Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Testing to, to see if y'all can hear me.

Hello.

Can you hear us now? Yes. But we could not hear you.

You can hear me now?

No. I'm just kidding. We could hear

you. Sorry. Could you Could you ask if you could hear me now? No.

We hadn't turned on our mics, and we were talking.

Good evening. I'm gonna call this October 16 City of Sammamish Planning Commission meeting to order. Let's start out with roll call. Mike Bresco. I'm here. Mike is virtual tonight. Sudha Sankara. Here. Syed Safavian. Here. Ajay Chakrapani. Here. I am Mark Baughman and have not heard from John Baughman and Hisham Elquawad is probably not gonna join us this evening. Okay. Next the agenda.

Anybody else have any comments on the agenda? There was a suggestion that maybe we move the order so that the public hearing is first which we do lots of times. I don't know that it makes too much difference but I'm okay doing that. Any objections to that?

No. Okay.

So we're gonna switch old business item and public hearing. So the public hearing is on a docket. Old business is on code for s m c title 21 so we'll switch those. Help me remember to make sure we do that. Alright. Next is approval of the minutes from our last meeting, October 2. Right? Anybody have any corrections to the October 2 meeting minutes? Okay. We'll call the minutes approved. Next we'll do public comment. I just want to remind everybody if you do have a comment on the docket item that we'll be having a public hearing on, you can do that at that time. Anything else now is the time. Who would like to make public comment? Paul?

There we go. Am I on? Yeah. Good evening, Planning Commissioners. Paul Stickney Sammamish.

It's time to plan for growth. Housing growth is the main issue of this campaign. And we have planned for external regional growth, but we haven't planned for internal local needs. Our negotiated 2,100 regional target was about one third of the gross share based on the city and town cohort for the Sammamish population. Regional growth contemplates population growth set by office of financial management and natural birth and death rates.

Its analytics are based on state and county metrics, not on internal housing needs at a local level. Internal housing need shortage gaps are determined by comparing current housing supplies on the ground with local economic and demographic and workforce needs over life and for the future. Our city has a notable shortage of affordable housing from 30 to 80%, and that's a price range of about 175,000 to $500,000 And those estimated shortages are in the neighborhood of twice of our regional target number. And then different, diverse and smaller market rate housing, primarily priced from 500 to 1,000,004 are a far larger need, somewhere in the neighborhood of four to five times our target, the 2,100.

And then we have a surplus relative to economic, demographic and workforce needs of large single family homes mostly priced at a 1,000,000 point dollars Why optimally alleviate Qi, citywide housing, imbalance market rate gaps primarily in centers? Well, it's got the power to resolve city operating fiscal imbalance with sustainable added revenues

in the neighborhood of $15,000,000 a year. It can expedite phasing out and then eliminating the recently passed 6% utility tax, raise capital for desired community projects, one time and recurring provide residents housing variety options to stay over life, many saving, 25,000 a year or more who choose to stay yield balanced sustainable housing for future generations and continued rich social fabric, lower per unit car trips and students generated to about a quarter that of single family homes, improve community character, enable a host of environmental betterments. I suggest we add around 5,000 market rate to the comp plan and meet those concurrently with the affordable housing target. Appreciate the chance to speak. Thank you.

Thanks for your comments, Paul. Anybody else? Okay. So as I said, we're going to switch this around. So next we will do the docket item. I just wanna remind everybody kind of the order of how this goes.

I'm sorry. I I'm having one person wanting to speak on

Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I didn't see anybody up there and forgot. So go ahead.

Okay. Mister Brennan, I'm going to promote you to panelists now.

Peter, you're on mute.

There you go. Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yep. You're good now.

Great. Good evening, commissioners, residents, and staff. My name is Peter Brennan. I'm the vice president of land development at Innovation Realty Partners. Thank you for your dedication to this important work. I'm here to voice support for moving forward with the town center rezoning shown on the future land use map and related code updates. First, zoning is how we implement the comprehensive plan on the ground. The plan sets the why, zoning delivers the how by placing the right uses in the right locations. Advancing this rezoning work turned shared values into real outcomes, a walkable downtown for Sammamish with more livable neighborhoods, better environmental stewardship, and a fiscally healthy city. This effort also directly supports the Sammamish Town Center sub area plan work.

Town Center is our walkable mixed use downtown. Aligning the future U future land use map and zoning with the sub area vision will concentrate growth where services and infrastructure can support where service infrastructure can support it, offer more affordable housing choices, reduce car trips for daily needs, lower city costs, and promote promote more local spending. Clear and predictable zoning gives both residents and the private sector confidence to invest in high quality placemaking that includes active ground floors, safe multimodal streets, human scale blocks, better transit options, and superior storm water solutions that are integrated within our parks and plazas. Second, we also appreciate the city's stakeholder process. Good planning is inclusive and iterative.

We look forward to learning more as details evolve and to constructively contribute at each milestone and together build a future ready community. Finally, as you move from policy to implementation, we urge close coordination between public works standards, development code, and zoning, especially in the town center.

Street

sections, frontage treatments, utilities, and stormwater should support the urban form that the sub area plan calls for. When these components align, we get well planned infrastructure, superior architectural designs, enhanced public spaces, and more predictable outcomes for neighbors and applicants alike. Thank you for your service and for the opportunity to comment. Given the importance of this project, we welcome any opportunity to meet directly with the planning commission to answer any questions. We look forward to continued collaboration. Thank you.

Thanks, Peter. Anyone else, Nina? And by the way, thank you for interrupting and keeping me honest. It's an important job. Okay. Now we'll move on to our docket item for this evening and as I was starting to say, I want to just remind everybody how this goes. We traditionally do it with Planning Commission. So we'll have staff presentation of the item, we'll ask questions of staff, then we'll open and close the public hearing and take any public comment, then someone makes a motion and seconds. Then we have any debate, discussion, conversation around the topic, and at some point, I'll call for a vote. So that's kind of the sequence.

The goal being to ask whatever questions we have from staff on the first pass, and then the second pass only asking questions if they come out of the public comment, sort of generally try to organize it that way. So let's start out with presentation of the docket item.

Good evening everyone. Can someone confirm that you can see my screen?

If it's a picture of City Hall we can see it.

You probably recognize this picture. Alright. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jackie Balil, and I am a management analyst with community development department. Tonight, I'll be giving a presentation on the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six docket requests and staff's recommendations.

After the planning commission will hold a public hearing, deliberate, and make a recommendation to the city council on which docket requests should be docketed. As a refresher, the docket is an annual process for considering text amendments to the city's comprehensive plan or development regulations or site specific land use map amendments. Anyone is able to submit a docket request as long as they are in by the annual deadline of 5PM on the first Monday in August. A quick review of the docket process before we go over tonight's docket request. The first step is deciding which proposals should be put on the docket for consideration in the coming years.

