Planning and Community Development Committee - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Snohomish County Council Planning and Community Development Committee. It is Tuesday, July 21st. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. We'll be taking public comment, beginning with in person and then remotely. On Zoom, you can click the hand icon to raise your hand. If calling by phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand. And then when called upon, press star six to unmute. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak. And please begin your comment with your name and city of residence. Next is roll call.

Committee Chair Nehring.

Here.

Committee Vice Chair Peterson.

I am here.

Committee member Lowe?

Present.

Committee member Dunn? Here. Committee member Mead?

Here.

Chair, we have five members present.

Great, thank you. Do we have anybody who would like to provide public comment this morning? Anybody in person? Hands on line?

No hands raised.

Okay, then we'll move on to our action items, beginning with motion 26-265.

Thank you. Good morning, council members. For the record, Jim Martin, council staff. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife was awarded by the United States Corps of Engineers a grant for the purpose of restoring the ecosystem in Spencer Island, which Snohomish County owns a southern half. Snohomish County is considering participating in and entering into the core projects partnership agreement as a third party non-federal sponsor, which includes a preliminary requirement being completion of non-federal sponsors self-certification of financial capability and non-federal sponsors self-certification of financial capability for decision forms. This motion authorizes the county executive to sign the forms to move to GLS on July 22nd for consideration.

Great, thank you, Jim. Any questions or comments from council members? Any objection to consent? Okay, then I'll move this item to GLS on July 22nd for consideration on the consent agenda. Next is motion 26-267.

RFP number 26-0660JM was advertised for the purpose of providing ticketing, point of sale, and gate access system for the Evergreen State Fair Park for 2026 through 2030. There were 10 proposals received, and the evaluation committee scored all proposers. eTix Incorporated was the highest-evaluated company and chosen as the top proposer and awarded the bid. Scope of work includes providing a point-of-sale system, credential printers, wireless access control scanning devices, a web-based e-ticketing system accessible online year-round, and phone sales of tickets on behalf of the county. Duration of the agreement is from execution through December 31, 2030, with compensation set at a maximum of $5,000 plus a per-ticket fee. Requested action is to move to GLS on July 22 for consideration.

All right. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it. Any questions or comments from council members? Any objection to consent? All right. I'll move this item to GLS on July 22nd for consideration on the consent agenda. Next is motion 26-285.

Snohomish County is planning to restore a publicly owned property between Eby Slough and Phobes Hill, formerly referred to as Dyking District No. 6. This approximately 430-acre property is now called Chinook Marsh. This project proposes to restore tidal habitat by reconnecting Eby Slough to its natural floodplains. This work includes the development of preliminary designs, final designs and permitting, and construction support for the project through 2030. Natural Systems Design Incorporated will provide management services, including regular status updates to the county via email or by phone. NSD will coordinate all team sub-consultants and manage team schedule and budget review and approval of monthly sub-consultant invoices. Project management will also include developing and maintaining a risk register to identify, evaluate, and track risk specifically related to constructability, budget schedule, and permitting. Rest of the action is to move to GLS on July 22nd for consideration.

All right. Thank you, Jim. Questions or comments on this item? Any objection to consent? All right. We'll move motion 26-285 to GLS on the 22nd for consideration on the consent agenda. Our last action item is motion 26-286.

The Cross Valley Water District has prepared and submitted an amendment to their 2022 water system plan. The 2025 wellhead protection plan was submitted on June 8, 2026 and has been reviewed by the county engineer and planning and development services. Both have found the amendment to be consistent with the county's adopted GMA comprehensive plan as per RCW 57.02.040. The requested action is to move this motion to GLS on August 12, 2026 for consideration. I believe Terry Strandberg from PDS was going to be online and have a quick summary of the project. Check and see if she's... She was and then she wasn't and

sure if she is now okay um while we're waiting to check any initial questions or comments from council hello this is terry strandberg can you hear me there she is yes we can

