Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank

you. That takes us into the first item on our agenda, which is the adoption of the minutes from our April 14 meeting. The chair will entertain a motion regarding the minutes.

Move to adopt the minutes as written. Moved.

And is there a second? Seconded. By

Oh, commissioner,

double seconds.

Thank you. Motion has been moved and seconded. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes, Which takes us into the community forum. Do you have anyone signed up to speak today for the community forum portion of the meeting?

No, do not.

Thank you. Okay. So the community forum is now closed and that takes us into the item of business we have for this evening. A public hearing on the adoption of the Our Vancouver 2026 to 2045 comprehensive plan, including the preferred land use alternative map and the updated Vancouver Municipal Code Title 20 Land Use and Development Code, supported by a final environmental impact statement. Introductory remarks regarding this item.

Thank you, chair. Just want to acknowledge before we jump in that this has been an extremely long process. Many folks in the community have stuck with it and been active participants throughout, and some have just gotten involved in, you know, the last year or two. But wanna just acknowledge and thanks people thank people for their participation, and also thank the commission for what has been an extraordinary amount of work. With that, I'll kick it off.

It's not working.

So

my name is Rebecca Kennedy. I'm the deputy community development director for the city and and part of the team that has been working on the comprehensive plan for the last several years. I'm joined by Mark Person, senior planner in our land use team. Mark has been a core part of the the whole entire team and also led the the code update task. So the agenda is pretty straightforward tonight.

We'll walk through, as we always do, the legal and policy framework for the comprehensive plan work, including the Growth Management Act. We'll outline the sort of big buckets of key tasks and processes that are required and have occurred as part of this process. We will walk through the plan and the changes that have happened since the last draft that you all saw for both the plan and the code. Quickly just go over the finer final environmental impact statement, was issued earlier this month and represents our compliance with the state environmental policy act for a non project action of this size and scope. And then we should have lots of times for questions and recommend and discussion.

And then we'll ask for a council or a planning commission recommendation to counsel on the planning code. So the legal and policy framework for this is the the growth management act, which was established in 1991 in Washington state. It requires the fastest growing cities and counties. And at this point, it's really most of the cities and counties in the state, except for with some very few exceptions, really small jurisdictions. To plan for growth, we have to look at how we we have to look at and establish population projections and the housing and jobs associated with those, And we have to have a set of elements within the comprehensive plan, outline goals for those, and have policies and and demonstrate how we will implement those, particularly with our development code.

I think important to note is under the Growth Management Act, your development code must implement your comprehensive plan. We know, and I think everybody knows, that our aspirations go beyond just regulation, and they are about who we want to be and what we want the community to be in the future. And that takes more than just regulation. It takes programmatic and capital investment. And so there are pieces of the plan that speak to that as well, including the capital facilities plan, which is a requirement under the Growth Management Act.

Every ten years, we all go through a process called the periodic review process. Typically, that's sort of staggered around the state. So not everyone in the entire state is on the exact same schedule because that would drive the staff at the Department of Commerce absolutely bananas. But but there's a set sort of staging or period where some jurisdictions are due this year and a group of us are due the next and so on. So those the ten year periodic review process is where we update our projections.

You you have to do it every ten years. You can do do an, you know, an updated comp plan more frequently than ten years. We typically haven't. And then, of course, nothing is sort of set in stone. We can amend our comprehensive plan once annually, and we have to do that cumulatively with all the proposed changes, and we can update our code whenever we want.

And we frequently bring processes through the Planning Commission and Council process to amend the code in response to unexpected circumstances or changing technology or emerging issues. And then just wanna note that a new requirement under the Growth Management Act with this periodic review cycle is a five year report out to Commerce on how we're doing, which could potentially trigger a a forced update potentially. No one knows because it hasn't happened yet. But we are gonna be able much more we're gonna be held much more accountable to the Department of Commerce and seeing where we're at in meeting our goals, particularly, I think, on the housing and greenhouse gas reduction goals. We show this slide every time.

I I won't spend a ton of time here, but I just want to acknowledge that beyond regulations and council policies, there's also just the sort of inescapable fact of change, which is a condition of kind of existing in our world. So things have shifted since our last plan. They change regularly. We've seen rising housing costs, increased houselessness, greater impacts from climate change, greater demand and need for new strategies on how we move people around on the transportation system, new challenges related to the economy and the types of jobs we have and the wages they pay and how that relates to what you need to pay to, you know, raise a family. So it's it's not just that our council has policy goals and that there are state laws.

It's also just that the world has changed as we know, and we have to adjust and keep up in order to, you know, address challenges and take advantage of opportunities and continue to evolve as a community. There are, of course, new state laws, which you all are very familiar with, but that includes h b twelve twenty, which requires every jurisdiction to not only have a target of jobs capacity they have to demonstrate, but also capacity by income band, including very significant numbers below 60% of the average median income and including a set of units that are permanent include permanently supportive housing. HB eleven ten requires us to allow four to six residential units per, predominantly single family lot in the city. Four is a minimum. Two if they are within a quarter mile walking distance of transit or are affordable.

And importantly, both from a regulatory side but also a process side, we cannot treat middle housing differently than we treat detached single family homes. HB twelve twenty also requires us to account for racially disparate impacts, so to sort of audit past policies and regulations that created those disparate impacts and develop new policies and regulations that don't continue that harm and those disparate impacts, but seek to to provide kind of equitable access for everyone. We have to allow two ADUs per residential lot. We cannot require parking minimums that exceed point five stalls per unit. We are going beyond that.

We're recommending on our proposed code has no parking minimums. We wouldn't rely on development to build the parking they need. We all are also required and have actually earlier than most jurisdictions implemented a single stairwell for buildings up to six stories if you have adequate fire protection, and and that's actually been in place. That's a builder and alternate in our code now. And then we are required newly in this cycle to have a climate chapter, which requires a greenhouse gas analysis, like an inventory.

It also release requires us to look at climate vulnerability geographically and to think about how we will address that vulnerability to things like wildfire smoke, intense heat, and flooding. So, obviously, this has been a pretty complex and involved process. But if you had to distill it all down, these are the five key tasks that we would distill it down into. So the first one is community partnership and engagement. A public involvement plan and a process for the public to to understand, receive information, and and participate is a requirement of the Growth Management Act for periodic reviews.

You can see in our documents that we've done very extensive engagement with many opportunities and different ways for people to participate and have had significant participation. And we've we've summarized that, as part of an overall engagement summary by phase, which goes into quite a bit of detail. The second task is the comprehensive plan document itself. And so that is not just the the elements, although those are, you know, the meat of it. There's elements of the plan, and those have goals and policies and implementation steps, but it's also the analysis that goes into it that you are required to do in terms of the existing conditions that that your, you know, the sort of your baseline starting point and projecting out what you need to accommodate future growth.

Title 20 is our land use and development code. This is a key piece of the Growth Management Act. You have to show that your development code is implementing your plan. It is sort of the primary, though not only by any means, regulatory implementer of the plan. You have to demonstrate some implementation steps, particularly within the public facilities and services.

So there's a there's an element or a chapter on that. There's also a capital facilities plan that shows planned capital investments needed to serve growth with a finance plan from in the one to six year period and the seven to twenty year period. We also have a lot of, again, information in here on programmatic and noncapital investments because we know that those will be needed in order to reach our vision for the future. And then the final sort of key task is the environmental impact statement process, which is really meeting the requirements of the State Environmental Policy Act or SEPA. It requires you to have a SEPA scoping notice and a comment period.

You'd have to do in our case, there are levels of work required for SEPA compliance. The most rigorous one is the environmental impact statement process. We do that for a project of this size or a planning process of this size because of its citywide implications. Important to note, this is a nonproject action. So many of you may be familiar, like, with the interstate bridge.

There's been an EIS done on that. That is a project action. Something's getting built, and we're analyzing very quantifiable specific impacts of a project. This is a policy and planning document, and so we are analyzing broad impacts and potential mitigations for nothing that's been built but something that shapes the future of what will be built. And so we have released and published that final environmental impact statement, which is our compliance with the State Environmental Policy Act.

Importantly, you are not making recommendations on the FEIS, and the council doesn't vote on the FEIS. It is just there as the thing that is required to meet the CEPA requirements. So here is a graphic that outlines the process. The first part of this was really socializing and educating the community on the fact that the comprehensive plan update was beginning and forthcoming and represented, you know, a a big vision and potentially significant change in the community. And it also included a lot of analysis of existing conditions and historical conditions that got us to where we are and that formed the sort of foundation from which we, you know, build and plan for the next twenty years.