Any items that are on the docket will go through the legislative review process where they will be fully considered and reviewed. So if city council chooses to docket an item and it is added to the work plan, staff will complete a more thorough review and return to planning commission and council for further discussion and consideration. So, tonight, we are making a list of things to do or to be worked on in the future and not necessarily reviewing each item in detail now. So after tonight's public hearing, the city council will have a public hearing on November 18 and vote on a resolution to set the docket. So that's the background information, and we'll review the docket request that we received and the staff recommendation.

So the first docket request was a text amendment to the town center plan submitted by city staff. After further discussion, the city decided to withdraw withdraw the request. So when the request was prepared and submitted back in August, the updates to the town center plan and the development regulations were expected to be completed by December 2025. Soon after it was submitted, the project schedule changed. So the town center plan updates and development regulation updates are now expected to be complete in 2026.

So the timing of the docket request no longer aligned with the timing of the project. So the city withdrew the text amendment docket request on October 8. And, we may resubmit this docket request for twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven docket, but we will no longer be considering it tonight. So I might see you back here next year. The second docket request is a site specific land use map amendment for Building 120, which until recently was used as the Central Washington University campus.

So the property is located off of 228 next to East Lake High School, and it was the Mars Hill Church for many years. People still recognize it as that before the city bought it in 2015. And CWU started renting the building in 2017, and they ended their lease just this past summer. So the city is proposing changing the future land use designation of this property from neighborhood residential to mixed use center, which would allow for the property to be rezoned through the zone reclassification process. So a rezone of this property would be consistent with the shopping center to the North and the town center development to the West and South.

As a mixed use center, the former campus could be used for a wider range of purposes, like civic, community, cultural, and community gathering space, recreational uses, and affordable or workforce housing. So title 24 a of the Spanish municipal code requires that all docket requests be analyzed based on specific criteria. So those criteria are how the request aligns with staff work plan items, if there is enough budget to complete the work, if there is staff availability to complete a full review of the request, and if the request is consistent with the city's current policies and priorities. So this is the staff recommendation for the docket request. We have answered no to work plan alignment because this item does not align with existing work plan items, but it could be added if that was directed by the city council.

For both budget and staff availability, we've put limited. The majority of the work would be done in house, but additional budget could be needed, for consultant support if current contracts are not sufficient. And staff would be available to work on this item, but the timing of other work plan items might have to shift in order to accommodate going through the legislative review process for this request. In terms of policy and program consistency, this request is consistent with local, regional, and state policies and requirements. So for these reasons, staff recommends that this doc that this request be docketed as the proposed changes will provide more opportunities to continue community conversations and find the best use for this site.

So for next steps, after tonight, there will be a public hearing with the city council on November 18 to set the docket. And should the request be docketed, legislative review would likely occur in late twenty twenty six. And then before we close, I just wanted to share, I do have two recommended motions, for during the public hearing. The first would be to recommend that the city docket the request as shown in the agenda packet, and the second would be, if you would like to modify or amend the request in any way, you can make a motion starting with this sentence. I can come back to this screen when we reach that point as well.

But if there are any questions, we can take them now.

Ajay, do you have a question?

Yes, I do. So the question that I had, you said that the this was limited, the staff availability as well as the budget was limited. So you you said that this is limited and it might take from some other initiatives that we might be allocating time for. I might not be using the right word that you had used, but that we might be taking from there or that we would need some more help from outside to get this work completed. I'm trying to align the two of them into the staff availability limited and the coverage and budget limited.

So how does that work? Isn't there a risk that we might say we'll do it and we end up coming up short on all fronts? So

in terms of the budget, the budget ties really to like any environmental review that we would need to be done for the site as we start doing a more in-depth analysis. We want to make sure if we're coming back with a recommendation to adjust the future land use map that we're giving you enough information to help inform that decision. That's something we can't do in house just based on the technical needs. So we do have existing contracts that cover that and it just depends on how much they've been used up so far under our other development review work and if we would need to add budget for that.

So it's at a line item level that you're saying?

Correct. Yeah. Okay. And in terms of the staff availability, we have a very full list of items we wanna get through for our work plan for next year. And some of that will be refined and directed by city council at their retreat in, I believe, '26. So if this is an item that does get docketed, we'll have to find a way to fit that in along with those and kind of prioritize what moves forward first.

Got it. So then it is a it is a discussion point at the off-site in February, but not necessarily here. Now we are just supposed to look at it to say, does this make sense given those constraints and the availability is there, it's not zero. We should just consider it at that point. Did I get that right now?

Yes, that's correct.

Thanks.

Sorry, did you have something?

A couple of questions. Question number one, in a typical year, how many items you have on the dockets?

I would say there is no typical year for the docket. 2025.

That's a good answer.

I you know, we've had some docket requests in the past. I would say at most there's usually three to four maximum docket requests. However, oftentimes the requests are very complex and involve once we start talking with the thank you applicants. There's multiple parts to what's being requested and so what will seem like one docket request is actually really like 10 or 15 docket requests because it's impacting so many different text amendments that they want done. So it really it varies. And then other years like this year, there's one or two.

Second question, typically when we're that some limited staff availability, is that because of the time or knowledge or a combination of both?

It's primarily time. There are three

So you do have the staff with the capability of handling it.

Correct.

The minimum reliance on the consultant.

Correct.

It's not a matter of that you don't have the expertise to deal with it, it's a matter of a time.

That's correct. With the exception of like environmental review as I mentioned before.

Environmental review has to go to the outside agencies because you don't have anybody. Yes. Thank you.

Suda, any questions?

These are all layman questions. Can you guys hear me okay? So this is just essentially basic rezoning from one to the other. Right? And I was looking at it, and it was a church at first, and then it became a community college. But the zoning is residential on it.

I believe and maybe you can confirm. I believe that it's because Central Washington University is a school. Schools are allowed in zones. So this change will allow just a much more wide variety of things that we could do with the building besides educational purposes.

Because I remember they were renting that their auditorium at CW for parties, pretty much. So I thought it was not residential zoned. Okay.

I think that and I'm not the expert, but originally, was a church, and it's pretty common that churches are built in residential neighborhoods. So they're left as a residential zone. And I suspect it just never got changed. So now we're talking about considering that.

Now I have a silly question. So why do we have to go on a docket? Can't you just submit an application for rezoning as a city to yourself?

So it's a two part process. So we have to update the comp plans map first because that's our overarching plan. So that's what this is for. And then once if that gets approved by council, they say they want to change the future land use map, then there's a subsequent step where it would go through the current zoning to change it from residential to community business or something else.

Thank you.

Mike, I can't see you, but did you have anything?

I was just about to raise my hand. Hey, this is I guess this builds a little bit on Anjay's question, and it has to do with timing and prioritization. So and this is two parts. So the first part is because of the workload next year, which I can imagine work being done around the plan for town center and, you know, a number of other things. If this is docketed and it becomes therefore part of the work plan, but later in the year, in 2026, it appears that there are other priorities. Shifting that into 2027 would certainly be doable. Is that is that correct?

