have the available space in downtown to attract many new businesses. That's why I think it's important that that open property on Main Street be made available and out there as quickly as possible to do just that. It was really interesting. Uh I read the report on the new businesses coming into Ridgefield and I went through and I calculated that it was like 38 new businesses or business license in March. 30 of them were at home businesses. Yeah. So it was really

kind of So I know these these are just samples, but that brings up an interesting point because we've talked about that. We've talked about the remote like leaning into the remote work economy and and does there need to be some sort of metric around that that we said like how do we know that we've been successful on that? And we we did sort of a casual survey at one point. We got some preliminary data but maybe it's another survey and say how do we measure against that? Are we increasing the number of remote uh the viability of working remote here? I and I don't know what that looks like. You know, I think that that's a bigger discussion, but adding some some sort of metric around that. We can come up with some ideas.

Sorry, I just had a big thought and I'm going to think out loud. If we take the policy moving in the direction work from home, everybody works. It feels like most people work from home. There are so many businesses ran out of the home. How does that impact new businesses coming into Ridgefield and housing? Because if we're accommodating, we need X amount of jobs. Well, the jobs are coming in, but we don't necessarily need more housing for those jobs because they're already in existing homes already here. So, is there a way to cross over that or have that accounted for in our numbers with where we're at in this world of working from home and telecomute? Well, if I'm correct, we don't actually count remote workers as new jobs, do we? I thought there was something along there that we said. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the way that the way that the county calculates it, they they calculate as far as jobs basis, they approximate about 4% of all jobs are remote work. I think is 4% is what are work from home. So, they do give a small percentage, but not the actual percentage that we see. And when you're calculating jobs, if you work for HP in Vancouver, but you are a remote worker and you don't go into the office, it counts as a Vancouver job. Even though the person, the income, the time, the energy is all spent in Ridgefield. So, it is there is a discrepancy in how things are calculated and how they're reported. For sure.

Is that largely out of our hands and that that becomes a policy that goes beyond the city level, right? It does. But as far as how tracking if if providing opportunity for remote work and understanding how we exist within that environment and how we can support it. Yeah. And then tracking our success in it is something that council wants to do. That's absolutely within your control. Yeah. For that. And it might impact, you know, land use policies and what's important to track for those as well. For example, transportation. Yeah,

I would rather track it and have it and not need it, you know what I mean? Than to need it and not have it later on. This data that could possibly be really beneficial in the future that we can show, you know, how many businesses are coming in, but they're uh they're based here in Ridgefield only versus working somewhere else and tele, you know, telecommuting here in Ridgefield. Great. Thanks. Yeah, we'll make sure as we're refining this that we have a good amount of of action items around that work from home data collection and then future action as well. Cool. Okay, everybody's favorite parks and wreck. Um, again, this is another one where they have their own planning documents, but it's also required as part of the comp plan. Um, you know, largely we're referencing those other documents in this work. Um, but and and working with our our park staff to to make sure we're tracking things that make sense to them. Um but again just some examples around citing um equity and interconnection within the city which are all themes that you know we've we've heard from the public throughout this process and seem like gerine things to find ways to track them. also kind of goes back to the question of like are we what kind of things does it make sense to assign specific numbers to um versus potentially coming up with other ways of of creating a metric to track which is I know is a tough question but

looking at the 6.2.1 and then uh just the implementing strategies. So we talk about ensure all schools and parks are connected by trails and pathways within a half mile radius. That's talking about schools and parks being connected. It does that speak to a larger effort to connect all trails in the city and do we have that someplace or specified? I believe so. Yeah. Okay.

And then the other one I would I would touch on is just the metrics for 6.1.4 for is construct at least two new neighborhood parks or green spaces. Um I'm all about that. I want to continue making sure we like we I don't think our 25% parks and open spaces policy is going away anytime soon. But um we also have a backlog of parks that need to be finished. So, I don't know if that's grouped within that or we say, do we finish the parks already in the pipeline and then two new parks uh per neighborhood or something like that or you know, whatever that looks like. But definitely touching on making sure that the parks in the pipeline are prioritized before we start adding new ones.

Yeah. And that can be a metric in and of itself, too. Yeah. Exactly. a resident approached me this last week about a second resident approached me about the bike uh if there was a bike lane, you know, along Pioneer to be able to go out to Richville Junction. And so I again explained that that was, you know, the sidewalk was for both. And he was just adamant that that was not how he would ride a bike. He would not ride a bike on a sidewalk that people were walking on. It was just too dangerous and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, interesting. I mean, that's the first person that's actually, you know, responded to that, but um I don't know if there's bikers that feel like other bikers that feel like that or what the general consensus is, but

it's certainly something we can, you know, do a little more digging on. There's it is a methodology that has been used more because it gets the bicyclists away from the motorized traffic, so it's safer for the bicyclists by a lot uh to get them out of the lanes of travel. Um, and by creating that double wide, you know, not just 5 foot width, but 10 feet on both sides of Pioneer, you're actually creating a safer thoroughare, but it is different. And so, I mean, it makes perfect sense that people would be unnerved by that if it is different. And it's different even within the system itself. So, we can do some more work and digging and find out more about kind of perceptions and what we can do to help with that.

