Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

The May 13th, 2024 meeting of the City of Vancouver Planning Commission will now come to order. Please call the roll.

When you're ready, Commissioner Cavill?

Here.

Commissioner or Vice Chair Pyle?

Present.

Commissioner Liddell? Here. Chair Adegwame?

Present.

Commissioner Jay?

Here.

Commissioner Wheeler? Present. You're back.

Okay. All being present, we'll move on to the second item in the agenda, which is the adoption of the April 8th, 2025 minutes. The chair will entertain a motion to approve the minutes as so written.

Motion.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions?

Aye.

Okay, please note that Commissioner Wheeler has abstained. Before we get into the order here, I myself would like to proffer a motion to amend the agenda for this meeting and subsequent meetings to replace the usual final item of staff and chair communications with an agenda item titled commission communications or comments. Is there a second to the motion? Thank you. All those in favor? AYE. ALL THOSE FOR HOST. AND THE MOTION CARRIES. AND PLEASE NOTE THE AMENDMENT TO THE AGENDA. THAT TAKES US INTO THE NEXT ITEM WHICH IS A WORKSHOP ON THE CONFERENCE PLAN UPDATE. Brian, did you want to introduce that agenda item? And then perhaps you could also give us a bit of an explanation of where we are in the process. I know the last time you looked at the comp plan here, there were some questions from the commissioners that maybe weren't as detailed to the part of the process that we're in. So maybe just an overview of what the comp plan is meant to be and where we are in the process of its execution.

Sure.

of the issue to take care of genetic.

Sorry, is Brian's mic on? It's not on.

The discussion follows a discussion you had at the last workshop, which was pretty wide-ranging on policies and the nature of policies. And so this will continue that and be a little bit more specific towards some of the policies. There was discussion... at the last workshop about how the policies are to be balanced. And it's Typically, all policies are included in the comprehensive plan that are in the plan. And they all serve as direction in some cases to various departments and or issues. When considering proposals such as future options, future examples, similar to the reasons we have tonight, you would need to or the criteria would require that you balance as best you can the relevant policies. The comprehensive plan is fair to say it's generally aspirational. There was discussion last week about some of the fiscal implications of some of the policies and Other than the capital facilities implications where we are required by law to do, particularly in the first six years of the plan, have to have a somewhat detailed fiscal analysis of those. The plan won't necessarily bring forward fiscal implications of individual policy. Some of that will be followed through in budgets of individual departments and some of the discussion around that. led by the city council. That's not to say it's inappropriate to sort of raise some of those issues. It's just that there won't be sort of hard analysis of the fiscal implications of, say, a given policy.

Thank you. I think that's helpful.

All right, thank you, members of the Planning Commission.