Yeah. That's correct. So, you know, oftentimes, we can't get to a docket item right away, or we need an extension because the work just hasn't aligned like for example with the TMP and the docket request that we had from the prior year. So we know we're going to come back to make updates to the comprehensive plan based on updates to the TMP that will be done. Those are not ready yet. So those will happen in 2026, even though initially we thought they'd be done in '20 So it just depends where work is at. It depends what our workload is, but items will carry over.

And then the second one is about, also in a way, about the timing. I know the Y uses that space. There's some thought about using it for youth centers and so forth. If this isn't docketed, does it inhibit use of the space in these kinds of ways that people are either using it or thinking about using it?

That is a very good question. I don't have enough information or knowledge to answer that, but we can certainly follow-up with the Planning Commission with an answer.

Okay. Yeah. And it surely would if there would be a bigger change than that, like using that for some space for low income housing or something like that, emergency housing. Right? That would be a very different thing that we would need to have the permitting done for.

Was that it, Mike?

Yeah. Well, that's that's all that I had. So Okay. Thanks for thanks for recognizing you, Mike.

I have just one, kind of for the public record question. Is there any plan behind this to do anything with the property or is this just a appropriate practice to rezone it so that in the future, so there's no like, again for the public record, no plan to sell it, no plan to do something else, there's no secret plan going on. This is just a matter of rezoning it to something appropriate.

As far as I am aware, this is just to rezone it so that it's appropriate and to allow a more further conversation with the community about what makes the most sense to go

there. Great.

I was on the impression based on conversation that I heard from with the city council is that there is a proposed change. The proposed change should make the place available as a community center. And you're saying that there is no

Well, but I'm

me I'm not privy to that information, but it's not to say it hasn't been discussed.

Just A

lot of discussion. I have

not been told. But I think, let's be clear here. The zoning has to do with if someone wanted to tear the building down, if someone wanted to change the property much more than if somebody wants to have a party there. So I think that that's one of the things that in moving this forward to the docket, will expect to see, you all will expect to see as part of the discussion next year is what does rezoning it actually mean and what could happen and that's where the debate should come in is what could somebody do if we rezone it. I very much doubt that in the meantime, someone using it for something unless there's some kind of complaint obviously is probably not going to be affected.

So I would hate to see the building set empty and not be used for good and higher purposes in the community just because of the zoning and I don't

think that that would happen.

I have also another question. This has to do with the 21 acre property. So when you look at a given zone in an urban area, it's more than one property. So when you go through this change, would that affect the entire zone and would affect that particular property?

It's just for that particular property.

And the second question, back to kind of Ajay's question. So are we saying that in a if the council approves this on November 18, then you have two items potentially to deal with it in 2026? One is a town center plus this?

There's a lot more than two.

But No. No. As far as the docket items.

Yeah. Well, the town center is not a docket item.

Oh, they're not?

That's been withdrawn. Yeah.

So

Well, that's withdrawn for 2025, but it's not withdrawn for 2026.

The Town Center Text Amendment, that's been withdrawn for this year. So we may bring it back and submit it again for next year, so in the 2627. But at this time, we're not moving forward with that because we want to focus on the work to actually create the draft Town Center plan and get that adopted before we go and say, we are going to make any changes.

I'm a little bit confused. Are we looking at the completion of the town center item to be going to the 2027 or 2026?

So there's two different things. So the town center work, the update to the drafts town center plan and the development regulations will still be moving forward. Those are not docket items. There was also a request that was a docket item relating to kind of implementation of the town center plan and development regulations. However, we wrote through that because the timing doesn't align. Right? They're not gonna be adopted in '25. They're gonna be adopted in '26, hopefully. So we wanna wait for that work to happen, and then we will

likely

submit another text amendment to allow us to make changes if we see that implementation of the updated

And that would be potentially in 2027?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Appreciate

it. Anything else for Jackie or Miriam or Evan? Okay. Thank you. So I'm gonna open public hearing for anybody who would like to make comments about this docket item And I'll say welcome to John Bachman who's joining us. Okay, I'm gonna open the public hearing. Would anyone like to make comments about this docket item? Go ahead.

Good evening. I'm Debbie Treen and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have it actually is a little confusing because it was my understanding that comprehensive plan amendments for next year were kind of broadly captured in the August 5 deadline, but apparently they aren't since they haven't shown up. But I'm gonna give you my testimony on it anyway for future reference. I believe there's an error in our comprehensive plan where it established a goal of becoming an urban growth center as defined by King County.

And I wanna point out some of the criteria that's required to do that, and one is there must be market potential with evidence supported by studies of future market potential to support the planned growth. This relates to the town center and given that we are now being told that with 2,000 units, we cannot create the kind of town center that we wanted to create and that is what is in the current comprehensive plan, we do not meet that criteria to become an urban growth center. In addition, the size centers are typically a minimum of 320 acres unless they already have high capacity transit which we don't. Transit center must be a major transit hub with existing or planned high capacity transit service like light rail, commuter rail, or ferries with all day service frequent. We don't meet that criteria.

I'm not gonna go through all the criteria, but if you look at the King County planning policies, an urban growth center for Sammamish would never be approved by the g m p c or the puget sound regional council I would like to see that removed from our comprehensive plan and any reference to it. Thank you.

Thanks Debbie. Anybody else? Is there anyone online? Learned my lesson that time. Oh are you gonna go Paul?

Yeah. Okay.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners. Paul Stickney Sammamish. I actually support adding a Town Center text amendment to the docket. I'll explain why in just a second. But first, five k is okay.

So adding 5,000 internal market rate housing target to the comp plan to meet alongside 2,100 affordable housing is only 5,000, and that's okay for the city. It's not too much. It's less than 70% of what we need on the lowest threshold and would enable a host of the beneficial effects extraordinaire to allow up to 5,000 of our households stay in Sammamish over twenty years as their housing needs change over time. Now, as to the town center text amendment, we did a transportation master plan and had immediately following up on it a text amendment. There can be a lot of things that come up during a plan, so it might be wise to have a text amendment whether it is needed or not.

The Town Center is forecast to be done in 2026. Having a town center text amendment docket could be used later that year, could be used the next year, could be used the year after that because dockets don't expire. I see only upsides to having it rather than downsides. And what happens if ultimately the county decide or the city says, well, we don't need that? Then they just make a official motion on the dais and it all goes away.

So I don't see any downside to it. Mary Wichter and I sat through two sets of docket changes in I believe it's 21A or 24A. Can't recall the code section, but we know it inside and out as far as the thing, and it's they're hard to get docket items started, and in this case, I don't see any negative reason for having it. It would give the chance to change something if something was overlooked. For example, I agree with Debbie Treen's comment on not having a regional growth center in the comp plan. I read that plan over and over. I never saw that. I don't know what was wrong with me. I never saw it. It wasn't talked about.