That included things for really foundational documents like the housing needs assessment and economic conditions and opportunity assessment and the equity atlas and community atlas. Then we worked to develop potential land use alternatives. So that really looked at analyzing data, understanding again what it was gonna take, excuse me, to hit our targets that are required under the Growth Management Act, but also and and the creation, sorry, of new zoning districts that allow different mixes of development types at different scales. And then we worked with the community, you all, the planning commission and the council, other boards and commissions, many, many different working groups and community groups to map different zoning districts around the city and get a sense of where people thought different types of uses should be and why and what they wanted to be in proximity to, and and also, you know, maybe things they wanted, you know, elsewhere. And so that all went into the next phase, which was analyzing a set of alternatives through an environment draft environmental impact statement process.

I think it's important to note that there was a sixty day public comment period for that July to September. We received 400 plus comments. And then based on those comments and based on council's policies and state laws, and a framework that council developed, we we refined those alternatives into what we call a preferred alternative or a single map that included elements of both the action alternatives, though very few elements of, the no action alternative. And the the exception of that is much of our heavy industrial lands didn't change. Then when we got to the preferred alternative, we started analyzing it.

That's what's in the final EIS. We also continued to refine drafts of the plan and the code, and we have now are at the last phase where we're taking them through the planning commission and council review and, ultimately, the adoption process. I do wanna note that while the most sort of while, like, the complete drafts of the planning code were just were published in February for the first time, the code framework, like, the concepts of the districts, the scale of development had been things that have been publicly workshopped and presented on since 2024, both with council, but in in public meetings, at neighborhood association meetings, and other locations as have the major components of the plan. In fact, the goals for the various plan elements were endorsed by council via resolution in early twenty twenty four. So they really have been out there for quite a while.

This is a high level busy summary of some of the engagement and outreach that occurred as part of the process. We have, directly talked to 200 or sorry, 2,000 plus people. So that's direct one on one communication through various presentations, workshops, tabling events, meetings. We have commune and this slide actually might need to be updated after last night, but I believe we have actually had 26 city council workshops and 24 now or 23 planning commission workshops, plus you all had two joint workshops together. One where you talked about sort of, the the the collective goals and needs around equity and the other one where you did the mapping exercise together.

We have had a lot of input, from people, including I mean, I think, again, last summer, 409 specific comments on the EIS. We've had lots of folks who participated via the online story maps and pin maps in the beginning, and we've done a lot of outreach that's, you know, I guess, more passive in the sense that we're not interacting directly back and forth with people, but just distributing of information through different newsletters, organizations, canvassing, etcetera, social media. So the first draft of the com full draft of the comprehensive plan and development code was published on February 19. The second draft was published on April 7. And the, third draft, you are reviewing tonight, making a recommendation on was published on April 17.

So we have included in your last workshop and tonight the change logs for what have changed between different drafts. And I'm just gonna go over those with you all briefly. As we always do, we're starting with, you know, the comprehensive plan is a twenty year plan. It guides the way that we manage the built and natural environment, and we have a series of targets that were developed the count with the county and the other jurisdictions looking at a county wide population projection and then allocating out different numbers to the jurisdictions in the urban growth areas. We did also our own housing needs assessment and came up with a slightly different number than the county.

So we are planning for the minimum we think that we need to meet our existing deficit and provide for future growth. So we are projecting 81,000 new residents, then that translates into 38,000 new housing units. And our council has expressed a desire to maintain their existing policy that there will be slightly more than one job per working age person to provide lots of employment opportunities. And so they have set the the job target at 43,200. So quickly just to walk through the elements.

The introduction element is is not required, but it would be kind of strange not to have one, to kind of say what we're doing, what's the history and context, you know, what what, what is kind of this this document, doing for us. There have been no changes to the introduction chapter since you last saw it. Community experience, as you know, is not required by the Growth Management Act, but is a central piece of framing what our aspirational future communities experience as being part of Vancouver. There's also been no changes there since the last, draft. Equity and inclusion embeds equity into city decisions and investments.

It's also not required, but something the city opted to include. I will say, though, that h b twelve twenty requires us to do an analysis of racially disparate impacts, and this is where that analysis is located in addition to a appendix with a detailed analysis that we've done. And there were just there's a small change, between the last draft and this draft, and it was making sure that we were defining disparities and inequities clearly and consistently and using those terms clearly and consistently. So there's some changes in the narrative to ensure that that was in fact happening. So the land use and development, chapter or element is a requirement.

We have to, you know, basically do zoning. We have to designate the general distribution and the location and intensity of land uses within the city, establish densities sufficient to demonstrate capacity for planned growth over the twenty year planning period. It includes a growth concept as well as a map of comprehensive plan designations and then the zoning designations applied that essentially gets it goes from conceptual to specific. And we did change a couple things. We added, I think, a bullet or two to the community feedback summary just to be comprehensive, basically.

And then we also added, a footnote just to clarify that the the zoning code or the zoning map in here is really for understanding and but it's not does not adopt it into the comprehensive plan in a way that means we couldn't change it more than once a year. Right? Because zoning code could be changed more than once a year if it doesn't require a comp plan designation change. So there's just a footnote to clarify that that's the case. In terms of the housing element, this is a requirement as we've talked through a lot of times.

We have to identify existing and projected needs, and, again, newly the cycle on income levels and demonstrate sufficient capacity and zoning to meet those needs. We have to include and accommodate step housing. It's so what's the state called step housing, which is supportive transitional emergency and permanently affordable housing, which we have done. We made a couple chain changes from the last draft. We've added a footnote to talk about how our allocations have worked and how essentially we we the city was always ahead of the county on this process, and so we used the commerce tool to estimate our needs in various categories.

And then they assigned us slightly different numbers. Our so basically, footnotes show and our tables show that we meet the capacity under both methodologies. So whoever's methodology of allocating things in income bands that use, we are meeting it. We just did it at different times. And then we also added our capacity for ADUs, which we needed to do to meet a state requirement even though, you know, in our new code with how much flexibility it has, ADUs are sort of not really a thing, besides for purposes of impact fees.

Okay. An economic opportunity, this is not required. It's optional under the growth management act. But if you do do it, you have to analyze your local economy and your workforce, address in trends and, industry composition, future jobs needs, and opportunities. And then we we just the only change here was we added a bullet or two in the community engagement summary section to be, again, very thorough.

In the climate and environment chapter, this is required now for the first time under the Growth Management Act, and we've talked about this a lot. But you there's things you gotta do, including greenhouse gas inventories and and impact vulnerability, assessments. You also have to look at environmental justice. So this is where we meet our some of our environmental justice requirements. So there were a few changes.

One, we added some language to a policy around preventing an existing policy around native species, pollinator habitat, around including clear direction to just work to remove and prevent future invasive species. So it's coming out of, I believe, a parks commissioner's comment. We did some clarifying, around what climate resilient spaces versus climate, like, adaptive development or infrastructure and just made the made sure we are using that consistently across the chapter. And, again, we here, we updated the community feedback section to be thorough. In the parks and recreation element, again, this this is required, to be included somewhere in your plan.

You can do it as a standalone chapter, which we have always done, or some jurisdictions do it as part of their, public facilities and services chapter. But regardless, you've got to address it. You've got to address level of service, current demand and need, and and sort of your future planned investments. And we made some changes to, a table that had just, I think, the wrong numbers. And then, we clarified again in a sort of did a review for consistent uses of public space versus community space.

So public space is like anywhere that's public, but it's not necessarily a place a community would gather. A community space would be a subset of that. A street corner may not be a community space, but it is a public space. So on the transportation side, this is a required element. We got some comments back from the our our Metropolitan Planning Organization, so the Regional Transportation Council, which does, distributes federal transportation dollars across our region.

They do a review and eventual certification of our plan. And so we added level of service standards for transit and highways, state highways in our jurisdiction, to meet a requirement there. And we added additional language around regional coordination to ensure that that was consistent with the intent was always there, but the language was consistent. And then we did add some more information on the, active trip potential analysis, of our preferred alternative, which just talks about where we have short trips and land use strategies that may support the conversion of those driving trips to other modes in the future. So those were the changes there.