As Brian mentioned, Rebecca is not here today, but my name is Dominique Martinelli, the senior planner. You all know me from previous presentations. This is the second part in the series. So the last time that we had this meeting, we went over a different set of policies on land use, climate, housing, and economic opportunity. Today, we're gonna be talking about the four sets of policies that you see on your screen, community feel, equity, inclusion, parks and recreation, and transportation. In the agenda and the packet items today, you received a PDF of all the draft goals and policies that relate to these chapters. You also received via email a sortable Excel worksheet that we weren't able to unfortunately include within the publicly available packet, but it contains the exact same information in the PDF. But this is to help you sort through and be able to look and see which policies specifically relate because of the way that we've nested policies in between chapters. But as Brian mentioned, we talk a lot about kind of the fiscal component. And there's a slide at the end here where we'll talk about some of the follow ups from the last planning commission meeting. So we talked last time a little bit about the process, the philosophy, all the background. We're not going to get into that today because we've already covered that. But if there are any questions or any gaps that you all have or need your memory refreshed, we'd be happy to go back and talk about that a little bit. But one thing that I think is really helpful still is to make sure that we're still all grounded in the organization of how everything fits in. Again, at the very top of the planning effort is the vision statement, which is the result of a year and a half community engagement planning effort where we engaged 1,000 residents, defined an overarching vision statement from which everything else in the plan comes out of. Goals are associated with chapters, so each of the areas that were shown on the previous slide are going to be their own chapters in the comprehensive plan. Each of them have a vision statement, which have been included in the packet for you to review. Each of them have goals, and then policies relate to... you know, different sets of policies and there's different policies relate to a variety of different goals, sometimes up to three or four different goals. If we do not have actions available for you to review at this time, we'll bring them back at a separate date and they will be released as part of the draft public comment period. But the policies relate to a system of principles that guide our decisions about achieved outcomes, The goal is the desired outcome. It's a feature state. They all start with Vancouver is. So Vancouver is in 2045 blank. And the actions talk about the specific things that we'll do over the next four years to achieve them. So we're going to start with community feel. What is community feel? What does that mean? It's a term that came from this process working with our community partners, which are the core, like, you know, body and advisory group that work on this. And there was the need to think, I think, a little bit separately from, you know, kind of equity-focused policies and talking about just sort of this fundamental question of what does it mean when you go out your front door? What does the community feel like? You know, what do you see, you know, visually or aesthetically? You know, what's the nature of relationships? How do we act? How do people in the community feel? It's almost core values related in some ways. You'll see here that there's four draft goals that focus on the concepts of social infrastructure. inclusive and affirming environments, community preparedness, and innovation. So those are goals that are really thinking about making sure that you're active and involved in neighborhoods, and you know your neighbor, and how can the city advance policies that ensure that, making sure that our spaces are inclusive and welcoming to anybody depending on your identity status. You know, community preparedness was just sort of focusing on, you know, prioritizing safety and things of those needs. And, you know, just how do we embed innovation in our local government practices on a daily basis? How do we encourage innovation in the community? And how do we work and innovate more as a local government? And then there's a number of policies that sort of get to that. So there's a lot that thinks operationally about how we do things. There's some policies around trauma-informed services, crime prevention through environmental design and public safety. So it's thinking about how do we create and understanding the city can't absolutely guarantee safety of its residents. How do we try to build safety into our culture and think about how we build urban environments that encourage safety, eyes on the street, just making sure that you have active street presences and adequate lighting, things like that. And how do we make sure that that's all kind of reflected There's some other policies that have to do with increasing access to community spaces, providing resources for youth and aging populations, increasing access to spaces for artists and creatives, thinking a little bit about culturally responsive design, thinking about who is in our neighborhoods, who hasn't typically had the access to opportunities, how are we elevating them? And then we also have some components on kind of the innovation side. There's a lot that kind of overlap with the housing chapters in terms of housing innovation and construction and just how we try to do things differently. So like non-traditional home ownership methods, like how do we advance home ownership in ways that aren't typically the cultural norm, those types of things. So we currently have 24 draft policies that relate to that chapter. Equity is the next chapter that we're going to be discussing today. And there's five draft goals for equity. And this is kind of a chapter in thinking about, you know, the different guiding documents that we have as a city. You know, we have Reside Vancouver, which is our, you know, anti-displacement strategy, which I think has informed a lot of this work. You know, with like our housing chapter, for instance, we have... You know our housing action plan and a lot of existing policy and guidance, and you know a lot of the work that we're doing as part of this. In conjunction with the ongoing equitable development strategy work that's occurring department, this is sort of new territory for us, so we are not required by state law to do an equity chapter, but we are opting to do so because it's the right thing to do. and we're charting new territory in terms of understanding how we think about equity and building off a lot of the existing work we're already doing. But we have some, I think, really significant goals that focus on building an equitable community and making sure that all community members have inclusive access to opportunities and resources. universal design and access so making sure that you know all residents are able to access goods and services that are urban form and when you walk outside you know it's it's accessible for folks with disabilities those types of things um youth and aging populations is the idea of like 880. Has anybody heard of an 880 city where you're planning for folks that are eight years old, but you're also planning for folks that are 80. So thinking about a wide range of incomes in our community and how we plan for that. And then the last couple, I think kind of focus on ethical considerations. So transparent, inclusive governance. This is stuff like open data. This is how the government shares information to the public. Are we doing it in clear and concise ways? What are the practices and procedures that we use when we do this? And then the inclusive use of technology. We're at a very interesting time You know, when we started this effort, Japs EPT didn't exist. You know, there's been a lot of things that are changing rapidly in our society around technology and just making sure that as the city continues to use this and especially like access to technology and, you know, who has historically not had access, how do we advance that in a way that we're ensuring equitable technology use for all residents? So some policies that talk a little bit about that. We have a lot of policies that promote governments and culturally responsive services, some examples of that. The city has an equity and displacement risk assessment that we've been using to guide a lot of investments and decision making in the community. There's policies that support that. a lot of things of that nature. And then we're also looking at like, you know, inclusive community engagement. So like policies that specify how we engage with the community and how we designed in conjunction with the community to achieve stated community outcomes. So I know when we did the workshop yesterday, we sort of paused in the middle and took questions at this point in time. We could also run through the additional policies for parks and recreation or transportation. Chair Adewame, how do you want to proceed? Do you want to pause here or keep going?

I think we'll hold questions till the end.