Is that stuff, Steve, that often is sort of repeated periodically in the community survey. people's it's a good question impressions perceptions of the experience of like using trails in Richfield or using bike lanes in Richfield. I'm just spitballing here but I'm thinking that's an existing sort of resource we have and could track the results and then

yeah let's yeah we can definitely look at that. Yeah, we can absolutely look at that and see if there's information in the community survey that we do every three or four years that we can use to track that whether it's perceptions or reality of people's um how safe they feel on that and that was there is a whole new metric that some jurisdictions are using now and it is a how I feel metric and it is literally uh like if I'm on a trail or on a bike path or on a road how safe do I feel and they actually have a rating scale associated with that um just because the perception is the reality to a large extent.

I think the bikers are definitely safer being off the road, but you know his concern was that people that are walking aren't necessarily safer because he said and thus thus the 10 feet as opposed to five. I'm not looking for people that are walking or whatever, you know what I mean? So it's just I mean I understood where he was coming from, but I just didn't know if anybody else had brought that. Not yet. But we can definitely look into that.

Uh just a comment on ADA compliant. Are we only needing to be compliant within the confines of the park or do we also need to be concerned about ADA compliance on the trails? So, I know our park staff could speak to this much more eloquently, but um I know as part of the engineering standards update that incorporated standards for parks and trails. Um it really depends on the type of trail because there are some that just can't. Um and there's some that absolutely can and should and I think that's, you know, driven by their location and what they're accessing. So, I do think it's a mix. Is that like kind of is there like a trail designation? I I just think of like skiing like a black diamond trail

basically. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There are different trail say these ones are going to be accessible because they're classified as this or something. Exactly. Yeah. Not a bad idea.

Oh yeah. I think I'm repeating what I just heard. I was in my own thought though. it when we do the trail mapping, having parks include that in there, highlighting what trails are ADA accessible and which ones are not. So people have that awareness when they're mapping out their trail or they want to, you know, go out for the day. They know what route to take, which one would be accessible for them. Even going a step further possibly would be signing that would indicate beyond this point it's not ADA compliant or whatever would be appropriate.

I feel like we had that conversation in a council meeting before a long time ago, but it would be worth, you know, bringing that back up. move on. We have I think two more subject areas with some examples to talk around. Um one is our climate element. Um again this is a newly required element this this update cycle. Um and kind of has a lot of overlap with every other element basically. But um as a standalone it focuses on greenhouse gas reduction and and climate resilience. Um and this is one of the two elements where we do have now requirements to be reporting back in five years um to the state on how we are doing. So definitely want to want to think about what is what is realistic for us to track to kind of show our work on that. Again, these are just examples,

right? I I I think as an example, um 7.4.3 feels like it it could probably use a little bit more substance. It feels really broad right now, you know, to say and councelor Davis actually highlighted that in in his email in prep for this, but he's, you know, like how do how do you monitor and report the conversion of grass lawns into native gardens, you know, things like that. Yeah, because you don't want to be certainly known as the kind of city that's going out there and like checking lawns and measuring lawns. Hey, I've lived in that kind of town and it doesn't go over well. So, something something that makes gives more substance there like what does that metric actually look like rather than just like monitoring reporting and is that really the best way to go or is there just is is it more of like an encouragement and we encourage people to do these types of things. I think there too you you'll run into situations with HOAs that require grass uh as opposed to artificial turf or a native looking front yard. There's a very

I think it was I can't recall what city in Arizona or California worked with all of the citizens to convert yards away from need of irrigation. And there were credits given and trying I can't remember the city for sure but it worked. You drive in it now, there's no grass. Palm Springs. All right, we'll skip ahead to transportation. I have a lot of words on this one, so it's split into two slides for for two example policies. Um but transportation is one where definitely had some ideas for both tracking and like programs as metrics. Um if you go to the next slide, Julie, I think be interesting to talk around like using that level of service as a metric um for for transportation and as a means of assessing networks for for different users or other ideas for what what about transportation is going to be important for us to keep track of over the next several years. I just for transportation in general and as you look at this I don't know if it' fit within like 814 here but you know our are are our our year-long

discussions about cran and board composition and and funding and and all of that kind of begs the question of like what what should and what what should public transportation look like within Ridgefield that we have we have uh one route right now. Do we need to look at some alternatives to just standardized, you know, conventional public transportation, which is a bus, you know, we've talked about a rubber tire trolley. We've talked about, you know, just different things. But I I think it's worth capturing somewhere along here where, you know, the I I it feels pretty abstract now, but something to the effect of do we want to look at what alternative transportation, public transit methods look like inside a city like Ridgefield? And I don't know really where to go beyond that other than just put it out there.