And then public facilities and services, the the only change was a table adjustment to to make sure our rolled up numbers were correct because the capital facilities planning is challenging because you're often doing it at the same time. And so, like, currently, the Department of Health Health was reviewing our our updated twenty year water system plan. And and when that got numbers got finalized, that required us to update all our numbers to the rolled up numbers and all the tables were correct. We I think at the direction of this group updated the labels on the annexation city boundary versus UGA map, to show major roads to be clearer. Important to note the annexation element is not required under the growth management act.

It's optional, but it is required under our jointly adopted countywide planning policies given the size of our UGA's in this region. And then we made a few additional changes, adding some of those clarifications on descriptions to the glossary. We added a closing page. Again, we we added an additional appendix on the multimodal evaluation and active trip potential analyses, and then we did cleanups for formatting, spelling, grammar, and accessibility. So, chair, I don't know if you want to pause there for questions on the or just keep going.

To the end.

Go to the end. Okay. Great. Well, I will now turn it over to my colleague, Mark Person, who's gonna talk about the zoning code.

Thank you, Rebecca. Commission has seen this slide before but I'll go over it for anyone joining us tonight maybe for the first time. As Rebecca mentioned a major element of the comprehensive plan is that our title 20, that's our zoning code and our development codes for building out our city. All parcels in the city currently have a zoning district base district. I'll use those words interchangeably, and they will have a new one once this plan and code is adopted.

Those base districts will include minimum density and maximum height. And really that's about it and and allowed uses as we have now. A lot of the development standards that currently live within our 17 zoning districts will be moving to building types. That's one of the major changes that this code is incorporating. Those standards that currently live in our our current zoning include things you know like lot size, parking and building placement, lot coverage, the frontage, landscaping and public space.

Some areas will also have an overlay council and excuse me commission and the public may recall. We have, many existing overlays. We have our transit overlay. We have our noise overlay. We have our downtown overlay.

We're keeping those except the transit, and we're adding some new ones. We'll have station station overlays around our station areas. We'll have some ground floor active use overlays, and we'll have ground floor ready overlay among others. The table on the right here is showing some major differences and similarities between our existing and new code. Again our existing code as was mentioned early in the process and I think it bears re mentioning is that nearly 50% of the land in the city right now is zoned exclusively for single family or duplex homes.

Nearly every other use is prohibited by our zoning code. Our new the draft zoning code that will be adopted as part of this process allows much more mixing of those uses, and that's critical. We believe for accessible connected communities, for livability, for reducing vehicle miles traveled. So really every zone with the exception of our heavy industrial and employment zones are essentially mixed use. As far as density, right now our current code has minimums and maximums.

The new code will focus on minimums. We'll let our height maximums and other site standards really dictate what can be built on that site. Building heights again this is remaining the same those will be by the zone in our existing code and new code. Parking as Rebecca mentioned, right now we have minimums. It's widely understood at this time that those have been copied from city to city to jurisdiction to jurisdiction and are based on very few data points and drive up the cost of development.

We are going to let the folks that build in this city let us know how much parking they need So there'll be no no minimums for most uses in the new code. And building placement, again, we have right now, for the most part, we have minimum setbacks. We're going to include build two lines, which is essentially a minimum and a maximum. You know, we we don't want someone with a house with a 50 foot, a 100 foot setback. We we're we're looking for that relationship to the street.

We think that's important for our transportation network. This slide is showing our comprehensive plan designations across the top. Those are the residential neighborhoods, the urban mixed use neighborhoods, our employment and industry designation, and then our green space. Under those comp plan comprehensive plan designations are nested are our base districts. Under the residential neighborhoods, we'll have our mobile home designation that will cover our 16 existing mobile home parks in the city to in an attempt to protect those from development pressures of of of being developed.

And we have a option for folks to file for a rezone if at some point in the future those those mobile home parks become unfeasible to continue operations. We've also built in at council's direction and think shared with this commission that we will allow obviously the replacement, repair, and expansion of mobile homes and manufactured dwellings in those parks, but will also allow other development provided it's permanently affordable. Then we have our low scale and medium scale neighborhoods that to round out the residential neighborhood plan districts. Our urban mixed use plan district includes mixed use neighborhood and a regional activity district. And then employment and industry includes our institutional campus zone, industrial employment zone, and then heavy industrial.

And as we've continued to say throughout this process, heavy industrials pretty much stay in the same in geography and standard. We haven't made a lot of changes to that. We've had some minor revisions to our heavy industrial code based on our stakeholder involvement. And then working with our parks folks, we have two green space districts. We'll have our parks for for developed parks and then our natural areas for those more naturally naturally natural areas. It's in the name. Okay. I'm thinking I'm gonna pass this back to Rebecca Kennedy for this slide.

Great. Thanks, Mark. This is Rebecca Kennedy, deputy director of the community development department for the city. So walking through the the preferred alternative process, this has been something we've been receiving quite a bit of questions on from folks. How did x get x zoning?

And so we thought it would be important to talk kind of remind everybody what the process for getting to the preferred alternative was. So we we developed land use alternatives, and we analyzed those. You all, as well as the city council, and many other people were part of that process. We we worked with council to develop a framework that would help us essentially combine and apply different elements of those options around the city. And and so we got to that, preferred alternative, and it was endorsed by council at the end of last year.

But how did we get to it? Why is it applied the way it is? So this is the framework. We we incorporated comments we received through the draft environmental impact statement where they aligned with council policy. We looked at our centers and corridors growth concept and ensured that on those major centers and corridors, we were allowing an appropriate scale of development, typically a higher intensity of use, particularly around transit corridors and other transportation corridors.

We did coordinate with schools to look at where they had existing capacity issues. We just did not want to exacerbate very bad existing capacity issues. And there was one area that we went one direction on because they said they had quite some serious capacity issues that they didn't anticipate to go away in the short term. Think important to note that all the schools are facing declining enrollment, so they're not really concerned about capacity broadly at this point. We looked at tree canopy, so our urban forestry team did an analysis of where we have existing privately owned significant from an ecological or species benefit perspective tree stands, and we looked at applying typically low scale neighborhood in those significant areas because that would allow for greater tree preservation because of that lower density of development.

We looked at, we we have a essentially a map, that, you know, shows where our parks infrastructure are or in our recreation centers, and we added, increased some medium scale housing typical neighborhood typically around those areas, same with schools. We heard over and over and over again from so many people that parks and schools are are essential places that they need access to every day and that we should put more housing in the near those assets. We looked carefully at our industrial lands, specifically our light industrial lands and how we manage those. I did important to recognize that, you know, Columbia Business Center, which is a heavy industrial zoned area, approached the city during the, you know, sort of alternatives development process and asked to be rezoned to regional activity center. But as a really a long term signal that they would plan for redevelopment after their existing industrial users would no longer viable.

We put an industrial holding over there that so until that is lifted, they it's it's the same as heavy industrial. Those uses can continue. They can expand. They can grow. You can't build housing there because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to plan for the redevelopment over time, but also how to serve that redevelopment, their infrastructure issues in that area.

We we looked at our service deserts map. So that's essentially we have a a a map of essential services, and we can look at where places are better or worse served. And we tried to locate growth, in areas that were served well, to an extent because those were area already places with at least some of the components of a connected and accessible neighborhood. We looked at land use strategies again that reduced, vehicle miles traveled and the associated greenhouse gas emissions, and that was really looking at where do we have transit corridors, particularly enhanced transit corridors, where do we have active trip potential, where do we have some components of those, again, those essential services that allow people to take, you know, near housing that allow people to take different trip types. We looked at our capital facilities plans and where we have made or are planning to make infrastructure investments.

Largely, the city is built out and has, you know, we I was explaining to someone today that, you know, we don't have we don't make like, in some some more rural areas, you would make decisions about where growth is versus where you have public sewer sewer. We have public sewer everywhere. Right? And so it's we have and we have so it's really about where are we making transportation investments, where are there other critical investments that would really serve growth. Talked about transportation.

We used our modal networks. So that's our pedestrian network, our transit networks, our bike and small mobility networks, and even our our freight networks in in formed industrial land decisions. And then we did look at our health and climate vulnerability assessments and didn't necessarily not locate certain things near in in those areas because a lot of times where you have, like, for instance, the greatest air quality issues are your busiest corridors, but those are also where you have, like, the best transit service. And so we looked at other strategies through implementation and policy that we could use to mitigate those impacts in large part, though though they did inform the final map. That is how we got to the preferred alternative.