Okay. Good morning. Terry Strandberg with Planning and Development Services. Cross Valley Water District is located in unincorporated county east of Bothell, north of Woodinville in the Little Bear Creek watershed and includes the communities of Maltby, Clearview, Cathcart, Lowell-Larimer, and the unincorporated area east of Snohomish. They serve 20,000 customers with over 7,000 connections and are considered a Group A water system by the State Department of Health. Under state law, all Group A water systems must prepare coordinated water system plans that are consistent with the county's comprehensive plan. They use our population and growth forecasts as well as our land use plan to determine where and how much and how big system improvements would need to be. And they prepare a capital improvement plan based on these forecasts from the county. A required element in this water system plan is to include a wellhead protection plan for all Group A water systems relying on groundwater to serve their customers. Cross Valley uses 11 groundwater wells to supply some of their customers in the southern portion of their district. The wells are located near Highway 522 with an additional well cluster further east above the Snohomish River Valley and near the King Snohomish County line. What is before the council today is Cross Valley's Wellhead Protection Plan, an amendment to their water system plan that was approved by council and the State Department of Health back in 2023. One purpose of the Wellhead Protection Plan is to define the area around each wellhead that contributes water to the wellhead through groundwater recharge. This contribution area is divided into travel time zones, a six month, a one year, a five year, and a 10 year zone, each representing the amount of time it takes for surface water to go underground and reach the wellhead area. Distance, soil makeup, subsurface geology, and subsurface gradient all play a role in defining these time-traveled zones, and they are prepared by hydrogeologic engineers. As water supply for human consumption, these contribution zones must be protected from potential contaminants. The Wellhead Protection Plan, along with the county's critical aquifer recharge area code in Snohomish County Code 3062C, work together to protect these Group A wellheads. Our critical recharge area code contains a list of land uses that are potential sources of groundwater contamination, the most common being poorly maintained septic systems and stormwater UIC wells. Cross Valley Water System faces additional challenges from some of the industrial uses in Maltby. So this plan lays out a process for coordination between Cross Valley and the county