But that's an example of a change that may come up something in the Town Centre plan. And lastly, you guys are going to be talking about a North Star for Town Centre and getting things right. I suggest a four legged stool where you use rigorous, conscientious and heartfelt approaches to transportation, housing, finance and other holistic material effects. So two things. It's okay to five ks in the comp plan for internal market rate housing and add the town center docket item is my recommendation. Appreciate the chance to speak.

Okay. Thanks Paul. Lina do we have anybody online?

No commenters in line.

See I checked that time. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing. Would someone like to please make a motion that we can and second that so then we can have any discussion we wanna have? And they're up on the screen. They're also in the packet right here. Or you can make one up of your own if you like.

Okay. So I move on option one. Move to recommend the city council dockets. The 2026 docket request as shown in the October and 2025 agenda packet. Second.

Okay. It's been moved in and it's seconded that we recommend the city council the docket item. Any discussion or conversation?

Okay. I made the motion, but I do have a question for Evan. So is Paul's comment of not withdrawing the town center from the docket? His assertion was there was no upside and no downside. Do you care to comment on that?

Thanks, Miriam.

Guys can do rock paper scissors. Yes. I mean,

I guess I agree with what he says. There's no upside, there's no downside. But it's kind of a it creates a work process. And if we don't need to do it this year, then why do it? If we need to make changes to the Town Center plan next year, we'll be working on it next year. So let's just do it as part of that process instead of creating another one.

I agree with Evan. I think I would just add it also creates a little bit of confusion as we saw it here. Right? We have the Town Center process going forward. And it just, I think, simplifies it to keep it delineated.

Plus if we are limited on staff availability for one item, then we're even more limited on two items. Yep. Anybody else? Okay. I'm gonna take a vote on the motion. It's been moved and seconded that we recommend this docket item as shown in the packet to the city council. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. You. I'll call that unanimous. Okay. Thanks everybody. Don't do as many public hearings these days, so sometimes it takes a minute for me to remember what we're doing.

Now we're going to switch our old business item, which is we talked about a couple weeks ago, review of the red line code edits that Avril is gonna talk about from SMC title 21 if the technology can cooperate. Sorry. I'm not in

the background.

Don't worry. The camera I'm sure the camera was on me.

Hello again. Avril Bighetti, current planning and permit center manager in the Department of Community Development. And this mic is on the wrong side. I return to you after two weeks with some initial drafted red lines to minor changes to title 21. I'm sure you all were very riveted by our last discussion.

Just as a a point of information, the agenda bill listed 10 items. This presentation is also 10 items, so nothing was added or subtracted. However, the only minor change in order was adding the 3,000 square foot discussion to the last slide because I know that's the one that that, has the most discussion to be had. So we'll get going. Here we go.

So the plot certificates that we had discussed, simple code change, just redline that section. We love using the word reserved so that way we don't have to renumber everything else. If there is no objections, we'll go the next one. Great. So this was the cottage housing definition.

Since we don't have a definition currently, we were looking to create one based on a recent director's code interpretation where it would be a 1,500 square foot maximum unless additional limitations apply. And this is referencing the density bonus for cottage housing in the R 1 slash middle housing overlay one where you can do more cottage homes, and they are smaller in square footage depending 900 or 1,200 square feet, depending on how many you are looking to do. So other outside of that, this would just be the 1,500 square foot. This is what was within the sort of a regional average and would also not trigger the inclusionary affordable housing calculations. So we felt like this was a good balance.

If you would like a larger or smaller number, I will happily edit this text accordingly. Go

ahead, Ajay.

Yeah. Thanks, chair. I have one question on this. The 1,500 is the built up area for the dwelling. Right?

Correct. It's the it's the size of the living space.

Size of the living space.

So a garage would not count.

Exactly. So should we want to add that definition? Because this are talking of definitions. Should we add that definition into that?

I can happily easily add a little sentence segment that says this does not include any garage or other uninhabitable space.

I was only aiming for a clause, but I'll take a sentence any day. Thank you.

Was this a subject of extensive discussion at the last planning commission as far as setting the the 1,500 and there are a lot of discussions about do we need to identify that and make

needed to have a number because as of today

person that was very strongly opposed to that is not here tonight. Hisham was the one that he brought.

I think Hisham's the one we're gonna get to yet was the one that Hisham's It's not this one. No.

It's the last one that he was Yeah. Had the most feelings about.

We're getting there.

Yeah. We'll get there. But I will add, number two.

I would just add as a comment that I think 1500 is a good place to start.

Yeah.

It seems appropriate, and it can always be adjusted later if it turns out there's something we've missed.

And also, if the if there's ever modifications to the inclusionary housing regulations where that square footage number change, it would be appropriate to change this simultaneously. Thank you. Next. For our definition of accessory dwelling unit, this was also based on a recent director's code interpretation where we just wanted to clarify that an ADU, while it can be connected to a primary residence, you can have internal connections if you like, but it also does need to have its own entrance so that it can be separate living from the primary dwelling unit. So we just wanted to augment this definition a little bit.

That's good.

Okay. Great. Thank you. So under the zoning the the zoning reclassification regulations, we had discussed the difference between an area wide rezone versus the these quasi judicial rezonings. And the quasi judicial rezonings are meant to be small in scale.

It's for, homeowners or applications we have now where it's a group of homeowners who are working together to up zone their properties. And so we are clarifying that if you are not meeting the criteria for a quasi judicial rezoning, you are an area wide rezoning. And so that differentiation just wasn't isn't in the code as of today. So we just wanna throw that in there. Any objections?

Great. Yes.

Back to the previous one. So from from this, what we are saying is that if it is not the strict smaller definition, then by default it's the larger definition.

Correct. They don't have to go through the docket

Because the process. Okay. Got it. Now I get it. Thanks.

Okay. For unit lots, which are to allow alternative subdivision of land under the middle housing regulations, We wanted to take away this limitation that said that these unit lots could only allow one dwelling unit, which would prevent people from being able to have unit lots with duplexes or triplexes on them where those could be condos or other things. So it felt overly restrictive, and so we caught it and just wanted to, put that allowance in that was part of the intent with the middle housing regulations. And this would not change the way, because there's so many ways of doing either all rental units or all condos or whatever. It potentially would have zero impact on the actual built environment.

This is all just different schemes of ownership that are potentially available.

Can you explain what is a parent lot?

So under, the middle housing regulations, the idea is if you have a large, like, two acre lot and you've got your home on it, but you've got an acre and a half that's just growing weeds and you don't wanna do anything with it, but you've got grown adult children who wanna raise their families, and you wanna build, some middle housing to intensify your property. One option for allowing ownership within that larger parent lot is to do these get referred to also as, like, children lots. So you have a main parent lot that has the development standards for setbacks and whatnot apply. You have unit lots that can be smaller, sort of like divisions of land within, but it's not a traditional subdivision. So they can be condos or they could be townhouses or they can be some other type of smaller land ownership.