So we just thought it was important to put this in there because we've gotten a lot of questions about it. And here is the preferred alternative. Again, it maps those new zoning districts that Mark described to you, and we do still have an interactive map online that people can go to to look at what their current zoning is and what their future zoning proposed is as well as well as a story map that kinda walks you through the the zoning districts and what they mean. Gonna turn it back over to Mark.

Thanks, Rebecca. Mark Person again, development review planner. This slide is, showing our densities and heights associated with those base districts that I described earlier. Our manufactured home base district does not have a minimum residential density. Again, that's was created to protect those 16 existing manufactured home parks within the city.

Maximum height in those would be 45 feet. Our low scale develop our low scale neighborhood has a minimum density of eight units per acre. You'll see floors here just for low scale. We don't regulate by floors except in the low scale neighborhood. That's the one where we'll limit development to three floors above grade.

Median scale neighborhood is is one higher up that's 16 units per acre, 75 feet maximum height and then our mixed use would be 32 units an acre, a 110 feet and then our regional activity center steps up again 64 units an acre and no maximum height in that zone. And then we get into our institute employment and industrial uses. The institutional campus has no minimum residential density and no maximum height. And then our employment and industrial does not allow any, residential, and has a max height of one fifty. And then our heavy industrial does not, allow any, residential and does not have a maximum height.

We have a few draft code changes since the last publish. We wanted to bring to the Commission's attention As you may recall, I'm not sure if we had this conversation last time. Originally, we built in a a one year exemption for medium scale parcels that they didn't have to meet minimum density. This was, know, for larger parcels where they wanted to replace their home or if something catastrophic happens they could rebuild that home and not meet minimum density. Heard from the community that that sometimes it takes quite a while to work through this the process of with insurance companies to get settle on a value and and and and get the funds needed to rebuild that.

So we have since changed that to a three year within three years and then also built in a one year extension if an applicant can show us that they're you know making a good faith effort to work through the system. We've had exemption to ground floor active use and ground floor ready for emergency service uses and then heard from our industrial stakeholders. I think the Port Of Vancouver particularly that has some unique sites where there are no public roads that front some of their parcels and having a large sign does not make sense for some of those. So we we've exempted site posting of sites for if you if you don't have public frontage along the along the street there. Back to Rebecca Kennedy, deputy director, CDD.

Thanks, Mark. Yeah. This is Rebecca again. I just, again, wanna emphasize that the state environmental policy act requires a process of, of analyzing, potential impacts, avoiding impacts where possible, and mitigating them when they exist. We there are kind of two types of things that go through the CPAP process.

There are projects. Again, those are things that are getting built with pretty quantifiable impacts, and then there are what we call nonproject actions. That's what the comp plan is. It's not building anything in and of itself, but it is setting the stage for new types and scales of uses in different places, and we need to also analyze the impacts of these policy and regulatory changes. I think it's just important to note on a high level, the preferred alternative is a combination and sort of the impacts fall generally in between alternatives one and two that we analyze to the draft environmental impact statement.

That's not a coincidence. That's on purpose. When we do draft when we go through this process, we try to ensure that the no action and the alternative about the highest in range represents the full spectrum of things we should be analyzing. And typically, if you do it, I think, in a way that that makes sense and you sort of thought it out well, where you land is gonna fall within that spectrum. And so your draft will have analyzed those potential impacts, avoidance, and mitigation, and then your final will fall within that.

So the new, the the final environmental impact statement analyzes the preferred alternative, and generally, the impacts of that preferred alternative fall within the range that we analyzed during the draft environmental impact statement process. I think it's important to note that the we do we we are exceeding the very minimum that we are required to, plan for for housing, and that's something that the the council basically told us to add more medium scale when we were going through the preferred alternative process. And the idea is that we, are allowing, you know, a little flexibility beyond the minimum to try to meet our housing goals. And, again, we will be reassessing this periodically on the five year mark, going forward. And, we we have slightly exceed our jobs as well.

And I another thing I just think important to note that, the preferred alternative and the FEIS analysis supports it spread growth more evenly around the city than than alternatives one and two, which concentrated things in in different ways, I guess, but but but it is more evenly spread out. So, this is the end of a or potentially the end of a long process. As you know, the planning commission's core task is to review and advise on land use matters including and particularly the comprehensive plan and the zoning code and make recommendations, formal recommendations to the city council via a public hearing and public vote. So we are at that process after approximately three and a half years and 20 some workshops. And we are, as a staff, recommending that based on all the information in the staff report, the process to date, as well as the the draft plan itself and the code and the underlying appendices and analyses that support it, that planning commission recommend council adopt the updated comprehensive plan and zoning code as outlined here tonight and in the materials.

And assuming or or if that happens tonight, the next steps are, it'll go to council for first reading on May 11. That's where they'll read the ord the adoption ordinance into the code and vote to advance it to a final hearing, and then that final hearing is scheduled for June 1. Wanna note that the new planning code won't based on our current drafting of the ordinance, won't go into effect for sixty days, and that's really to give us plenty of time to make sure our processes work. Middle housing is a new thing in terms of the way we take in and process development applications. We wanna get that right.

And we also understand and, wanna be clear that we will not get everything right in an overhaul of the code of this scale and size. And so our commitment is that we will be, ready to educate people and facilitate development applications and help them move through the new code as they get used to it, and that we will be taking in information from development community and others about the code where the code may not be working. We may there may be conflicts we need to address, and we will do that quickly. We will, we will not get it perfect, but it has been very thoroughly vetted by a variety of people who care about this stuff. And so I just wanna say we appreciate their help.

It is a better code because of the working groups and the development community, affordable housing providers, the builders, the community members, the neighborhoods that participated in this process. And that's that's what we've got for you tonight, chair.

Thank you. Before we dive into the rest of it, just a quick preamble. The role of the Planning Commission is to review and to analyze proposed ordinances, comprehensive plan amendments, zoning changes, and other land use related issues. We follow a public process, including holding hearings during which the public has an opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information. In legislative matters, the role of the commission is advisory.

City Council will hold separate hearings, consider our recommendations, and make a final determination. The Planning Commission will conduct a hearing tonight and take public testimony. Community members may register online or submit a speaker request form in person. The chair will call upon you during the public testimony portion of the hearing. If you are in person, when you are called, please come to the microphone.

If you have joined remotely, you'll be promoted to a panelist. And when you are called, unmute your phone or microphone. For all those testifying, please state your name for the record. If you are providing the formal recommendation of a neighborhood association or other group, tell us when the association voted on the matter as well as how many people were for and against. We ask you to keep your remarks brief and to the point and direct them to the Planning Commission as a body, not the audience or staff.

Please do not repeat testimony that has already been provided in print or verbally. As a reminder to my colleagues, please indicate to the chair when you want to be recognized. At the conclusion of public testimony, the commission will deliberate and make a recommendation to counsel. Would anyone on the Planning Commission like to disclose any conflicts of interest? Please show respect for the people testifying tonight, whether you agree with their comments or not. So flow wise, I believe we're into questions from the commission. Yes. Commissioner Beck.

Thank you, Patrick. Sandra Beck, Planning Commissioner, Rebecca and team. Mark, I see you wore a tie tonight. Very impressive. Brian, Dominique, anyone else, many people, Mariska, who I've missed.

And Rebecca, thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation and for all of your efforts. I've been on the Planning Commission a little over three years or a little under three years and have been very impressed with the depth and thoroughness of the data analysis, research, outreach, and visioning most certainly visioning that has gone into the effort to pull all of this together. And lastly, but not least, the materials that have been created for the presentations as well as the final product, at this point, I think are outstanding. Just as a reminder for us all, a comprehensive plan is a herculean effort.

I've been personally and professionally involved in a number of different long range master plans for different owners across the country, and looking to vision out how we all want to grow and who we want to be as a community in the next twenty years is not taken lightly by anyone who is involved in those efforts. These are these are huge questions that require a lot of guidance. I appreciate that all the times that your team has come here and presented to the Planning Commission and gotten our feedback, gotten the public's feedback, received a lot of feedback and input from city council and so on. Because how does one create a vision without a lot of input? And it's a vision for the community, not a vision for me personally.

I have my personal little tweaky items that I would love to see as part of the comp plan, but aren't necessarily in there. But a vision for our community, for who we want to be and how we want to be in the future. I really believe that comprehensive plans are intended to coordinate, sustain, and reflect the community's needs. They are not the agenda of one person or one committee. They are reflective of the community.