to try to ensure that the water system wellheads are protected from potential sources of contamination and there's do you have any questions questions from council members all right thank you terry appreciate that uh if there's no questions and if there's no objection to consent then we'll go ahead and move motion 26-286 to gls on august 12th for consideration on the consent agenda That concludes our action items. So we've got two discussion items today. First up is the Snohomish County Tomorrow 2025 growth monitoring report. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Chair. I'm Steve Toy, principal demographer with Long Range Planning and PDS. I'm here to talk today about some of the highlights from this year's growth monitoring report that Snohomish County Tomorrow prepared. So Snohomish County Tomorrow prepares the growth monitoring report as a requirement of the countywide planning policies at GF5 and Appendix C, which lists the criteria under long-term monitoring for a growth monitoring report. This year's report was approved by the SCT Planning Advisory Committee for steering committee review and discussion, which occurred on May 27th. So the information that the report covers is searing in on growth and development trends through the year 2025. It assesses our early progress towards achieving the 2044 initial population, housing, and employment growth targets that are in the countywide policies. It also contains information on annexation and residential development trends. And most of the information I'll touch on today are sort of the countywide observations, but there's a wealth of detail In the in the full report on individual urban growth areas and municipal urban growth areas as well as individual cities and the rural area, if you wanted to dive in deeper. The report is on the web page, and this follows the publication of the 2024 growth monitoring report last year in May 2025. So jumping to the population growth trends, Snohomish County does continue to gain population in recent years. Nearly 46,000 new residents have been added to the county since 2020. That's a 4.7% growth rate. But this is a slower growth rate than in previous decades. Also, the county's share of statewide population growth has been reducing over time. The 1980s saw Snohomish County capturing 17.4%. of the state's population growth, and that's dropped to 11.2% so far in this decade. While that's been occurring, King County's share has been increasing. If you look at the region that we're in, beginning in 2008, well over half of the region's annual population growth has gone into King County for each year with the exception of four years, and this is in marked contrast to the 20-year period before that from 1990 to 2008. during which a 50 percent share was never reached by Keene County. So what's driving the change? Net migration still continues to drive population growth in Snohomish County, accounting for 63 percent of the county's growth since 2020. That's a similar pattern to previous decades, where net migration has accounted for most of the county's population growth. However, the volume of net migration has been dropping this decade, and combined with the drop in natural increase, So far this decade, births minus deaths. Compared to previous decades, we've seen a resulting reduction in county population growth so far this decade compared to previous decades. Cities are increasingly the locations within the county for where population growth is occurring. Since 2019, a majority of the county's population growth each year has occurred within cities, and this was a pattern that was rarely seen in Snohomish County before 2019. How are we with regard to 2044 growth targets and the progress towards achieving them? Still really early on, jurisdictions adopted their comp plan updates in late 2004, or sorry, 2024. So we're only a year and a half into that planning, the new planning period. But we can discern that as of 2025, the county's population estimate of 873,800 is a little over 18,000 residents short of or 2.1% lower than what the GMA population projection line would have called for this year. Again, the slowing down of population growth is the cause for that. But looking at major sub-areas with the county, we can see that as of 2025, compared to the 2044 growth share expectations, the urban growth areas overall are slightly behind growth share expectations at this point in 2025. while the rural population growth is slightly ahead. With regard to the rural growth, a continuation of what we've seen from 2020 to 2025 population growth trends in the rural area indicates that the 2044 rural population target of 144,190 would be reached by 2033, so 11 years ahead of schedule, which would, when applying the new county plan policy, LU6A1, require actions to avoid this outcome by 2031. The share of growth in cities overall is close to long-term expectations. Again, the shifting of population growth to cities is helping that observation occur. And the share of growth within non-Southwest urban growth areas is ahead of long-term expectations. Southwest UGA is slightly behind. Employment growth trends. Employment, wage and salary employment in Stonewich County dropped by nearly 20,000 jobs with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and it's not yet regained pre-pandemic levels. by 2025. It is on the increase, but it hasn't met the pre-pandemic levels quite yet. If you look at the total employment estimate for 2024 relative to our 2044 countywide employment projection, we're about 33,000 jobs or 10% lower than what that employment projection line countywide would call for at this point. Many sub-areas, in fact, most sub-areas of the county We're still below their 2019 employment levels as of 2024, particularly within the Southwest UGA. Again, they are increasing, but they haven't re-achieved the 2019 levels for the most part. Annexation trends. After 2010, when over eight square miles of unincorporated area was annexed by the cities of Marysville and Lake Stevens, annexation activity in the county has been at historically low levels, with one exception in 2021 when two and a half square miles annexed but for all of the years it's been at historically low levels residential development trends uh first bullet looks at the number of recorded lots each year informal flats segregated lot condominiums and townhouse unit lot subdivisions and it uh found that between 2018 and 2025 with the exception of 2024 that cities are now accommodating or accounting for the majority of those lots created in the county. So again, a reversal of previous patterns where the unincorporated area had been the majority. We've seen more recently a shift of recorded lots in these types of land use activities shift to cities. Between 2000 and 2025 in the second bullet, most lots created through short planning have been within cities. And looking at rural cluster subdivision activity beginning in 2008, subdivision activity as proposed through rural cluster subdivisions has been minimal with the exception of one year spike of new lots proposed in 2024 which has since subsided. Next slide. Oh there it is, great. And then this last slide talks about the Permit building permit data that we collect again countywide including both cities in the county unincorporated areas and Again, just like with population and new recorded lot cities now account for the majority of housing units permitted each year That's from 2018 to 2025 the past eight years That that's been the case prior to that the majority of units permitted since 1990 and unincorporated areas were the majority with every year except for 1996. So that again, a reversal of what we've seen in the county here in the most in the most recent five to 10 year period has occurred with cities being a primary focus. And then the housing types we've seen multifamily housing and townhouse production since 2010. Countywide has combined to account for a majority of those residential unit types permitted for countywide for the last six of the seven years being the majority 53% in 2019, rising to 2024, rising to 61% in 2024, the highest multifamily townhouse shares observed in the entire GMA planning period of 1990 to 2025. And these higher multifamily and townhouse construction shares have been observed in both cities and the unincorporated UGA, especially more pronounced even in the unincorporated urban growth area. And then lastly, just the key takeaways again. emphasizing the shift to cities as locations for growth, the emergence of middle housing that we're seeing now with townhouse, and again, monitoring the rural growth trends, especially in relation to LU 681, like I mentioned. So that covers the key takeaways, and I'll try and answer any questions you may have. All right. Questions from Council?