Okay, that sounds great. And then just some key takeaways. This is a little bit about kind of the feedback that we heard from the community. So we've been doing engagement work throughout the last couple of years. that directly relate to this and how the feedback in foreign policy development. So community members called for vibrant public spaces that reflect diverse histories, build belonging and foster safety. There was sort of a major focus on the need for gathering spaces. There's a lot of conversation on artist hubs and supporting the arts community. And that's reflected a lot in here. And there's some overlap with some updates that we've made to the draft goals for the parks chapter, which we'll cover. But it's making sure that culture and people of different backgrounds are reflected in the public art that we see out in the community. And then equity and inclusion, there was really a major focus. People did speak a lot about this and they want to make sure that we're creating an environment in Vancouver that feels safe to everyone. So thinking about that in our process and then using data. So it's not just walking the walk and saying we wanna do these things, but how are we measuring this? What actual actions are we taking? Are we advancing things forward? So there's always a lot of feedback that we hear on multilingual services, accessibility, being people and being able to attend public meetings um culturally competent outreach um and just like really thinking intentionally about how we bring people into conversation um so yeah that's that's kind of a lot of um that covers those things and then we'll cover the next set of two policies here there were a lot of conversations with our parks department to inform the draft goals for parks um So this is pretty wide-ranging, but we focus a lot on increasing health through recreation, the development of parks, trails, and natural spaces, community health and wellness, and thriving cultural ecosystems. um so you know we're really thinking about like you know safe and equitable access to you know a variety of you know built national built parks but also natural spaces too so providing a diversified range making sure that there's equity in terms of who has access to parks there's a lot of policies that get at that um the parks trails and natural spaces kind of cover that too but just you know just broad goals around how we make sure people access these things and kind of state the benefit and purpose of, you know, the mental benefits and, you know, even just like sort of like cultural and economic benefits to community health and wellness and then thriving cultural landscape is sort of, kind of the final goal here that really focuses on the arts community and how we think about our cultural ecosystem as a community asset. How do we market that? How do we support local artists? How do we integrate that into the work we're doing? So there's a lot of policies that really kind of like influence that. there's some there's some policies that get more specifically into like you know they're more some of them are very cut and dry it's like fund parks like fund you know the construction of parks develop open parks acquire and set aside land for the construction of public parks um you know conserve land for open space and preservation where there's opportunities to do so um and then there's a lot of focus on broadening equitable access um you know working with regional partners to pull out the regional trail and open space networks And then there's a really interesting policy around increasing cultural capacity. So that's the language that's being used of thinking about our cultural assets and the way we deal with financial assets and how do we take intentional strategies to bolster those. And then a lot of policy and discussion around centering impacted voices in the development of community space and community centers. So thinking about who we're reaching out to, what types of spaces are we building? How are we facilitating that? And there are 20 policies that relate to that. All right, transportation. This is something that really just sort of builds off of the work that has been done in the transportation system plan. So we're in a really strategic advantage where that work has mostly been done. This mostly reflects, mostly does reflect the work that has been done as part of that effort. And it really boils down to these kind of four key components and concepts. There's a lot in here that focuses on safe, accessible multimodal transportation with equitable access and climate resiliency. So integrating transportation connectivity and making sure that people are able to access things in the transportation network and they're connected to the services and amenities that they need. Changing travel behavior and based on council feedback, the name of this policy might change a little bit, but this is really getting at really trying to through design and other methods, ensure that people have travel options and that they don't have one primary method of getting around the city, which historically has been single occupancy vehicle? How do we support other options for people that would like to use them to get around and, you know, highlight the benefits of those opportunities. There's one around efficient freight access. The Port of Vancouver has done a lot of really amazing work, and we've partnered with them in the past to ensure that the regional economy is sustained through access to the Port of Vancouver and making sure that that's in the areas of the city that we do need to maintain vehicle, you know, you will access and you know, designate those routes, we do so and then eliminate traffic fatalities, which is really sort of a continuation of our prison zero policy that we currently have. So that's memorialized here in the draft, the draft goals. Other supportive policies, I'll kind of jump to the next slide, because that kind of covers a lot of this stuff. But yeah, when we spoke to residents, people Not really a surprise, but we went and talked to people about parks and people said they wanted more parks. So sometimes it is that straightforward, but people were really thinking about parks and greenways and we did hear a lot about making sure that parks facilities are accessible and inclusive. People have really been supportive of the work that we've done to make accessible playgrounds, facilities and things like that. People, we hear a lot about community gardens, healthy food options. So we think that the draft policies that we have reflect a lot of that feedback. During transportation, people emphasize the need for accessible, safe, multimodal transportation options. We heard a lot about infrastructure. So like parts of the city where there's not sidewalks, thinking about that, not only from an equity piece, but then I like equity and displacement. data that we use to get investments in historically underserved neighborhoods. But there's just some areas in the city where people just don't have the basic infrastructure for mobility. And how do we equitably construct those in areas that don't have that access and transportation equity? So there's a lot of, there was kind of a focus, there's some, there's policies and equitable transit oriented development. So making sure that, you know, a lot of these improvements, these public improvements that we make actually have the opportunity to advance gentrification, what policy framework to be in thinking a lot about these, these large goals areas. And we live in a multi, disciplinary world where not everything fits nicely into our transportation box and our perks and rec box. How do we think about, you know, the intersection of those two things and make sure that you know, we're not displacing folks when we, you know, increase density around, you know, fixed transit routes and things of that nature. What policies do we have in place to support that? And then a lot of policies around the low stress bicycle and small mobility networks, which are identified in the TSP. So advancing the development and continuity of that. There's some policies around like street connectivity and street standards and emerging mobility. So thinking about different types of travel, I'm not thinking the word of this that makes a lot of sense right now, but I don't know if vehicle is the right word, but scooters and micro mobility options, which all popped up. What forms of transportation will exist in the future that we don't know about now? How do we support that? So that includes our EV charging network efforts that we're doing and also just planning for autonomous vehicles. Yeah, so it also includes some conversations too around just general goals or general policies of wanting to reduce vehicle miles traveled per capita for environmental benefits. And yeah, I think, That kind of covers the overall view of policies. Just some next steps on kind of where we're going with this. We're going to be updating this Badger policy that we went to City Council last night. We got a bunch of good feedback from them and we're sharing that with the working groups that helped develop them. We're going to take all the feedback that you have and redevelop these. And we're sort of at a point where we've drafted a set of infrastructure, public facilities and service policies that unfortunately are not included in the packet tonight, but we're working through that additional round at the direction from city leadership and our city council. We're taking a much more deeper dive into annexation. We will probably have an annexation chapter within the comprehensive plan that gets at this. If any questions come up about this today, just know that it is forthcoming. I don't have much more to say about it at this time. And then we will be thinking about the implementation actions and metrics. So we're currently working with our community partners right now to identify metrics for each of the broad goals that are in the draft comprehensive plan. And then we're releasing a draft environmental impact statement, which is a little bit separate from the separate, but just knowing where the whole project is going. But once that period is over, we'll have had the time to incorporate all the feedback and get this in a place. And I think that we're going to be releasing the draft plan development or, you know, our code as well as the full comprehensive plan document at one time. And we're also working to put together like an example draft plan chapter that has come with the request of council. So once we have that, we'll also send that to you for your review. So you can kind of see like, how is this all going to fit in a chapter structure? What's this going to look like? And just get any notes from you all and kind of like the layout organization structure of how it's actually going to read in the final plan. I've done a lot of talking, so I will pause and let you all ask any questions you have. Commissioner Cavill.