And then if there's a common lot within the parent lot, it would be maintained and operated by an HOA, a homeowners association, something like that. So it's just to provide some variation.

But what is what is definition land use definition of a parent lot?

So the the parent lot is the the larger lot.

How do you define that?

I don't remember. Could you Mister Fisher is going to So look up the definition early.

Okay. As long as he's doing that, I have a question. If I have a parent lot, just let's take your example, two acre lot out of which I have, I'm using half an acre for my primary residence and that becomes the parent lot. And there's one and a half and I want to decide to give it to some things and other things, does it mean that it doesn't the one and a half acres is no longer bound by the setback rules or anything like that?

Or So the parent lot is the full two acres. Oh. And if you if you carve out your piece for your original house, that's a that's gonna be a child lot, a unit lot within that parent lot.

So my even my when I had just one, that was a parent lot. But when I divide it, mine becomes a child lot too.

So so it depends because you could propose a variety of ways of subdividing your land. You could it it's almost like when you have when you're, you know, a kid and you're doing your coloring in your your coloring book, you can use a million different colors on, you know, a piece of paper. So so the idea is that if you wanted to do an initial short plat because you want your kids to have their own HOA and you don't wanna be a part of it, you could do an initial subdivision so that your lot with your half acre is a standalone. Yeah. And I don't have to deal with my children bickering because we all know how kids are.

And then then that one and a half acre could become a parent lot with unit lots within it. That's one route. The other route is the whole thing stays a parent lot and there are unit lots within it. You could also

suggestion here? Yes. An example of what we already have for unit lots or child lots is condominiums. So you've got a parcel of land with a building on it, and the building contains a bunch of child condominium. This is all assessor stuff that they have to track. So the same thing would happen with these That's absolutely one route.

So But this is subject to the zoning regulation. If the area you have a you you live in an area that you cannot subdivide your property.

This is so under if you're not allow if you don't have enough area to do a traditional subdivision under middle housing, if you are building a middle housing type, then you could potentially do a unit lot subdivision. So there could be ownership of those middle housing units.

Sayed, are you asking about the existing subdivisions that have Right.

Let's say that you have two acre property. If the city zoning regulation does not allow you to subdivide

Oh.

Then what is the definition of

that? If you have a two acre site that's zoned r four under regular zoning

four, I totally understand.

You'd be looking at r one.

Oh, so if it's r one, let's say it's R one, then you're looking at two acre site, two homes. However, under middle housing, you could have eight on within the two acres. So if you wanna do the eight under a milled middle housing type of structure, then you could do this unit lot subdivision. So there could be separate ownerships of those units within the parent lot.

This is assuming that you're rezoning from r one to r four?

No. This is this is the middle housing overlay. The middle housing overlay one, m h o one, applies to the R 1 zoning district. And so that middle housing overlay allows up to four middle housing units.

Sorry. Too many questions in my head. I'm gonna ask one question. And I can hear commissioner Hisham going in my voice saying, it's their right, why the hell are we interfering with this thing? But be that as it may, I'm gonna ask this question anyway. If I had a two acre lot and I then So then my unit is the only one that's there. Then that becomes what we are calling here as the parent log that is there.

The overall two acres.

The overall

two Then

I say, okay, I'm gonna take just the half acre that I'm using and I'm gonna give the three a three one and a half acres left to my three kids who are, like you said, bickering. And one of them decides, I'm gonna build something over here. I'm gonna build a a an r two over here and I'm gonna get something done over here. The remaining two say, no, I wanna just keep it as as wasteland and I'll decide what I want to do at a later point in time. From this definition, it looks like they will go through a unit lot subdivision process and this will go step by step.

Right? One lot which is my lot, one lot which is one of the kids who says yes to it and the remaining two don't come up yet, but will come up at some other point of time as a unit lot subdivision process. Aren't we inviting so much work for ourselves by trying to define it like this?

Not necessarily because with any land use application, it has to be signed by the property owner. So whomever's owning the property has to sign the application for it to even come in. And so the kids would have to decide whatever it is that conforms to our middle housing regulations. So they can't just do whatever they want. It has to conform. And and so those middle housing regulations, while they allowed that infill of density, but it's a smaller unit type. It's the cottage homes, the duplexes, the triplexes. So it's not the regular standard 3,000, 4,000 square foot home that you see in Sammamish. Shall we go?

Mike, did you have anything on this one?

Yeah, I was just about to raise my hand again. So this is for clarification. Evorot, So you've been mentioning about the middle housing. So is it correct to say that to get to a unit to follow the unit lot subdivision process, we would be applying the middle housing overlay.

Correct. This would only apply to middle housing development.

Yep. And so here's a suggestion. The parent lot thing is, I'm not sure, actually helps the definition. It might. But if I rewrite this to say a subdivided lot approved through the unit lot subdivision process as it apply or something like as it applies to the middle housing overlay might be helpful in clarifying some of the discussions that we've been having.

I recognize that there would be the parent lot, but that's kind of part and parcel to the unit lot subdivision process anyways. And I'm not sure that the parent lot piece here necessarily helps. It's just that we've got a a unit locked in by definition, it has gone through this subdivision process that's needed or enabled or whatever because of middle housing. So, again, I think it would be beneficial to have a clause at the end of this that refers to the middle housing overlay. It's applying a sub middle housing overlay and maybe delete the parent lot from the definition, although I I could go either way on that one.

But otherwise, I think that's this is really focused on the definition and and just being really clear about what this means to, you know, readers who are not listening to all of this discussion that we're having.

Can I just not to get too deep into the wordsmithing, but you could almost just say through the middle housing overlay unit lot subdivision process, and that might be enough for people to understand that that's really only where this applies?

Something like that.

Yeah. I can we'll add something to make that reference to make it really clear that this is when it applies. Yeah. Then we can have that for December 4? Yes. Yes.

And did you did

you find the definition? What was that? I didn't I didn't see anything codified in the SMC, but just a general Google parent lot definition is the original larger parcel of land that is subdivided into smaller unit lots, and might know exactly where in the SMC that definition exists. Oh, yeah. Lot comma parent. She's good, folks. A lot which is

Twenty five years of experience right here.

A lot which is subdivided into unit lots through the unit lot subdivision process.

Okay. I agree with my commissioner Mike's suggestions, but I would leave the parent lot there because if not, people might think like, oh, it's rezoning or something different, but definitely have the middle housing layer.

So when we bring back more honed language for you all, you can see if you like it and then you can make additional tweaks. Okay.

Just one last comment for any viewers, and I'm not suggesting this get added to the language, but the middle housing overlay process can only be applied to about 20%, maybe 25% of lots in Sammamish due to restrictions in subdivisions that already exist.