Council Member Mead? Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. This is great. So I've been working with the planning department over the course of the last year to get my hands on some data points that I'd like to be tracking myself. And I was hoping they'd be in this. They might be, and I might have kind of missed the nuance in the presentation. But I'm trying to figure out the units built versus if we were on track. And you mentioned at the beginning – where was it? Maybe I don't need to find it. You mentioned at the beginning that we're early on. It's been a year and a half, etc., and you grab some data points for applications, I think, but what I'm really curious about is the units that we have built, housing units built total, versus what if we were to be on track for the 20-year outlook where we should be now. I know it's only a year and a half in, so the delta is probably not that big between actual and, I guess, projected. But I'd like to be tracking that so that when we're five years into this or 10 years into this, we can tell, are we still on track? The intention would be us knowing if we need to shift our method or if what we've been doing with the comp plan has worked.

So, there is information that we do collect, and I think there's some summary reports that shed light on the statistics we do collect. And most of that revolves around not applications for new units, but actually issued permits. Great. The most part that does translate into construction relatively soon after that, with the exception of some larger multifamily developments, which would be phased out over that. But as far as permit issuance goes, capturing the idea that that's a level where the construction could go ahead, we have those statistics. We'll make sure you get those. And it does indicate, just like the population growth slowing down this decade and with the slower growth relative to our long-range projection and with reductions in housing permits issued, that there is a gap between what is happening and what this long-term projection would call for with regard to residential.

Right. I would assume that there's a gap. I'd like to know what the number is, and then if the number is growing or shrinking. You do this every six months? Or is it every year?

Every year, yeah.

Each year. It'd be nice to be able to track that, and I'm hoping that we do it on a monthly basis. Personally, I'm working with staff to get the numbers updated on a monthly basis. I know that there's complications in the reporting and how quickly we could do that, but I'm interested in that. I'd love if that could be baked into next year's growth monitoring report just as one of the bullet points. So that's the first thing. Thank you. The second thing would be I noticed that we combine multifamily and townhome when we're talking about what makes up the majority of the units and all that. I'm very – like keenly paying attention to the rental versus homeownership development. And so that's not as helpful for me to see it broken or it combined. I'd like to see them parsed out because we don't currently, and you didn't break it into this. I know this is a gross report, not a housing report, but I look at them very similarly as I'm sure you do. So I'm paying attention to the ownership, what's being built that is homeownership versus what's being built that's rental as a proportion. And so if we could break that down too, I'd love to see, what that looks like. So that would obviously require you to break out multifamily versus townhomes, which are ownership versus rental.

Yeah, and I did collapse those two categories in order to sort of contrast with the traditional single-family development. That share is reducing, whereas multifamily townhouse is expanding. But we do have that separated in the details in the report. So, yeah, again, with the tracking of permits issued We do that quarterly, and we can get that to you. And also, it breaks it out by type. So it does distinguish between townhouse units permitted quarterly versus apartment units versus ADUs versus single-family detached versus mobile homes. So there is that level of definition that can help get at maybe the ownership question a little more than just the aggregate numbers do. That's great. No, thank you. Thank you. All right, other questions?

I guess we're done.

How do you account, in the population growth section, how are you accounting for annexation? Because there was an annexation in Mukilteo. I know it wasn't a large number of people, but how is that accounted for?

We do, in the information I gave you on the share of population growth shifting to cities over time now, the majority share, that actually takes out the annexed population from that calculation and just looks at if you don't count city growth through annexation and you look at just the remainder what's happening and it still shows that cities are accounting for the majority. With regard to tracking growth over time, it's a similar, we do control for annexed populations that we're measuring city population growth relative to the 2044 targets using the same boundaries that were in place when the targets were first developed. So cities can't annex and reach their target just by annexing population. So we're looking at within the same city boundaries when the targets were developed, what's the amount of population growth that's been occurring? So we're trying to control for annexed population in both those ways in order not to conflate the two.