I wanted to commend you for a thorough process, a plan with vision that is aspirational as well as reality based and for full involvement of the community. I do have a few follow-up questions from the public comments. I'd like to understand a little bit more around the exemption to medium scale minimum density, the three years. The person who applies to rebuild, does it have to be the owner of the parcel when it was demolished or when the catastrophe occurred? Or could a new owner come in and submit for that exemption to the minimum density?

I'm not sure what the clarification is on that, but it may need to be clarified. Could you answer that?

I don't Mark Person, senior planner, community development department. Commissioner Beck, we don't speak to the ownership, so we wouldn't be checking that. It it wouldn't matter. It would just be from time of the demolition or catastrophic event to rebuilding or building permits. Excuse me. That is is what we say in in the draft, you would have three years.

And can I just say one of the reasons Mhmm? That as we were talking to people about extending this was actually, like, a state resolution issues. So zoning runs with the land. The rules are associated with zoning run with the land.

Agreed. And I was curious, having lived in Northern California and had neighbors who lived in Paradise and went through the Camp Fire, and appreciate that you've extended the time frame for the exemption, because it really took some of our friends quite a long time to resolve issues with their property. Can I just one follow-up

I to just wanna be clear that the language in our zoning code applies to regular circumstances? If we had a paradise, if we had a earthquake, right, we would the council would take emergency action that allowed us to suspend or extend or do different things with our local land use regulation. Catastrophic. Okay. So so this is really just our everyday stuff, but, like, if if this is not we don't craft our zoning code to respond to a paradise or an earthquake. We that's why we have the the council has the ability to enact emergency declarations and emergency powers that suspend various regulations to account for those, like, nontypical things.

Okay. Thank you for that clarity. My other question is around middle housing density. One of the public comments that was submitted referred to an owner occupied project off of Broadway in Uptown, not meeting the density requirements. That's a recent project. I'm wondering, on a constrained lot, how would a project for middle housing proceed under the new comp plan if they were unable to meet the density? What's the process for that?

This is Mark Person, senior planner, community development department. Commissioner Beck, I guess I would ask what the constraint being the parcel is small?

Could be irregular shape. Could be access from different different points of access around the lot that is needed for other for other means. Could be anything. I'm just curious. What happens when someone runs into an issue where they can't meet a minimum density?

Well, I thank you for the question. We do allow folks to back out many things from the net net density, I should say, is net based on the net side area. So if there are critical areas, if there's right of way dedicated, if there you have to put a a public street in, obviously, that that wouldn't be in your net. So all that is taken out of of the net density.

Critical root zone.

Critical root zone. Yes.

A critical root zone of a tree to be retained. So all thing all those things are backed out. And I guess I would just say some sites aren't zoned for middle housing or maybe aren't candidates for middle housing. We have lots of building typologies that can be built to higher densities. I think that is what we are looking at, as Rebecca mentioned, in this preferred alternative is really having those higher densities in those strategic areas, those nodes and corridors.

So I I think it would be unlikely that in a place where we intend for middle housing as a scale of development to be unachievable. It may be unachievable because we intend for a higher scale of development because we are looking to leverage, say, existing public investments in transit. And in that case, it is not that no development is feasible. It is that only some development is feasible, and we are requesting that you build that because we wanna put more housing near those in those areas where we have made investments and leverage those investments to improve access, etcetera. I do also wanna say we have a variance process.

Mhmm. And so there is an administrative so, Mark, can you speak to the administrative variance process? This

is Mark Persons, planner with CDD. Variances wouldn't be able to be used for that. So our two carve outs on on variances are any numerical standard can be varied except for density and lot size. And it's interesting. Right? Like, in twenty years ago, we we didn't want folks to go under. Now it's 2026, and we're asking folks not to go over. So Mhmm. That that wouldn't be an option under the draft. Okay.

Good to know.

I I appreciate the thoughtful response. I mean, the fact is we have to go one way or the other, and we'll see how it lands. We'll see how it works out. Areas that, for my 2¢, that might require future tweaking, I think a little bit, probably some better alignment of our alternative transit, like bicycle parking with our transportation plans for the city. Perhaps consideration and discussion more around any kind of buffer zone between the low rise residential and medium rise.

I continue to be concerned about the disparity between 45 feet and 75 feet. Even with the reduced height that you have put in for buffer zone, it's fairly minimal. So I am concerned about that. And of course, the urban growth area. Annexation, density, how will density be planned in that area?

What will occur, and how does our community grow and, I think, consolidate into the urban entity. But that's it for me, and you have my gratitude. Your leadership in planning for our community's future has been outstanding. Thank you.

Commissioner Wheeler?

I don't have any questions. Mostly, also, I just kinda wanna echo the gratitude. I think as we as we saw in the presentation, land use affects so many things. I mean, there are so many chapters about so many different things, you know, from the individual level of how land use affects our health and our sense of community, our choices, how we get around our ability to afford a roof over our heads to this finances of our city. Are we building in a way that's financially sustainable and where we can continue to provide services?

Our environmental sustainability, are we sprawling or are we densifying and protecting our green space? Are we building in a way that allows us to minimize emissions from transportation and from buildings? So both, like, individually and systemically, this matters a lot. And so I'm really grateful for how much effort and thought has put into this, how much outreach has been put into this. This was a real exercise in balancing competing priorities, and I think that was that was done really well with all of the outreach.

Of course, this you're not gonna be able to make everyone a 100% happy, but this did a really good job of listening and incorporating feedback where it was feasible. I think, overall, the the most important thing about this plan is that it's a step in the right direction when it comes to adaptability. I think when it comes to cities, the most important thing is that we're able to adapt to changing conditions. Like we said earlier, changes that condition of existing in this world, and, this plan allows us to have more freedom to build a city that that works for all of us. So thank you so much for all of the effort.

Commissioner Jay.

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Jay here. I'll start with a quick question. So at the beginning of our of the presentation, there was a mention of the Department of Commerce tracking progress. And I was just curious how do they hold municipalities accountable, or what if you exceed? Are there any grants or anything like that? Or just curious, sticks or carrots of how the Department of Commerce operates.

So is I'll tell you what my understanding is. And apologies to our colleagues at the Department of Commerce. I may not get all of it exactly right. But, typically, what happens is is is in terms of sticks is if you're not meeting requirements, if your, you know, your plan gets thrown out by the growth management hearings board or something like that, you you're on a noncompliance list, and it it impacts your ability to get state funding. We've already had one grant agreement held up, and it won't be processed until we come into compliance with the periodic review process.

So and that's it's not unexpected, frankly. We we get it. We we took longer than they gave us for, we think, justifiable reasons. The the it's it's unclear what the five year reporting looks like yet. Commerce hasn't made rules around that, mostly because I think they've had to make rules around, like, so many other things just continuously through the legislative cycles and trying to keep up.

But we will obviously be talking to you all about comprehensive plan implementation. We have a workshop scheduled in the for on your, you know, your work plan as we've been trying to build it out. But in the fall, to come back to you and talk about what we're seeing, we'll keep you apprised of what we hear from commerce too. But but I can't I could tell you what the sticks are. And, I mean, the stick is no money, and the carrot is money. But, you know, there's there and then there's increasing penalties if you're doing really bad things, but we've never gotten there. So I'm not an expert on it.

Perfect. Thank you very much. And I guess I'll share some of my thoughts. I think commissioner Beck said it extremely well when she said it's a vision for the community, not my vision. Obviously, I'm only one member of this community and one member of this commission, and I have my my personal viewpoints.

But I think when it comes to following the direction policy direction that both the state and the city council have given you as well as the feedback that you've incorporated both from myself, from other members of this commission, city council, all the boards and commissions that you've talked to as well as community members that I I I think with that that in mind, I think that already has informed my my how I intend to to vote on this, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on some of the pros as well of it is that I'm really excited about the single staircase apartments. I think upzoning gives a ton of opportunities for property owners for more flexibility with ADUs, duplexes, triplexers, triplexes, all these different opportunities for housing. I think I already said it, but amazing public outreach that really sets the standard that I don't think other cities or or counties can follow. So great job there, and I wanted to shout out as well as the mobile home protections. I know I've asked about that a fair amount of times, and I think it's really exciting to see the work that you all have done related to that.

And mixed use development, I think that's something that we should aspire to. I'll share some my cons as well as that I do think that sometimes environmental policy, I know that comes in a lot of that comes from the state, but also from the city council may come in conflict with some of our development goals and perhaps that perhaps an overemphasis on pushing for density as opposed to following what a lot of the market does want, which is single family homes. And I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the urban growth area grow myself to give more opportunities for LandTrax, but I know that these aren't the directions that you're given by some of our policymakers. And but I would be remiss if I didn't share my own thoughts on it, but that won't inform my vote on it. But I wanted to say you guys did a great job.