Looking at public transportation, I've observed the bus that we have that comes into Ridgefield. Rarely do you see more than one or two persons on that bus. I don't know whether it's just going to take a matter of time before people decide I should ride the bus, but currently I'm absolutely taken back by how few how few people use it and where do they use it? Where do they go on it? Well, I'm more curious on like are they not using it because it's not practical for them in a city like this field?

Well, that's definitely something we should look at. Yeah. Or is there a public education piece or do we need to look at the other options? We I mean if writership levels if writership levels or percentages are something that you would want to track kind of to show whether multimodal access and usage is is successful over time. It's certainly something that I mean it's an easy metric to get because cat tracks it for each route. So it is something that we could look at. I'd be very interested in knowing what the ridership is on the loop that comes into Ridgefield. Now, that's not to say that in five years there going to be a huge number of people using it, but right now I'm I'm surprised. Yeah.

Well, and that's the point of tracking these, right? Is that we're this is a 20-year plan that you're putting forward, and it will change over time, just as our community has obviously changed over the past 20-year uh comp plan time frame. So, uh it is something that we can track and see how has it changed over time or not. uh so that you can make you know make amendments adjustments along the way. I also am I'd be reticent to not be deficient in not mentioning uh the level of traffic stress. That's the metric that I was mentioning and I couldn't remember the actual metric is that level of traffic stress. That is this kind of newish metric that that's used on the transportation side for driving but also for those who are not in a motorized vehicle and something we can look at for bicyclists or pedestrians or otherwise. One thing we might keep track of is when we get the 219th Street uh over to Ilhurst, what the reduction is on Pioneer Street and that what what kind of impact that will be in that period. or hope that in the next 10 years we have that road in but it will it will actually I think make a big keep track of that also and also cra runs a special bus like to gummy gummy bears not a bus they bring worker bees in and at the morning shift they have a dedicated bus that picks up somewhere and comes there I've seen them go in there and dump people off or take them home in the evenings, maybe to another park and ride or or whatever. But they do accommodate them that way.

Yeah, I think trans transportation is a a field where there is a lot of data available to collect. So, it's kind of fun to think about, okay, if we collected this data, what like what goal would that be supporting you? Yeah.

Just going back real quick to Mayor Proim's comment about the uh bicycles on the sidewalk. When we were visiting San Antonio and they had multimodal sidewalks, they actually striped the sidewalks like the road to keep that guide between the bikes and the pedestrians. And I wonder, you know, what does that look like for us if we if that becomes something? We have the white sidewalks and pedestrians and bikes that maybe we're striping those and help people stay in their

lane. Make anybody that rides a bike on the sidewalk use a clothes pin and a and a card. You can hear them coming. In the old days, hear them coming. Yeah, I think we're we're gonna I mean obviously a lot more meat on this bone, but we can keep going there. So,

no, it's uh I that was the last, you know, policy language I had. So, great. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to hear. I mean, any chance we have to talk in this group about the comp plan is always helpful for us. Um just to think about how we frame some of these things and what's important to you all that we focus on. So, thank you. Um this is just a repeat of some of those guiding questions we had. So, we can move on to some general schedule updates. Um, we've been working with Clark County staff um on figuring out more about what transfer development rights looks like um including the potential interlocal agreement um as it relates to the egg dazzes process. The sort of next milestone with the county is their council will be holding public hearings on April 27th and 28th um regarding their preferred land use alternative. Um so really really key date there. Um it's going to I don't know if they'll make a decision on those days. That would be great because then we would know a lot more about what we need to do next. So um cross your fingers for that. Um, I think we'll have a presentation during next week's council meeting sort of to just, you know, talk about that a little more in a in a public forum. Um, kind of prep going into it a bit. And I believe Steve that, uh, Mr. Toyer will be doing kind of a TDR refresher as well during that presentation. Um, and then for our study sessions, moving on to the next slide, we have a a few more scheduled out. Um, April 30th, we're going to be talking about critical areas and the environment element, which is something we haven't really touched on yet. Um, but we're making really good progress on um updates to the critical

areas ordinance, which tie directly to the goals and policies of that environment element. Um, a lot of those goals and policies from the 2016 plan in my opinion are are still very valid, but but there are are some that, you know, in the course of doing this code update, we're looking at and thinking maybe that's one we need to talk about with council. So, that'll come before you in a couple weeks. Um, and then there are a couple sort of small elements um, in our in our existing plan that we just want to talk through and and see if see if they're still good, see if anything needs to be shifted um, both annexation and then public participation. Um, so we have some ideas for those that we'll bring to you for conversation in May. And I think at that point we will have study sessioned all of our elements. Um, of course, some of them we talked about so long ago. It it might be beneficial to I don't know touch base again. Um, that's something we're we're still working for through is how to do that in a in a productive way where we're just not repeating it all again, but giving you enough time with these topics before we're starting to bring things through hearings and and asking for decisions to be made. So stay tuned. That's all I have. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. Anything else from council on on this today? Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead and conclude this study session. Thank you everybody.