Thank you.

And then I had a question about the, I think you had mentioned earlier, the 2%. We're a little over 2% behind where the plan had us. I'm curious, I know during the pandemic, we had a lot of conversations here and at Snohomish County tomorrow about what the impact would be of the pandemic on housing outlook and economic outlook. those conversations happened here. I don't know if there was a ton of interest on PSRC's part of taking that into consideration as they put those plans together, because I don't think anything changed. But clearly there's been, you know, shifting dynamics in the way that people, you know, both where they choose to live, where they choose to work, and all those sorts of things. I'm wondering if there's any conversations happening regionally now to look back and say, do these plans still make sense? Should we take these shifting dynamics into account? It's going to, you know, it's going to come to us in Snohomish County, it sounds like, pretty soon here when we're going to have to make some decisions about rural growth and some of those things. But I know these are conversations we've been having for years and just hasn't been a ton of interest at the regional level. So I'm curious if that's changing or if we're still just sticking to the former plan.

My understanding, the PSRC is on a 10-year update cycle for their vision regional plan. So they are already putting into place, I don't have a detailed schedule, but they are already putting in place the schedule for updating Vision 2050. So it would be going out for another decade beyond that. And that's scheduled to occur the latter half of this decade, so I don't know exactly what the starting point is for scoping that document. The Vision 2050, 50 plan was adopted in 2020, so that may be 10 years later. So we'll be, you know, looking at something the last part of this decade or for another 10 year look. And all those assumptions that we didn't know about at the outbreak of COVID and it was timed right at the same time Vision 2050 came out. We'll have the region will have more information on that. That'll be factored into the update where population growth is occurring, where it's likely to continue. And it'll reopen the opportunity to make the case for the next round of growth management plan updates, which are required in Snohomish County by 2034.

And then when does PDS have a, I guess, a timeline for, you know, when it comes to the conversation about rural growth and where we're at with targets in Snohomish County and whether there's action that will be proposed? Do we have a timeline on that? I think you had mentioned. 2031. That's when we're expected to surpass the target. Is there a thought?

2033 is when we're expected to hit the target. Okay. And the LU6A1 says then you have to take actions at least two years prior to that just to try and circumvent that. So it would be 2031 where those actions would take place. But we don't anticipate any action before then? Again, well, if the rural growth rate picks up, then the 2033 starts getting backed up and it gets closer, and then that two-year kick-in period would begin. But that's not being detected in the growth monitoring at this point. But there will be conversations, I think, coming up about the five-year implementation plan which I believe is a requirement now under the Growth Management Act for a 2029 assessment of where we are five years into the new GMA plan period. That's a statewide requirement. Commerce is writing guidelines for that right now. So that may be one of the topics that, you know, further discussion with PDS where we would be including the rural growth question. Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Questions, comments from council members? Council Member Peterson.

Thanks. Sure. On the migration numbers, do you know, are those broken out by in-state migration into Snohomish County as opposed to out-of-state?

There is some breakdown of sources of migration from other sources than what the Office of Financial Management uses, which is what we're using for tracking migration to the county is OFM. And there's not a lot of distinction in their numbers. They're looking at just a net migration or net out-migration figure. But there are other sources. I think the article in the Seattle Times today goes into IRS data, quite a bit of detail for where migration from other locations is occurring to King County. The Census Bureau does more work on migration to distinguish international in-migration versus domestic migration to the region and this decade for both King County and Snohomish County most of the growth from net migration to King and Snohomish County is international in migration there's been actually domestic out migration mainly in King County but they're in migration internationally isn't been enough to cause overall net migration because it exceeds exceeds the net out-migration for domestic migration. And similarly in Sonoma County this decade, but to a much smaller extent. So, yeah, there is breakdown. If you're looking from state-by-state flows, there is, like looking how many people from Texas moved here, there are surveys that the Census Bureau also publishes to take a look at what states are contributing most of the of migration to Washington state that we can hook you up with. It really depends on what kind of geographic locations you're looking at to see what kind of contributions they're making to our migration to see if there is the data.