I know this is a Herculean task, and I'm excited also to see that, you know, with the Department of Commerce as well that it's not just a plan that we'll put on a shelf for us to look back at twenty years and go, oh, yeah. So I'm glad to see that we'll be remaining accountable to it as well. So great job. And to also allude to what commissioner Wheeler said about, you know, not necessarily making everybody happy, and I think that's that might be a good thing that not everybody is happy. But, hopefully, you will all be happy with this being over with soon. That's that that matters there. So I hope great work, and thank you very much for keeping us informed and hearing our feedback. Thank you.

Commissioner Castinson?

I'd like to begin just by reiterating that thanks to, everyone who's worked on this, and that that includes everyone who's provided public comment. I know we have several folks here in the room today, but also everyone who provided comment throughout the many, many years of this plan development. A few reflections I wanted to share that I feel like, you know, especially those who maybe haven't followed the processes closely, you know, might just benefit hearing what stood out, you know, to each one of us. And for me, it's very clear that the plan meets a real need for housing. So every single meeting that we have, city staff reminds us there's several pieces of legislation at the state level that require cities to plan for more growth, not just in terms of number of units, but also the different income bands as we've been talking about for some time.

I I feel like this plan and the code really provides a pathway to achieve that goal. And I know we've heard from community members who agree with the current approach and people who have concerns, real concerns about higher density in their neighborhoods. One thing I was heartened to read, which I wanted to point out from the city staff report for today, and I'm just quoting this, it was in the materials that replacement of existing homes in single family zones on standard side lots with new denser housing is likely to be infrequent. So I think it's important just to acknowledge that projection. I know we've heard several times about kind of the market deciding what is going to happen and also that staff remain committed to reviewing how this is implemented.

So I know there's been a lot of concern there and I just want to acknowledge that while at the same time pointing out some projections that have been highlighted. Second, for me, what's actually most exciting about the plan is that it looks at many different aspects of land use beyond housing that are really important to residents. That's probably what struck me the most when I read the plan in its entirety. I know that housing is top of mind for many of us, but I really appreciate that the plan also looks at things beyond housing. So community gathering spaces and facilities where people can experience the art, green spaces, all of those aspects of this plan are so important to creating a community where you know, it's livable and people want to come here and people want to stay here.

And lastly, and this really speaks to the community feedback piece which everyone has highlighted, I feel like the plan really considers the diverse needs and hopes of our city's residents. And again, I know some of us may still have questions or concerns, and I hope that that this body and city staff, as well as city council can continue to listen to these concerns as we use the plan to guide our decisions and then make adjustments as we determine what's working what isn't during implementation. I appreciate the humility that the staff has demonstrated by saying they know they won't get it 100% right, and I think we can all give implementers some grace with this and just realize that we will all be attuned to any adjustments that need to be made. But my hope really for everyone reads this is that you walk away with something that's exciting for you. I know that I did.

There's the concepts of neighborhood centers that bring services closer to where people live, improved transit options, also the commitment to protecting our natural resources. And I hope that when you look at this plan, you see all these different sections, you can be excited about this vision for a shared future. So that's just a few things I want to share based on my reading of the plan and look forward to continued discussions as we move towards implementation after after this evening. Thank you. Commissioner Cavill.

I'm thinking I'm thinking today of a famous quote about politics is that it is the strong and slow boring of hard boards. I think we're all feeling the meaning of that today. After many years, many meetings, and much effort, we've arrived at a comprehensive plan that we can be proud of. I'd like to thank my fellow commissioners for their perseverance and the staff for their guidance. I believe the comp plan before us will lead Vancouver into what

is possible tomorrow. Thank you all.

Vice chair Powell.

I do have a question. It's, I've received this question, from a few folks out in the community. It's about adding incremental density in low scale and medium scale neighborhoods to existing single family parcels. So, Mark and Rebecca, could you touch base? And I'll just give an example. A quarter acre lot with an existing single family home would like to add an ADU. If that was in a medium scale neighborhood, that quarter acre lot plus the ADU, or single family home plus an ADU would not meet the minimum density requirement. Would adding an ADU be an allowable, thing to do?

Mark Person, Planner with CDD. Yes. Vice chair Pyle, thank you for that question. We're looking for incremental change and not looking to scale up immediately of so our draft indicates similar to our existing code is that those minimum densities only kick in on complete redevelopment. And, you know, if you take that house down, if it's a medium scale, you'll have three years to build, you know, to build one, two, whatever it is and not meet the minimum density.

But beyond that, we'd be looking for site you know, if you're doing complete redevelopment to meet the minimum density. But, yes, adding one or two or three units over time, I think, is is the the hope that happens in the community as folks slowly change and with the with this new development code.

Great. Thank you. I'll I'll merge my comments. Thank you.

Okay. There being no further questions for this portion, I believe that takes us into the public testimony. Thank you. Do we have anyone signed up for public testimony this evening?

Yes, we do. We have one person online and several members on in the audience.

Let's go online first, and then we'll call the first two people.

Okay. So Tom Paolo?

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear

you. Yeah. Sorry. I had a problem with the, the video here. But hear me? That's great. So, anyway, my name is Tom Pablo. I live in the Lincoln neighborhood, and I certainly appreciate all the hard work that's gone into this plan. I became aware of this about a year ago, and I was, frankly, quite surprised to learn that a five story apartment building would be allowed next to my house. And, with all due respect, I think a lot of other people in this community, would also be surprised.

And despite all your outreach, a lot of people are not aware of this. It obviously, this this is you're about to pass this, so it's kinda too late to, change anyone's mind. I'll note that you're going above what the state law requires for density. You know, just personally, you know, there's a lot of people like me who spent a lot of years living in apartments, finally got a house that we like. We fix it up.

We have a nice yard, and we're saying, oh, okay. You know, our next door neighbor could have a a multiple family thing, staring down into our backyard. That's kind of the reality for for me despite all the facts and figures. That's what kinda comes out to me. So, anyway, you know, I I appreciate that people say this can be revised, and and I think, you know, maybe you'll need to do that when, when more people in the community become aware of what this does.

You know, I I came down to a meeting, oh, about a month ago down to City Hall, and I walked all the way down from Lincoln Neighborhood down to City Hall and I passed, like, hundreds and hundreds of single family homes. I thought these are really pretty nice places. One thing I've not heard a single word tonight giving value to the older neighborhoods with single family homes is all about the the necessity for more density. And I I hope that you do respect that a community can benefit by having some places with single family homes with, lower density, which is about, you know, 50% of the community according to your statistics. So, anyway, I quoted I wrote down that one of you said we won't get everything right, and, maybe you haven't.

But, so, anyway, that's my feelings, and I really feel that our hundreds, if not thousands, of other people who are in my position who may share those feelings, who, are not participating in this process right now. So, anyway, thank you very much for the, ability to comment on your plan.

Thank you. Please call the first two people in the room.

Mary Kouts and Brian Watson.

Are you able to mute them? Thank you. Please state your name for the record before beginning your testimony.

My name is Mary Kelts, here once again as a long term resident of Vancouver. To be concise, I prepared and submitted written comments this morning, and I'm hopeful that you will have had some opportunity to read them and consider them. So, moving on, I think it's important to note that there is a meaningful disconnect between the city and the county in our long range planning, particularly since we're considering another twenty year horizon. I'd like to see that redress somehow because if it's not, there will continue to be a lot of issues related to the differences between the city and the urban growth area. Responding to some other comments, I'd like to note that I am not advocating an expansion of the urban growth area.

I am advocating better use of the urban growth area that already exists, and with extreme cooperation between the city and the county. That is absolutely crucial. So, that's what I'll say for now, and I'll hope that people in positions to make decisions will read some of the things that I've previously written. The urban growth area, I don't mean to belabor it, but it's been a problem for many years. I've been here for many years, and I've seen the problems, and I'd like to see some real progress in redressing those problems without having to wait another twenty years.

Thank you. Please state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

My name is Brian Watson. And thank you for this time, and I appreciate the work you've done on the comprehensive plan. I'm a member of, Clark County's Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee, though I bring nothing in, directly from them. I'm simply here to represent myself as a citizen of the county. I out in Salmon Creek.