Under transportation for traffic fatalities, how is that defined? So is it just car sitting cars or is it more comprehensive to include like car sitting pedestrians?

I would have to go back and double check, but we have a transportation collision dashboard now where we're tracking and monitoring that data. So however we do that currently, but give me one moment to pull that up. See if I have it in here. There are a lot of policies. I don't have it off the tip of my tongue, but I'll get back to you with a response or if I find it again as we're in this workshop.

Yeah, I mean, that would be my main hope that it's not like purely car-centric, ironically, but that it's safety for people taking all methods of transportation.

We do track pedestrian fatalities and traffic collisions.

Okay, great. No further questions.

Thank you, Vice Chair Powell.

Hi there. Thank you as always for the presentation. Some of this may be coming in the infrastructure portion, so just let me know where I'm headed is to come. I'm thinking about a goal or a policy that... prioritizes or emphasize the importance of developing and maintaining low cost infrastructure, whether that's roadway, road network infrastructure, or otherwise, you know, storm sewer, all that sort of stuff. I think it's important that when we are developing street standards, et cetera, or applying for, you know, grant funded projects and building out new infrastructure that we're thinking about reducing the overall cost and maintenance costs. I don't know what the metric for that is, whether that's per capita or per total trip taken or per vehicle mile traveled, whatever that may be. But I think there should be something in one of these policies around that.

Could we dive into that really quickly? Yeah. Could you better articulate low cost?

Low cost. So... I would say that the capital or the transportation department every year as part of the budget process rolls out a maintenance package, and this includes repaving, it includes cleaning of storm sewers, it includes sidewalk repair, a whole litany of things. We know that there's new technologies or existing technologies, but certain have low upfront costs and higher maintenance responsibilities, and others are vice versa, higher upfront costs, but lower maintenance responsibilities. And it seems to me like we should be working towards, if possible, if this is a visioning document, a low maintenance future.

So, okay, so that clarifies low ongoing maintenance costs.

Low ongoing maintenance costs, yep.

Is that, yeah, and it is a little counterintuitive because when I saw low cost infrastructure initially, like when you buy anything, get a lower cost, it tends to fall apart or break quicker.

Yeah, so maybe low maintenance cost infrastructure would be some sort of goal or policy that I think would be appropriate in the transportation or infrastructure section. And then I'm just really excited to hear about the intersection of parks and parks and mobility. I think that, you know, I brought that up a couple of times that we've got some cool trail networks that aren't quite up to snuff for being like a regular commuting level trail or pathway. I'm thinking Burnt Bridge Creek. I'm thinking the Salmon Creek Trail that are true connectors through the city. And if we thought about them and invested in them, like we do our transportation road network network, they'd be a lot farther along. So excited to see that regional trails network policy in here. Thank you.

Commissioner Liddell?