I mean, mostly broadly just thinking are people moving up here from King County as opposed to moving in from California or Idaho?

so in county is a big source yeah um so uh yeah so uh that's that's a good follow-up uh for snohomish county where residents are moving from uh there's american community survey data that can help answer that question i can get you that thank you all right other questions comments thank you steve really appreciate your time on this all right thank you

and our last discussion item is a discussion on data centers so maybe i'll i'll just kick this off real quick um we have a certain amount of time with the temporary moratorium that was put in place to propose um more permanent regulations and so i thought it'd be helpful just to have a standing item on uh planning committee agendas to discuss this we don't have a report or anything for today i think this could be an opportunity maybe for us all if we've got questions that we're thinking about to get them out there. Jim's going to be taking some notes and then we can have staff looking into and doing some research that maybe can be brought back for the next meeting and discussion on this. So that was one thought was to see if we can get questions or comments kind of on paper on the record here. And then second, if we would like to have any individuals or organizations come to committee, we want to hear from them. Like the PUD came to mind for me. I know I've had some conversations with a couple of different folks at the PUD they're having these conversations as well so it might be helpful at some point to have a have a conversation with them but if there's anybody else that that would make sense and then just in general any other thoughts or questions as we move forward on this so how does that sound for today good all right and I saw Councilmember Dunn had sent some comments or some some questions which which I thought were really helpful and had some of the similar ones as well so I don't know if anybody wants to start with questions that we want to get on paper or have analysts look into? Or I'm happy to, if not, you know what I mean?

Yeah, so the questions I had sent were around definition and scope of regulation. So how do we define and categorize data centers for zoning and permitting? I think we need to be careful that there's about unintended consequences. So if it's a one-size-fits-all definition, it could unintentionally regulate or over-regulate hospitals, educational institutions, government facilities. Like, we have our own data centers and municipal broadband locations, so that could impact those services. And local businesses might, local businesses or large commercial campuses might, we don't want them to be unintentionally affected. I had also sent questions around county authority and regulation. So, what authority do we have to regulate data centers? Which tools would be legally defensible? Which may not be a conversation we can have publicly, but what are the prohibitions in certain zones? Overlay districts, conditional use permits. Also, some questions around, and Jim, you don't have to type all this really quickly because I sent it to Deb, but there was electrical capacity, ratepayer protection, so inviting the PUD for some of those discussions. What level of growth can the regional electrical system accommodate without compromising reliability, planned electrification, economic development, affordability for existing customers? Water use and drought resilience. What are the water demands for the different types of data centers? So maybe connecting and asking our water providers to attend a meeting would be helpful. And then community impacts, economic benefits, migration issues. or mitigation, sorry. So, looking at some of the employment opportunities for building data centers, maintaining them, what are the kind of pros and cons? So, connecting with labor would be critical in that. Yeah, so I think water providers. And then overall, like, what is the outreach plan? I think you sent out a survey through your website connections and through your newsletter, but are we going to have a plan for outreach and working with different stakeholders on this? Or is it going to be coming from council? Is it going to be coming from PDS? What's the best role?