Next item. This was the one where we wanted to remove some conflicting language regarding a public comment period. This is within the commercial site development permit section. We want to strike this section and just reference or utilize the part that already exists in our administrative section that has a twenty one day comment period. Any objections?

Great. This is the language regarding the term of validity for a land use entitlement. So we wanted to create a little bit more flexibility so that a permit, a land use approval stays entitled and is in place and valid. And usually this is a two year period Depending on the permit, it might be up to five years. But that it would only require that a complete building permit submittal be be provided to the city to keep it alive.

And I've worked on a couple of church projects that have required conditional use permits for expansions or whatever, and it was really hard for them to get their building permits in middle in time because they had to do fundraising. And so this sort of change helps with those sort of projects as well as any reasonable use exception or other conditional use permits that exist. Just funding seems to be harder and harder for applicants to get. So a little flexibility. Any objections or comments or thoughts? Mike, anything? Okay.

Maybe a word tweak to have of all, of complete. Just once you take out the red stripes Oh. Do a double check on how it reads.

Yes. Thank you. Let me scribble that down. Thank you. Alright. So substantial shoreline sorry. Shoreline substantial development permits are currently a type four land use decision that are decided by the hearing examiner and appealable to the Shoreline's hearings board. We just wanna make it a change to revert it back to being a type two land use decision. It was before then the trail came through. It got changed.

Now we have all of these dock permits going through a lot of process for something that has to meet a ton of criteria anyways. So we would like to revert it back to a type two. If there's ever a need in the future, we might change it again. But in the meantime, there doesn't seem to have that that need. Any any objections?

Seeing none. So the new number nine is to allow more streamlining of building permit reviews that are related to lands that are being subdivided. Right now, building permit applications cannot be submitted until a final plat has been recorded, which means the lots then exist, and they are they are separate fee title pieces of dirt. Removal of this section would allow a building permit submittal to be accepted by the city so that there could be concurrent review of the building permit application while the site work was being completed through the site development permit as well as review of the final plot. We would not be able to issue permits until that final plot is recorded, but this just allows some streamlining and which also means that construction on the homes can start sooner and the site's not sort of sitting there without much progress towards the end of the site work.

So this only means that the review is going to be concurrent?

Correct.

The construction of the unit that you were talking about still is dependent on the final approval anyway a process that we were going through. This just this just makes one of them concurrent so that it can get to that faster.

Right. And that concurrency is just happening at the end of an overall longer process.

Got it.

Yep.

Any objections? Okay. We're on to your favorite one. This is the the 3,000 square foot footprint. It applies to all buildings in all residential zoning districts.

The initial concept was due to conversations and applications that we've been reviewing with property owners. We wanted to allow some sort of relief. So the initial thought was, oh, we should allow a one time 300 square foot expansion for these homes that are otherwise legal nonconforming. They were built prior to this regulation being in place. But also make sure it doesn't apply we didn't throw in an out for schools and other civic uses.

So that was the initial thought. But then after the robust discussion that we had a couple of weeks ago, we were giving it some more thought. So then the other option that we were trying to consider given that the footprint limitation was put in place because all the rules have to apply to all single family as well as middle housing projects. So if the concern is that the footprint would result in these large buildings that by reducing the footprint, you'd have smaller buildings. However, what's on the Ground Floor, that first Floor of development generally isn't going to have a significant impact on any of their neighbors.

Most people don't mind a single story house being built next door to them. So considering that while still trying to keep the intent of the volume limitations, we drafted some language to try to to not regulate the Ground Floor and the 1st Floor and only look at that same massing for the 2nd And 3rd Floors. So the idea is that those floors would stick to a 3,000 square foot maximum, but the Ground floor would not have a limitation. So this was this was our stab at trying to have a regulation to that effect. If you I would love some feedback.

Is this clear? Is this We were also trying to make sure that someone wasn't going to build a 40 square foot single story home that was 8,000 square feet and then come back and then like fill it in because that would have like defeated the purpose of it to begin with. So we wanted to have some sort of height limit. So 24 feet for a single story home, if you've got a pitched roof to a peak is pretty standard. So that's why we threw that in there. But we'd love some feedback.

Okay. Let's start with a couple of definition. Floor plates.

What is

it? Yes. So we're trying to get at what point above grade.

Why don't you say ground level? Everybody understands ground level, but they don't understand.

So we're trying to figure out how do we define like what what is a floor plate? At what point does the floor plate start getting regulated?

But first, what what is floorplate?

Oh, sorry. A floorplate, it it's a construction term where you have if you have a multiple story structure, the floor plate is where the floor joist hit the the structure, and it's the connecting membrane or where the point loads get carried down through the wall. So it's usually, like a certain amount of strapping and a certain amount of bracing and whatnot. And so there's considered it's considered a floor plate because usually there's, like, metal brackets to tie all of the lumber together.

Is it a physical separation of one floor to the other?

Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's a very sort of clear point

in And what is the definition of volume?

So

this is where

What is the volume? Is it because this is we have to quantify this.

Right. Right. So this is where if someone wanted a 4,000 square foot footprint and they wanted all of their ceilings to be 20 feet tall or or, say, 25 feet tall. That's a very large volume. And so trying to figure out where's the cutoff.

The volume compares to air?

Usually, the volume is like so if you imagine like a house as a balloon. Right? Like, that whole thing is the volume of the house. So this and please please bear with me. This was usually, these things are are better crowdsourced, which is why we're here. Trying to figure out, is it floor plate, which is that connection of the wall where the floor hits it, or does it need to be by volume? Does it need to be within a certain height? Like and then once you're above 20 feet in height or 24 feet in height, then anything there has to be in a plane above the ground has to be limited to 3,000 square feet.

Why do we care as long as the applicant meets the requirement as far as the building heights?

Well, so then that would be getting rid of this altogether. So the idea is that we would limit.

Why do you want to put a limit?

Because we need to have all the regulations apply to both single family and middle housing. So if we don't want it to apply to middle housing

So we have this definition of volume

This would apply to all buildings. Right.

So we have the volume definition in r one zone?

We don't. This is this is a brand new attempt at something.

So tomorrow if I build an r one

Mhmm.

I will have to follow this rule.

Well, nothing's been adopted yet.

I mean, let's assume the adoption is done. Let's assume it's done and I want to build an R1 and he wants to build an R4, then we both will have to

the same regulation that applies to all of them. Right.

But if before this adoption, I want to build an R one, who wants to build an R four, I am not bound by this.

No, everybody everybody's limited to the 3,000 square foot footprint regardless of zoning district.

Right now.

Right now. Right now. Today. So

maybe I'm confused. Can we go back to our original conversation we had earlier, which is occupiable floor space at grade level? I mean I realize there can be you know, some people often build houses that have multiple step up and step down but that's still at grade level. But then try to use terms like floor plate or footprint or can we just say occupiable space at the entry floor or something like that?