Yes, I was comparing this in my mind with the existing comprehensive plan and what areas are different. And basically it's equity, the emphasis, equity, technology, innovation, ecosystems, and particularly transportation. And I was The transportation ones are very specific, like fatalities and freight. I don't think we mentioned freight in the previous plan at all. So is that... Is that with an eye toward integrating the transportation system or what's the driving focus for that?

Behind freight specifically?

Yes.

It's to call it out because it is something that we do. We are thinking about that and we understand that regional freight access and we have the Board of Vancouver and there's a lot of shipping that goes...

you know to asia and things like that nature and and protecting that is vital to the economic you know driving of the community and we want to make sure that we're facilitating that so is there a jobs component to the freight i i don't have the specifics but generally yes speaking yes so that that was one thing i i don't want to see lost in the comprehensive plan because i know the current one has a specific goal of at least one job per household and uh you know, land use, we wanna make sure we have affordable housing, but we'd also, we don't wanna lose focus of jobs land and jobs. The other thing that's different is the feel factor as you described it. And I guess that's kind of livability. And I think that's gonna be a hard one for us to maintain because so much of the emphasis is on adding to a finite amount of land we have. So what will be the metrics for livability or feel?

That's something we're currently working through now, but I think a lot of it is probably going to be through community engagement. It's going to be things like community-wide surveys. How are you satisfied? Do you feel safe in your community? Are you satisfied? I think there's going to be a lot of survey work that's done. The city does put out a community-wide survey. We're gathering a lot of this information and I think it's going to be tied mostly to that primarily. I think that we can do things specifically around like, you know, city facilities, when we do like, you know, inventories or surveys, you know, how did you feel out of this, like the space make you feel and things like that, I would see being probably the primary metrics that drive this chapter.

I think that's going to be really important as we stretch our way toward the next 20 years. The other thing I was noticing in the tables and goals and policy section, they're pretty giant vision statements. And the vision statements are okay, but they're sort of summary statements. And so what I'm looking for as we plan out that 20 years is that we stretch ourselves and really think about what it's that world we're getting ready for. So I don't want to get lost in words and summaries and not stretch ourselves toward that next 20 years and really think what that environment's going to be like that's going to embrace us as well as we embracing it.

That's it. Thank you. Commissioner Beck?

Hello. Thank you, Dominic. I really appreciate the detail and great presentation once again. I have a question around, I guess, the broader concept that the Comprehensive Plan really promotes leverages to add housing. And obviously, a lot of that will be infill housing. So I'm really curious, when we start looking at different examples, particularly one on the agenda later for today, and we look at all the different vision statements and policies, What is the trigger then? What's the approach of the city and city staff when adding infill housing aligns and supports the comprehensive plan and the city's goals, but has other impacts, particularly around like traffic. It may be that adding a sidewalk is great for pedestrian access, but what is the trigger or what are the triggers that have to be assessed for widening roads or developing infrastructure to be able to meet that infill housing need? Where will that be covered in the plan?

One of the biggest things that we're doing as part of this, to answer your question directly, the answer is mode shift. And when I mean mode shift, it's understanding that in order to house more people in strategic locations that have access to transit, we want to encourage, if you take any sort of multifamily or mixed-use building, we want to think about the trips that come from there. The goal is to shift... how many of those people are accessing that facility using a private vehicle. It's thinking about walking or biking or small mobility trips. And what we're doing is we're looking, and this is required by us to do as part of the comprehensive plan process, is looking at our level of service standards for streets. And right now it's currently based on vehicle throughput. And we're thinking of other metrics in response to that, that focus more on, you know, person output or how many people are getting through a system, you know, via, you know, other modes and like, you know, public transit, because that's really going to be the only way to accomplish this is through providing people travel options.

So look at a broader spectrum of people movement and how people move with impacts like that.

I think the answer is diversity. It's diverse options of housing. It's diverse options of transportation.

Yeah, I think it really does start to I think bring existing residents and new development up against each other in some cases. And how I think the city and staff handle that as we get to individual developments will be quite sensitive. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Wheeler.

First, I just want to say thank you for this presentation, for this work. There was a lot of times where I was reading through these goals and thinking like, oh, we should add a piece about this or about how these relate to each other. And then I would get some of the policies like, oh, that's covered. So I ended up scratching out a lot of my notes while I was going through this because of how thoroughly everything was covered. My main feedback really just relates to how some of these things relate to each other. Because, you know, as Vice Chair Pyle already talked about things like how the parks and transportation goals can kind of align with each other and intersect. And so I want to second that idea that we should be combining those and calling out that those two goals can be working together in a lot of cases. One other specific example of something I wanted to call out, and this is somewhat covered, is the aging and young families, the goal of supporting them. It's called out in Policy 55 that one of the things that supports aging populations is having diverse housing options. And I think it might be good to emphasize that that also helps support young families, like adding diverse housing options helps a family progress, a person progress through all stages of life and maintain access to their supports and their community without necessarily having to leave their neighborhood. So I appreciate that that's called out. I think we might be able to go even further with emphasizing the benefits and how those things intersect. I think the only other thing that I wanted to call out was one of our policies is to have a welcoming and supportive community. And I think that one thing that's really important in emphasizing that is providing affordable housing. If we want to welcome and support people into our community, that's one of the pillars. And of course, that's addressed in the comprehensive plan of these policies in multiple different places. But I think that's an aspect of this policy as well, is providing people with housing.