I would like to see the comprehensive plan approved and move forward because it does help the county plan itself. I'm excited about the high density housing, the doing away with the, looking at the minimums instead of the maximums, focusing on that, for the nodes and the corridors because that greatly helps me as a non driving resident in the county where the county wants to align with the infrastructure there on focusing, its its infrastructure build out along those corridors. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Please call the next two people.

Taber Kelly and Gabriela Ewig.

Please state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Taber Kelly. Good evening commissioners. As some of you are already aware, there are some things that made it into this comp plan that I wish weren't in there. Among them are open space minimums and impervious surface maximums which include residential structures and the buffering between zones. There's also far more overlay districts than than well, than necessary, I would say.

All of this will increase housing prices during a housing emergency. With that said, this comp plan is much better than the status quo and I encourage this commission to to vote to to advance it, especially since it is essentially five years late at this point. With that said, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Please state your name for the record before beginning your comments. And there's a little button that looks like a person. If you just wanna press that. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Gabriela Yoen. I am the executive director for Hispanic Disability Support of South Washington, I am one of those CBO members working along with Dominic, Meredith, and Rebecca. Thank you so much for all your hard work to fulfill our wishes and wants of what we wanted to do to be able to work in this comprehensive plan.

And I'm here, obviously, to give my full support to this comp plan and to ask you to make that recommendation to our city council representatives. And I just wanna say that I'm so happy to see that the outreach was very inclusive. I can speak for the families that I support in Clark County. This plan will help with, the cost of living. You know, everybody knows that the growth that we are experiencing here in Clark County is extremely high.

So this will allow for, multi generational families to have, better opportunities to find housing and also to provide for their loved ones. As you know, people with, intellectual and developmental disabilities have a harder time finding a home for their loved ones, and we don't have many options here in the county. So, I just wanna say, please do what is necessary to to pass this plan, hopefully, it will be, like, yes, after five five years while I have worked in this for almost three years. So thank you so much for the work that you do and also for the staff. Thank you.

Thank you for everything you've done to bring us all together and to, collaborate in this comp plan. That's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Please call the next two people.

Tom Napenburg and Ben McCarty.

Please state your name for the record before beginning your comments. And there's a little button with a person on it right there.

Thank you so much. Alright. Thank you. Tom Napenberger, 1713 Northwest, 75th Street, Vancouver. Thank you for this opportunity to address the plan and zoning commission.

I have four overarching points that I'd like to make, and they address process. And process is important because as you all know, it determines outcomes. First of all, I'd ask you to please delay adoption of this update in order to give people more time to understand and comment. While the city has been engaged in this for three years, most people have not had the opportunity to tune into this. There are all important details of lot sizes, building heights, other increased density issues that have been public only since February 19 and have been tweaked since then, as we heard tonight, even up till April 7.

The plan's complexity and scope require time to absorb and understand. You could ask a thousand people on the streets around town and I'll wager that fewer than 50 of them are aware of this process and only a handful would know what it means for their neighborhood. Fears that the city will lose state grant funding appear overstated are not a good reason to rush through such momentous changes. The county and some of the smaller cities are moving slower and don't seem concerned about this. So, please give us all time excuse me.

Please give all us the time that this far reaching redesign of our city needs and deserves. Number two, I'd like to ask why the city is requiring more density than is required by the population estimates, even by the state and county. Meeting the increased density of the county provided population forecast, adding more people and cars while reducing parking along with infrastructure demands will be difficult enough. Thirdly, the city should cooperate closely with the county in designing density for the city's urban growth area. There are nearly as many people, 171,000 in the UGA as there are in the city of Vancouver.

It makes no sense to me to require increased density in the city without concomitant density in the areas expected to be a part of our city. And lastly, the draft plan speaks at length to creating a positive community experience for all residents. Please consider ways to mitigate the impact of increased population and density in our existing neighborhoods for longtime citizens as well as newcomers. And in my last twenty four seconds, I'd like to commend Roberta. She's been hardworking, very patient, an example of just exemplary city employees. So, thank you, Rebecca. Wherever you are. There you are.

Thank you. Please state your name for the record before beginning your comments.

Good evening. My name is Ben McCarty. I'm the vice president of the Northwest Neighborhood Association. I live at 906 Northwest 51st Street in Vancouver. I'm here tonight on my own behalf to encourage you to recommend the placement of Northwest Neighborhood entirely within the low scale neighborhood designation.

The environmental impact statement for the proposed comprehensive update states that intense development is focused in specific areas like urban centers and corridors. However, when the misnamed medium scale is applied to previously low density areas, no longer looking at simple increased densification as intended by the new state requirements. We're looking at the encouragement of intense development and maximum infill with intense impacts on the environment, on infrastructure, and in the ability of the public and wildlife to access critical green spaces that are now walled off behind wood, concrete, and glass. The EIS hand waves these concerns away by saying that all changes will be quote incremental, but the pace of change is something beyond the city's control, and external forces don't just disappear because they want them to. The preferred alternative, the city projects that this designated zones will yield 44,000 housing units over the life of the plan.

City's target is 38,000. Moving the Northwest neighborhood entirely in the low scale would have minimal to no impact on the city's goals. Instead of embracing the use of potentially destructive medium scale zoning in neighborhoods such as Northwest that can logistically handle growth at that level, I would encourage you to embrace smart growth and the true middle housing intended by the legislature and return the Northwest neighborhood to the low scale designation. I received mixed messages from the city on why the neighborhood has been placed mostly in the medium scale and the preferred alternative after being almost entirely low scale in alternative one and two. On one hand, compromises to medium scale zoning have been rejected because they would be too restrictive to what developers could do.

I've been told that the neighborhood had to be included in medium scale due to equity concerns and because, quote, developers do not take down new $1,500,000 homes to make multifamily housing, they take down older homes, end quote, in areas where the residents don't have the wealth or resources to fight maximum infill projects. On the other hand, I'm told intense development probably won't happen in our neighborhood anyway. If that's true, then moving the neighborhood to low scale will have no practical impact on equity or the city's projected yields or targets. However, if the hope is to encourage investment groups a large developers to bid for land and homes against first time homebuyers and senior citizens and to cut the middle out of middle housing, then by all means, leave the plan as is because that's what would happen. I share the city's desire to see to increase density as it grows and also to increase density and growth in my own neighborhood.

But it should be done in a way that is pro people, pro housing accessibility, and pro upward mobility. I would encourage you to choose people over profits, equitable solutions over private equity, middle housing over the mega rich, and smart development over wealthy developers, and to recommend the placement in the Northwest neighborhood entirely in the low scale neighborhood designation. Thank you for your time, your consideration tonight, and for your efforts.

Thank you. Please call the next two people.

That's all we have signed up for tonight.

Okay. I believe that takes us back into deliberation. If we can welcome back our presenters to the table there. Commissioner Cavill, any further comments?

For three and a half years, I don't think I have any more. Thank you.

Okay. Vice chair Pyle, further comments?

Just wanna address a couple of the the public's comments tonight because I'm I'm also, intrigued. And some of this is, I think, within the scope of the comprehensive plan. Some of it is out. But, Rebecca, could you briefly address the city and county cooperation comments? Because I I think they're valid, and, I'm curious as well.

Absolutely. I think, and I I hope that's as clear in the annexation chapter as well as some of the additions we made on the at the recommendation of you all about talking about the experience of living in a different jurisdiction when everything's all connected. But so I think there's should there's a recognition by the city that it is connected. Right? For us to achieve our climate goals, housing goals, employment, jobs, housing balance goals, you know, we we do need to work together, not just with the county, but also with smaller cities and and our partners to the south, the jobs market, the housing market.

Right? These are regional things, and, no one can solve some of the issues we are gonna encounter on their own without without collaboration. And that being said, we are we are sort of we are constrained by jurisdictional authority. And and so the county is planning for more intense development in the urban growth area than the current is currently allowed. They held a hearing last night and this morning on the adoption of their preferred alternative.

The other jurisdictions in the county are also proposing more intense development capacity to meet the requirements of 1220 in particular, but also for Camus Moshuguil 1110. And we do coordinate regularly. There's a monthly meeting between representatives from all the cities and the county to to coordinate on the county's process. So that that is ongoing. The but the the county and the this council, as as any legislative body would have there, they have differences in their policy priorities.

Our responsibility is to reflect and implement our council's policy priorities, and to work with our colleagues at the county, as they try to implement their council's policy priorities, and ensure that we can be as aligned as possible. And and I do believe we do that. We work very closely and and collaboratively with staff at the county and have throughout this process.