So we we could say maximum square footage at any floor above the ground floor. This is where I sort of get some paralysis by analysis because I have reviewed so many plans for homes. And when you have topography and steep slopes and and and people are trying to terrace homes within a landscape, You might have a home with four levels, but it's not a four story home. It's there may not be Staggered. Right.

It's staggered. It's tiered. It's terraced. So at what point if if they're all at grade, but it's terraced, is the if the whole thing is ground floor, then there wouldn't be a limitation, which could be fine. But then if you don't have I need help with this.

That's why I'm here. If if we're not concerned about someone doing a a 5,000 square foot footprint that's 30 feet tall, like, what single story, huge ceilings. Like Yeah. I was gonna that's not the concern or it is it that anything any ground floor, any volume above, you know, 20 feet above grade would then be limited. Something like that. I you know, to keep things tiered, to keep, you know, keep things stepped in.

Yeah. I think that the as David described it, the concern is about the excessive mass of some of these large houses. And so if we can find a way to craft language that allows a living space that's larger without creating that excessive mass, that's really what we're trying to find a balance to get to. And that's why I think, know, yes, you can have terraced homes, but still if that if in that terraced home it's still 3,000 feet per level

Mhmm.

Hold on because we consider one level to be the one they can expand and the rest of them are 3,000, that still seems like a pretty reasonable solution. And it's probably only one out of 50 or 100.

Maybe 1,000. Yeah.

But when we're talking about excessive mass, Mark, is that are we talking about a vertical or horizontal?

We're thinking more so volume

What I'm hearing mostly is vertical. You're not concerned about the horizontal side.

Right. So it's And the vertical

dictated by the by the building heights.

Right. So so generally, the finished floor of a second story is about 10 to 12 feet off the ground. Yeah. So so one option would be any portion of a building that is less than 15 feet from the ground would not have the limitation. That's one way of doing it. Or, you know, just whatever number you are comfortable with, whether it's 12 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet.

I'm still I'm still struggling to find out why are we putting that definition around it. If I were to have a house and I have a single floor, the the Ground Floor as we will call it or The Ground Floor as we call it over here. And I set it to the regulation that you have over here. And tomorrow I wake up and say, I'm going to create another floor and it's going to be a vaulted ceiling. And it's a vaulted ceiling like no other vaulted ceiling ever has been. And I do it. I'm still doing it on my land to my thing. What are we trying to solve here?

So it just has to be the same regulations apply to to everything. So

No. No. No. What I'm asking is that is there a is there is are we trying to resolve that, you know, you don't have this obnoxious displays?

I think what we're trying to solve is, let's say, in your scenario, you have a large 5,000 square foot ground floor home. Right. Right. And you've decided you want to build, as you described, wall to ceiling, two more stories on top of that.

Yeah.

And so all of a sudden, your neighbors are looking at a 5,000 square foot home that goes 45 feet Yeah. Into the air. That's what we're trying to prevent. We're trying to limit the amount of building that rises above its neighboring buildings. Okay. So The the place that we had originally landed was buildings would be 3,000 square feet at their kind of maximum spread, and then they can go vertically to whatever the the zoning allows.

Don't HOAs do that already? That kind of regulation?

The the which ones?

The HOAs. Don't they do that kind of regulation also?

HOA regulations are not the purview of the city. They're all different. I I don't know. I so they're all different.

What I'm saying is that they that

I'm

going to use a phrase that I'm sure I'm going to get into trouble forward. That obnoxious display of power that we show to say, I'm going to build that 45 foot vaulted ceiling or something like that is anyway being regulated in the city by HOAs which don't like to see a house which is very different from the current form of the house, houses that are there and their section. And at the same time, somebody who's not in an HOA is doing whatever they want anyway at this point in time. I'm I'm still struggling to understand this definition of trying to do this thing when there seemed to be some kind of a

Well, I think with the phase two development regulations, we created rules that really kind of limit the idea that you can do whatever you want on your property. Pre and we were trying to prevent more development that, you know, you get a big, big giant box of a house that goes right up to property lines and looms over its neighbors. So in phase two development regulations, we, you know, implemented, Florida area ratios that meant you could only cover so much of the lot. We had

Dynamic setbacks.

Dynamic setbacks and height restrictions. So this kind of builds on that concept of, like, we as a community decided that we don't want big, buildings plopped in the middle of our residential neighborhoods. And the concern is with middle housing and the densities you can achieve in some of those middle housing areas, which it could be up to our eight 18 units a lot, that somebody might build a walk up apartment complex, and it could be 5,000 square feet, and it could go up four stories, and now it's looming over all the neighbors. That's ultimately where we're trying to prevent. And HOA, whether HOA is allowed or not isn't kind of what we're talking about here. We're talking about

Got it. So we build that thing and we have one and somebody decides I'm going to build an R4, 5,000 square feet each and it's going to be this massive structure in the middle of another one which looks like a normal, a few which looks like normal R fours and suddenly now we have a huge R four that's standing in the middle of it. That is the obnoxious display, and that's what you're trying to stop from coming up.

And and and neighbors being concerned that within their neighborhoods, they would get not just like one the the concern wasn't you would have one big massive single family home, but you would have one big massive six plex or four plex or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. So to prevent that from happening as a Right.

Then I think what we're trying to discuss today is the idea that you could own let's say, go back to the two acre example we were talking about earlier, is you could own two acres and you could decide that you want to build a large family home for yourself, 5,000, 6,000 square feet. You've got the area the floor to area ratio that you can do that. Previously, under the current rule set that says, well, you can't actually build that five, six thousand square feet. It has to be limited to 3,000 square feet. You can go up if you want, but the the the total base floor plan can exceed Yeah.

Five And I think what the commission was concerned about last time was that doesn't seem fair. You know, I'm a landowner. I can afford I have the space to do it. I can afford to build a bigger home. We wanna do that. So what this option is trying to create is for, you know, those reasonable one, two story height limits, spread it out. Do what you want. But if you're gonna go go taller than that, we say Bring it narrow. Yeah. Let's let's confine the box so it doesn't get too large in scale.

Got it.

So my question was, again, I'm kind of bringing it up again. This is where you have the building heights. Why the building heights regulation between a between that and FAR is not sufficient that you have to go through and identify this issue and be concerned about?

So cities, Sammamish included, have multiple points of control over development, whether it's height, flowery ratio, a limit of impervious surface and hardscape, footprint, setbacks. So having this this whole set of rules is very common. And so so one option or I guess of of the options tonight, you know, the the first being small, the the 300 square foot or some small one time thing, just to grant a little bit of relief, trying to figure out something to deregulate the ground floor in one way or another. If the Planning Commission feels that this 3,000 square feet overall is too much or is overreach or whatever, then one option is propose a code change for now, but then also provide a recommendation to city council of this is a bigger policy issue that we want to address. So that's another way of of trying to bring up this issue for the city as a whole to discuss versus me just trying to do some minor code changes.

How often you come across these issues when you're dealing with the property owners that are coming?