What was the number on that one?

Policy two, welcoming and supportive community.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Trey.

Thank you, Dominic, for your presentation. I'd also like to third Vice Chair Pyle and my support for park pathways and trails and all those things. Those are great. And also want to throw, I was excited to see the call out for senior heads as well in regards to our last month's meeting and conversation. I just had a quick question, which might be related to annexations in the future, but it was called out on the policy list this week, which was that the regional planning and coordination, I was curious, and you can answer this at the next one if you'd like, but it's one that's at the table for it, but would this include aligning code within the UGA between the county and the city to allow and facilitate annexations and make it more affordable? Because I know that's one of the cost prohibitive things about annexing certain neighborhoods is that it's expensive and their development codes are different than our own. So just be curious to see what efforts or visions would be made to close that gap.

This might be sort of a disappointing answer, and Brian, maybe you can weigh in on this a little bit. In terms of the urban growth area, we You know, we have our process that we've been working on, and Brian's sort of been the lead on this, is working with the county to talk about some of the outcomes that we foresee in certain areas of the urban growth area. But unfortunately, unless we've annexed portions of the UGA, we don't have the ability to influence their development standards and design standards, what happens. So in order to actually like have that full growth control, we'd have to annex. But Brian, would you want to potentially mention like

some of the ways that we work with county staff to talk about you know kind of yeah so there there's um first in terms of what can this conference the city comprehensive plan say about that we do have some policy language in the current plan and maybe we can bring we haven't talked about whether we would bring that forward in this plan but it might make some sense just to state us a small number of things about what our as a city expectation would be about the UGA and to try and coordinate to try and have consistent standards, that kind of thing. So that kind of sets a broad vision. But but obviously, the key is making that happen. And so part of especially now is not just as we're developing our comprehensive plan, the county is also, there's periodic coordination with it at the county staff level, as well as participation in county hearings at the planning commission, county council level by the city to try and make some of those standards a little bit more consistent. But ultimately it's a county call on, they have land use, use jurisdiction in the unincorporated area. So we'll continue to try and make those standards consistent. You know, it's a two way dialogue. It's not just city asks, it's also an occasional county asked to, but that's essentially the process for it. And at the end of the day, the city has say inside city limits and the county outside city limits, and we try and coordinate as best we can to be consistent.

Thank you. Just a couple of things. One being, would you mind giving us a brief little sort of overview of how these goals align with the place types and intensity that we sort of reviewed, I think, many sessions ago, and how these goals inform that part of the work?

Yes, give me one quick moment. I would say most of that exists within the... the land use chapter, which we're not covering tonight. We reviewed during the last one, but I think maybe one quick moment here. A lot of the policies, so we talk about this, right? We talk about connected and accessible neighborhoods. We talk about a built environment that promotes health and efficient use of land. Those are sort of the overarching goals. But one of the things that we do do is there was policy 41, which you'll see in the draft framework that has sub-area and corridor plans. So we've identified developed sub-area plans for key centers and corridors citywide, facilitating the development of integrated residential commercial employment and community uses. Those directly relate to the nodes, which were in both of the land use possibilities. So possibility A and possibility B have those sort of like purple circles around key corridors. That also applies to policy 42, which is employment hubs. Strengthening neighborhood business districts is also in there too. So thinking about, and it's really, and honestly, it's more directed towards the commercial side in terms of that kind of place-based making and is really gonna give us the authority to do sub-area planning once we adopt the comprehensive plan. And that looks a lot like efforts that we've previously taken, like the Evergreen and Grant corridor strategy, those types of efforts. On the housing side, it's most of the policies that have to do with, I got the numbers, and providing a different range of different housing types. So number, it's literally as straightforward as 99, allow middle housing. So like those types of things. And we're not saying like, allow middle housing. And we did have some draft language that was like, you know, directly relating to the specific place type designation, but that was a little too specific. You might see some of that stuff come out in the actual actions that move forward. But we're giving ourselves that ability to let that happen and basically tee up for everything that's identified in the place types through those policies that promote rental housing and place-based design strategies.

Thank you. I think I'm mostly thinking about community feel and vision, right? Thinking about, and you mentioned that metrics are something that's being worked on that's forthcoming, but quantifying sentiment is really hard, right? And so when we talk about how we'll have metrics for community feel and vision, I'm just curious to see how we, inform that community feel through the play steps and the relationship there. So I look forward to seeing how that metrics process goes and what comes out of that. My other note, I really do agree with the changing travel behavior while being potentially renamed. I think ensuring access to a variety of transportation options inherently might cause that shift in behavior, but I could see people not being very particularly enthused about a goal called changing travel behavior. I wanted to see also if you could sort of reiterate how much growth the city is required to plan for throughout this process. I know that's not particularly relevant here, but when we think about the entire picture, what are we planning for again?