Yeah, and that's a great question on the outreach plan. I was hoping we could maybe discuss that today. I have some, you know, one-on-one meetings with different people who have indicated interests. I'm just hoping to get feedback on both pro and con. I had that survey that was sent out. I'm happy to share that with council members who are interested, the results that have come in so far. I had a similar question on whether PDS would be putting anything together or whether council will or whether we want to work together on that. So I think that remains to be determined. I am interested in working on it, but would like to get the executives and PDS's thoughts as well. But yeah, if we want to do like a council outreach plan, that's something that we could definitely do. Maybe we can work with staff on what that might look like and bring some ideas back to a future meeting. Other thoughts? Maybe I can just share a couple of additional questions. I really like the ones that Council Member Dunn put forward. A lot of what I've been hearing are environmental concerns, so obviously energy consumption, water consumption, so it would be helpful to hear from the PUD, water utilities, other providers on whether they share those concerns and what their thoughts are on it. Another one that I've been hearing but maybe hasn't been talked about quite as much are the economic concerns. So just to give an example, In my district, we have the Cascade Industrial Center, which is 4,000 acres of land that's been set aside for manufacturing and industrial. And really, I think the only of its kind in the Puget Sound. And so a lot of competition to get that land and bring manufacturing, industrial type of businesses there. And there was a lot of effort, I think, and careful planning that went into making sure that you could have the creation of family wage jobs there and good economic impact for Snohomish County. So I have a concern of, if you have land like that, that is being, data centers being cited there there's an opportunity cost that I see, right? Where you have a data center that comes in, maybe there's some one-time benefit from the construction of the facility. But as I understand it, maybe you're not going to see those permanent jobs. I don't know if there's continual tax revenue that's coming from that. So there's an opportunity cost for essentially what could have been on that site, right? Whether it's a business that's bringing in permanent family wage jobs or... commercial business that has permanent sales tax revenue, whatever it may be. And so I think there's always a trade-off. And I'm interested in learning a little bit more about what the economic pros and cons are of having sort of the larger scale data centers in different areas, because I do have some concerns about that. Like Councilmember Dunn mentioned, I'm also interested in taking a look at how we're defining it and making sure that we're differentiating between something like You know, a server room like we have here at the county versus one of these large scale data centers, which I think is what most people are concerned about when they're When they're talking about these so making sure that we're maybe differentiating or taking a different approach with With those different types of facilities. And then I'm also interested in hearing about what other jurisdictions are doing. There are quite a few cities and counties, and even the state of New York recently came out with a temporary moratorium. And so as we're all kind of working together toward what permanent regulations look like, it would be interesting to see what other jurisdictions are doing in terms of what that regulatory framework that they come up with looks like, and then maybe taking ideas from there. So those are some of the things that I had down. Other questions, comments, customer Peterson?

Thank you. I mean, great, already a great setup. And really, I was going to talk about, you know, I was happy to copy other people's good work. But also curious on kind of emerging technologies, what else is happening? Many of you know, I grew up in New Mexico, and there's a big project proposed down there, and they're using a closed loop water system. Very wary of whether or not that's real, but what are some of the new technologies coming on board that might help mitigate some of the issues around water and electric use so just kind of as we hook around to see what other jurisdictions are doing see what other what's happening in the kind of private sector to see what might be helpful in forming some regulations great thank you right anything else in terms of what we'd like to have staff looking into yeah

So I think it's important that we're looking at enforceable actions, enforceable standards, and when we pair that with outreach, if we're not going to be able to have meaningful discussions that are resulting in enforceable standards, then we're just kind of leading people on. So there's a risk to having outreach and kind of broadcasting even the data center ban if we're not able to have something that's enforceable and that's meaningful on paper. So I would just encourage that we're really trying to focus the conversation on meaningful action that is actually enforceable and able to be implemented. And it can be an enforceable standard that makes sure that we're ensuring that a host community is receiving benefits. I have seen that with the cascade industrial center, there's requirements in order to be there. I think it's possible, but that's where I'd like to see the conversation. Yep. Makes sense.

Are there any others who we want to hear from, like, in committee, on the record? We talked about the PUD, maybe water utilities. Is there anybody else that comes to mind?

I know we all have the opportunity to have individual conversations, too, but... Well, I would say labor, and it seemed like Legal Women Voters was really engaged, and they have a subcommittee on this, but other community groups. Okay, great.

And then maybe we can do some outreach to PDS slash execs office just to see where they're at on this, whether they'll be putting forward a proposal or have an interest in working with council on it.

Other comments, questions for the good of the order?

All right. Well, like I said, we can have this sort of as a standing agenda item. And as we get feedback from staff and others, we can have these conversations over the coming weeks and months. That does bring us to the conclusion of today's agenda and so we will be adjourned for the day. Thank you all.