Daily. I mean, this one this one every couple of weeks. But of these issues, I there's always something every day that requires a clarification where we wish something was written a little bit clear or we find a gap, or whatever. It's it's daily.

So a suggestion here, thinking sort of in a more positive light, that you state, and you guys are wordsmith experts, there's no size, no floor port, no square footage restriction on a single family, single story house, and then build on top of that. So Mark's

I'm getting

a I don't think you can use single family because it would

Oh, okay. Well, okay. Single story. And then as you go up, look at the square footage restrictions. The wedding cake that we talked about probably a year ago, and I have two of those box houses on my street now.

They're just square boxes. So using height restrictions and no restrictions on the ground floor. So it's really clear in the code because that's not clear here that, you know, if you want 9,000 square feet and you can meet all the other regulations and you have enough land, go for it. But when you start to go up, there are restrictions. And I guess question is, if we built it that way, will that also meet the requirement of making it the same for all the other housing types, then we need to little more positive than negative, I guess.

One other idea, thinking out loud, which I usually fail at. What if we said use the existing regulation? So quite a bit differently, say the existing use the existing regulation, 3,000 square feet, you know, yada yada, except for a single level house? So in other words, you

I don't think we can regulate the use. So so it would just be any building. It has to be any building. Yeah.

But if you said ex accepting a single level structure.

Right. So it could be it could be

But we would still have the 3,000 square foot limit for anything that's above a single level. But if you're just building single level.

Maximum floor area for floors above the ground floor. And that and that way, if you have a finished floor above a ground floor, that has to be Okay.

Yeah.

And then and then I would take out the second sentence of of the footnote 11 because we would keep the exemption for schools and civic buildings.

Where is the 24 feet coming from?

That

was So that is if you have a single story building, a single story home having a pitched roof, a peak of 24 feet is is pretty tall and is very common. So that would encompass most single family, single story homes.

So typically,

a floor is about, what, eleven, eleven ten, 11 foot? I don't know the number. So A two story that we're 22 feet. So the pitch roof is only give you two feet of a pitch roof.

So this would be so for a single story home, if you're looking at your walls, so if you think inside your house, tall ceilings can be anywhere from nine to 12 feet. Mhmm. That's a tall ceiling inside. So if you think at the tallest 12 feet, then at your walls at the outside, then usually homes aren't so big that they can't span up to a peak that's at 24 feet. And that that slope is easy enough to, you know, have a proper roofing material, shed the water, da da da da da, and it's a normal size design typical. This assumes

this assumes property of a house of one floor, not not the

second floor. Correct. This would be for one floor.

Exactly my point. If it is two floors, then 24 would not worry.

24 well, we've got lots of these, like, boxy homes with really shallow, flat ish roofs where it rains a lot. But yes. So someone could shoehorn in two stories within 24 feet. I wouldn't recommend it. But to a peak, 24 feet for a single story home would work.

Yeah. That's why I kind of think that we may be getting to trying to do too much anticipating.

Yeah. Should just

be one floor.

Okay. So I'll take out

What do you want on one floor as long as it complies with the rest of the regulations. But if you go anything other than one floor, now you get to go back to that.

So I'll I'll take out the second sentence. I appreciate that feedback. And and we'll just simplify that it's the maximum floor area for any floor above the ground floor.

What does other cities have? Like, do you know? Like

I don't did you do you Maybe that would help us with the word bench. None that I know of.

We can do a little digging around in the meantime and Yeah. See if I'm kinda curious.

Yeah. Because it would give you a good idea. Yeah. Okay.

I'm only guessing it may be somewhat of a new issue because of the requirement to apply both to middle housing and

And, yeah.

Non middle housing to regular. Whereas in the past, know, the way we did it is we created all these volume restrictions and setbacks and all this kind of stuff. And now that all becomes very difficult to apply to middle housing. So this may be somewhat of a new thing.

Yeah. Other cities might approach it using floor area ratio to limit the overall volume.

It would be interesting to see what city city of Seattle has because

Oh, I doubt they have anything Yeah. Like Yeah.

They would be totally

They're on the other end of the spectrum from us. So does that sound okay for now?

So we won't have any floor plate.

I'll take that floor plate, I promise. Got it. Yeah.

I was struggling to put it in my head. So

I'm happy to let that go.

We get too much in our own heads sometimes. I would having, you know, clearer perspectives are greatly appreciated. So thank you so much.

So how we live in this? We live in adoption too, and you wanted our position on

I wanted I wanted feedback on, like, you're reading this, you're like, what is going on here? Like, I need that to help me clarify the language. So this way, I'll take all this feedback. We'll we'll clarify it. So that way, when we come back on December 4 for the public hearing, hopefully, it's nice and clean and doesn't cause brain damage, and you guys are all comfortable.

So with

all this conversation and discussion and exploration and all that, what do you want us to do? You want us to support option two? Or you

Do you want to support option two?

Well, I'm asking. I'm asking I think generally

don't care.

Care deeply. I just want a regulation that I can apply across the board.

I liked option two.

Okay.

For

With the deletion of them.

With the deletion of the Okay. The floor plate definitely caught into my head and I could not get it out. So with that removal, I think option two reads really well. It's easy to understand. Okay. Yeah. It has a good definition for it.

I was working on building leases this week for my company, so floor plate is okay involved.

Be like a gratuitous floor plate in there. Okay.

Is that it?

Mike, you have anything?

I was listening intently, and I thought you all were doing great. Hey. One quick thing, Alvaro. When you come in with any revision, if it's relatively easy and you think it would help illustrate how the regulation would apply, if you were to take, like, one or two real life examples that you've seen and share those and how how we would, you know, apply the code to those examples. Absolutely. You you gave a couple, like, what ifs, you know, just at the, you know, sort of the top of your head. But there's there's some others that you probably have run into. So it may be helpful to help nail this thing down next time we see you.

So just as as reference, the we provided a couple of, like, rough examples from last time of two projects that couldn't move forward. Those were both ground floor expansions that they were looking to do. That would this option two would allow for both of those to move forward. Just FYI.

Okay. Thanks. That's all.

Anything else from anyone? Thank you, everyone.

Any other questions? No? Thank you.

Okay. That's about it for this evening. What else, Evan?

Nothing else from us.

Hey. You wanna mention the revised deadline Yeah. The traffic comments Yep. Which is tomorrow?

Friday. Yeah. It's already Friday. Tomorrow's Friday. Please take a second, read through the email, and use the job form to submit your top three traffic related questions for the SEIS in preparation for the November 20 traffic presentation by the public works team. So

So in my case in my case, since I have sent two and a half pages of question, would that be adequate? We got yours.

See I just took mine and condensed them into three paragraphs. Okay. Anything else from anyone? If not, someone can move to adjourn.

Move. I have seconded.

It's moving seconded. Adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Thank you everyone. Have a

nice evening. Thank you.