81,000 new residents, 38,000 new housing units, and I believe... What's the number for jobs? Around 44,000 new jobs over a 20-year period.

That's a lot of people that need somewhere to live.

We're working on it. Yeah, thank you.

I think that takes us into the next question. I'm on the agenda here, which is a workshop on the proposal of National Parking Minimums for Affordable Housing. Brian, did you have some introductory comments? Sure.

We'll have Chimchun Ko talk to you about some of the details and have some of the information in the packet. This is as part of the city's ongoing need to provide more housing and more affordable housing, and particularly in a timely manner. Some issues are coming up that we want to address before the onset of the comprehensive plan at the end of this year or early next, and provided they're consistent with Council's general direction, which did include housing and particularly affordable housing as something they wanted to move forward in the interim. So this is an example of that of a proposed code change which would allow citywide eliminate the minimum off street requirement for parking for affordable housing. to continue to allow affordable housing providers to provide the parking that they determine is necessary for their projects. But it would, for those particular ones, defined as 100% of the units affordable, or 50% of units affordable at 100% of area median income. So half the units in a project would need to meet that standing it's it's 100 ami so it's it's sort of an expansive definition of uh of what is affordable but obviously to try and get those projects to be built as we're we are hearing from some folks who affordable housing providers who are saying that the current standards are a problem and an impediment for them so um with that thank you

So I'll just quickly jump into it. So as I'm sure you're all aware, we're facing a ongoing housing homelessness emergency crisis. This is primarily driven by historic underproduction and the production not keeping up with population growth regionally and locally. In addition to this, community wages have not kept pace with the cost of housing. So we're really working to both increase housing production and increase local wages as much as possible. to address this. So as has been identified through previous efforts as part of the comp plan, we've identified that there's a significant housing deficit and we expect over the next 20 years to need to produce around 2,000 new units per year in order to both close the deficits and to address the on and to accommodate the ongoing and expected continued growth of the population in the city. About half of those 2000 units per year are expected to be needed to be 80% AMI or less, which is a significant portion of the housing production and a portion of that housing will not get produced and historically has not been produced without significant additional subsidy to what we already have. So in addition to this context or that need that has been identified, we have been seeing a significant slowdown in permitting activity over the last few years. That has continued to this first and second quarter, or ongoing second quarter of this year. So last year in 2024, we saw a 35 per, Permitting activity was 35% lower than the annual housing goal identified in the comp plan and 24% below the 10-year start average. Additionally, when we look at more industry data, we see that multifamily units under construction data is also mirroring this, as would be expected, and we're seeing it 55% below the 10-year historic average, indicating a significant slowdown in industry activity. This is the lowest it's been since 2014. So really indicates broader regional economic and industry trends. These units under construction project timelines typically are anywhere from 18 to 26 month construction periods, depending on the size of the project. Projects under construction now are delivering two to three years out, or sorry, one and a half to two and a half years out, typically. So slowdowns in the industry now are impacting our pipeline for the next several years, and will take time to impact our, or the impact will be long term. So as Brian mentioned, the proposed change is to eliminate off-street parking minimums for properties that achieve at least 50% of units at 100% AMI or less for a minimum of 10 years. And this is, and we are proposing this today because of the trends that we are seeing in housing production. The slowdown in the housing production has significant impact for the next several years. And the broader economic pressures and trends that we're seeing are unlikely to fix or The ongoing economic pressures that we're seeing today are likely to exacerbate this trend and increase the housing gap for the near and midterm. We feel that immediate city intervention is necessary to prevent further expansion of the housing deficit, and that goes beyond this one proposal. We're working on several strategic interventions that we'll be bringing to you in future dates as well as this one. Removing parking minimums is not a policy to telling people not to build parking. It is a policy that lets the market demand to drive how much parking is being built and for property owners to identify themselves how much parking they need to support their property. This has been shown to be extremely effective in other jurisdictions that are reducing costs of new developments, as well as improving land use efficiencies and making greater use of existing parking infrastructure By eliminating a kind of arbitrary requirement for the amount of parking that properties provide, this can reduce costs in certain scenarios where properties don't necessarily need as much parking as the city requires. Parking has been shown to be extremely expensive, especially in higher density developments where structured parking is required. In addition, with new state requirements of electrical vehicles, those are adding additional costs to already expensive structure for residential up to 45% of parking stalls have to have EV infrastructure, which drastically increases electrical infrastructure needed and adds substantial costs on top of the cost to build the structure itself. Additionally, having a parking requirement that's not based off of market conditions or surrounding conditions can lead to excess space being restricted by parking, further potentially reducing the number of units provided onsite or increasing the amount of hardscape provided onsite. Eliminating minimums also allows for more flexible parking solutions for properties to address their parking needs. In particular, lenders and equity investors can have strict requirements for projects to provide parking, which tends to be more expensive, or sorry, can have strict requirements for projects to meet code-required parking specifically. So eliminating minimums gives projects more flexibility to enter shared parking agreements to meet their parking need or other agreements that maybe non-exclusive parking access so that it's easier for residential projects to share parking with commercial projects, which have different parking demand at different times of day. And just overall, we can promote more efficient use of existing parking resources, existing and future parking resources. We have had several affordable projects currently underway that have run into issues around parking minimums and have expressed that removal of parking minimums would be beneficial to their project and allow for greater flexibility to deliver the parking that they've identified that they need. So as mentioned, this proposal is part of a larger array of strategic actions that we're looking to bring to you and get approved to promote housing affordability and kind of combat the larger economic barriers that we are facing in housing production. So these include modifications to the MFTE program, timing of the STC and impact fees, and allowing to defer those, which I believe we will be bringing to you later this month for discussion as well. process improvements for development review and providing more certainty around shorter review timelines and continued investment and or continued investment in identifying additional resources for affordable housing projects. So these the Removal of parking minimums is aligned with several aspects of the strategic plan, city strategic plan, addressing housing and human needs by reducing the cost of housing where possible. It supports transportation and mobility through promoting alternative transit modes and efficient land use, which further improve or makes it easier to achieve alternative transit solutions and vibrant and distinct neighborhoods through promoting efficient land use and which helps with walkability. In terms of next steps, I apologize, this slide is a little bit out of date. We are at the Planning Commission workshop today. The next planning commission hearing will actually be May 27th. So in two weeks, and then as we were able to get that scheduled, thank you for those of you who were able to be available on that day, we were able to also push up the city council dates as well. So the city council first reading will, city council will be briefed in the comm session on June 2nd. The first reading will be on June 9th and the planning commission hearing will be on June 16th. That's all I have.