Thank you. That's it. Commissioner Beck, further comments?

No further comments. Thank you.

Commissioner Wheeler?

Nothing more for me.

Commissioner Jay?

No further comments. Thank you, chair. Commissioner Castinson?

Just wondering if you could reflect a bit on what some of the public comments we've heard tonight. And I think you presented this already with respect to the differences in numbers. And I think there might be the perception that we're going above and beyond what's required when what you were stating was that there's the direction that we do want to overshoot that a little bit, and there just are some different numbers that I think there might be a little bit of confusion on the part of the public about why that is. So you touched on this in the beginning a little bit, but if you'd like to expand on that, I think it could be helpful.

Yeah. I think that the the 38,000 new units from the base planning year is the minimum we have to achieve. There's nothing that says that we shouldn't provide a little bit of a buffer to apply for more. And in fact, this came up when we were talking to our council about getting to a preferred alternative, and they directed us to add more medium scale to ensure we had enough space for housing, given that we know there's lots of reasons people won't change anything on their property. And in fact, that's what we expect, is most people won't do anything differently, and then it will take time.

And so that is why we have we have planned for more. I also if it's okay because it's related, I think, wanna just clarify that H B 1110 said that we had to allow four to six units on every lot in predominantly single family zones. It did not say that that was the maximum we had to allow. And in fact, H B 1220 requires us to just to do accommodate units, but also income bands. And smaller units tend to be less expensive.

And so, I think there's a feeling that folks think, well, when you applied medium scale to these predominantly single family zones, you've gone way above and beyond. And I just wanna clarify that that some of that is not about just meeting the minimum required in H B eleven ten, but it is also about requiring about meeting the minimums and the targets of h b twelve twenty. So just wanted to clarify that as well.

Thank you very much. I hope that's helpful for folks that had some questions about that.

A couple of questions from my part. This is Charadegweme. Thank you for touching earlier on the collaboration between the city and the county. I think that was helpful to hear. I'd also like to know a bit more about the density alignment with EUGA, if there are any more concrete statements to share in that regard. And then moving on from that, just wondering what are the mechanisms for feedback and any corrections after adoption in a more general sense?

There there's not, a direct alignment between up zoning proposed in The U the urban growth area and and the city. I think, again, this is one reason why contemplating and planning for annexation to have one jurisdiction with one set of rules and development standards that are coordinated, right, makes some sense. Also wanna note that the county is not subject to h b eleven ten. It only applies to cities. So there's just gonna be some differences for us. What was the second part of your question?

Thank you. The second part of the question was a completely different question.

Okay.

That being, what are the mechanisms for feedback and any corrections after adoption of the comp plan, assuming that it is adopted?

Great. Thank you for repeating that. Rebecca Kennedy, deputy director of community development. There are many mechanisms for feedback. We will get feedback.

Mark will get feedback at the counter and from people who are using the code. Our implementers get this all the time, and and a lot of our code changes and cleanups originate with problems identified by private sector developers or builders or our land use planners during the implementation of the in the application of the code to specific projects. We will continue, and we're having a conversation right now about continuing to engage people. We we've we've done a lot to build up, people familiar with land use planning through this process in ways that I find, like, kind of amazing. So there's there's enhanced education and understanding among some folks in the community, and how do we keep that going?

So we're talking about a communication strategy, which would involve continuing to have our list serve and email and solicit feedback that people are seeing. Of course, there's always planning commission and council, community forums, community communications, the ability to write in. And then staff are available. People people should get in touch with us. I know, for instance, Ben McCarty tonight, I responded to his email today, which was a little slow, but I did respond, and we always try to respond. You know? So staff are available. And then we can change the we change the comprehensive plan. We can change it annually. We update it.

We can change our code anytime. So, I mean, it's the the people can provide feedback in lots of ways, we'll continue to not just be, like, available to receive it, but we'll be asking for it. And we'll be talking to you all in the community about implementation.

Thank you. I think that's helpful. And then just a couple of comments from my side. It is quite incredible to think that such a long and drawn out process is nearing its end. I just wanna highlight personally the work that I've seen from staff and community organizations and, honestly, even the general public.

I don't think engaging with the conference of plan is the easiest thing in the world to do given how long of a document it is and how big of an effort it is. So even to all the people who have given comment in any way, shape, or form, I I have to give some level of kudos to because it is a lot to wade through. What's before us today represents a lot of time, energy, consideration, and the culmination of those concerted efforts to bring forth this update. And so the feedback from the residents of the city has been considered, weighed, and more importantly, valued, and that to me is meaningful. The planning commission has seen the plan move from visioning to concrete concepts to draft code to what's before us today over years.

And I also appreciate that city staff and the presenters, of course, today in particular have been so transparent and vocal about the fact that the plan won't be a 100% perfect at adoption. In another meeting that I was in recently, you know, someone said no plans to rise first contact. I I don't know that it'll go that far, but I do think that it's it's important that we recognize that, and I'm happy to hear that as part of the the presentation and the presentations I've observed over the last several years. But what it will do is create the blueprint for the city that we want to see tomorrow, for the vibrant and welcoming city that we strive to be and hope to become. So it's it's been an honor to take part in this process with you all and to be chair at the time of its conclusion.

So do we need any other deliberation to get to a vote? Okay. Then the chair will entertain a motion.

I move that the Planning Commission recommend adoption of the comprehensive plan.

Motion has been offered. Is there a second?

Commissioner Jay, second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call vote, please.

Chair Otogwamy?

Aye.

Vice Chair Pyle?

Yes.

Commissioner Beck? Yes. Commissioner Castinson? Yes. Commissioner Cavill? Yes. Commissioner Jay? Aye. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes.

By my account, all eyes, the motion passes.

Yes.

Thank you. Do

we need to redo that? Could we clarify for the record that the motion included the recommendation to adopt the comprehensive plan as well as the zoning code?

Is that Yes. The intent of your motion?

That was the intent of my motion, that the motion include the adoption of both the comprehensive plan and the zoning code.

Hearing that, does that change anyone's Okay. So then that is the intent of the motion as passed by the Planning Commission. That's okay. Thank you. The legal voice is still all around us at all times. Okay. I think that takes us out of this item. It's it's quite strange to say, but is that the last we'll see of the this part of the effort at the Planning Commission?

Unless it is remanded to you by counsel, then the the establishment of the new planning code, will not come back to you. Again, unless it's remanded for some reason, the you were never out of it, and it is never the end because it is an evolving document. And, as in fact, as we've been working on the planning commission's work plan for the remainder of this year, we've been thinking about things that we would normally have brought to you, context pieces. Commissioner Pyle voted brought it up at the last meeting about the recent, council workshop on our production numbers and and wanting to bring you that information. We've got updates on things coming, but also the the implementation step.

So the the of this long involved phase, this is likely, not for sure the end, but you will never escape it.

Okay. With such great words, the public hearing item is now closed. And that takes us into staff and commissioner communications. Any communications from staff today?

Just wanna confirm with the commission. So earlier this year, in lieu of our typical retreat that we have at the beginning of the year, we did a pretty in-depth training on open public meetings, conflict of interest, GMA, the land use review, like, review process, but we committed to a a retreat. And so just wanna recommit and sort of remind, everyone that that that's happening, and I'll be working with the chair and vice chair to figure out when to schedule that. So we will we will we will retreat at sometime this year, likely during this pause, hopefully, sometime, and and then we can, in the fall, restart sort of regular meetings in a more typical typical agenda and and cadence.

Okay. Thank you very much. Communications from the commission. Commissioner Cavill?

No further comments.

Okay. Vice chair Powell? No? Commissioner Beck? Commissioner Wheeler? Commissioner Jay? Commissioner Castenson? There being no further communications from the Planning Commission, we are officially Sorry. One comment. Okay. Commissioner Cabell.

I guess I just thought I'd bring it up again because it was actually your suggestion in the last meeting that we deputize you and vice chair Pyle to present our commissions. Well, obviously, they have what we recommended, but our thoughts in person at the next meeting of the city council.

Yes. And that will occur. Okay. However, that will not be at the next meeting, but at the meetings that are germane to the comprehensive plan.

Correct. The next one

in May? I believe May 11 and June 1 is what you have Yes. We've discussed. Correct. Yes.

For the record, if anyone wants to come see.

Excellent. Thank you for that call out. Other communications? Okay. We are hereby adjourned.