Thank you. Commissioner Beck.

Thanks, Jim. Appreciate the presentation. I'm curious, you said that a policy of eliminating the minimums has been highly successful in other communities. Are you aware of any policies where the code is set more as an exchange for you can eliminate if you add this much more in housing? Just curious if that approach has been implemented employed in the past?

Not that I'm aware of, but I'm not a code expert by any means. I don't know, Brian, if you've seen that.

No, no. I mean, we can maybe do a little bit of research to see if we can find some before the hearing on that. But no, I'm not aware of any offhand.

I'm just curious. I'm aware of how impactful the requirements for parking are, especially structured parking for higher density. I know in the Heights we're running into that quite a bit. So I don't have any other questions or comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler?

This is probably a question you may have anticipated, but why not get rid of all of them, all the parking minimums?

There's certainly been some direction and some movement in that direction. I mean, starting with some of the changes in state law we saw a couple of years ago. We will see where we end up on this comprehensive plan update. I think Rebecca could have given a better answer than I can of where that is. I think it's generally a concern though, yes. There's probably still a role for some level of parking minimums, but the same reasons that Chimchun laid out here regarding affordable housing apply to market rate housing.

Because I think we're moving away from parking minimums in general. We've seen getting rid of them overall work in lots of places. And there's nothing special about affordable housing that makes parking minimums not work for them, but work for other things. I mean, of course, you're going to have a lot more budget constraint in that situation. i think that we know that even being able to build more housing that's at a higher cost still leads to more affordable housing because of filtering through housing so i think that this is great this is a great step but if we've acknowledged that we're in a housing emergency we've acknowledged that parking minimums can be a barrier we should eliminate them everywhere that's my opinion thank you thank you commissioner jay

you i can definitely align with uh commissioner wheeler's uh view that we should eliminate parking regulations everywhere especially but i really appreciate your presentation too that uh the call out to meet market demands as opposed to arbitrary uh limits so very much appreciate that call out as opposed to trying to change folks behavior through transportation methods but um great presentation and definitely a line thank you commissioner cavill

Yeah, great presentation and hopefully the first of many such reforms.

Thank you, Vice Chair Powell.

I just have three questions or opinions or comments. I don't know what they are yet. In terms of the tenure requirement, how is that going to be enforced? With an MFTE and other affordable requirements that have a financial lever that get paid out or not paid, in the case of the MFTE, we have an enforceable policy. With this, once the parking gets built, it gets built. And so I'm curious about that 10 year minimum for the affordability component.

Yeah, so the 10 year minimum was we landed on that requirement based off of the state allowance for construction sales tax exception, which for everyone who may not be familiar with that, it allows for a waiver of the construction sales tax for redevelopment of existing parking lots, public parking lots that redevelop to a project that contains at least 50% of the units at 80% AMI or below. So we would enforce that through an affordable housing covenant to get this parking reduction, I think. The idea is after those 10 years, it's kind of up to the deal structure whether they remain affordable or not, but it is a way for us to ensure that we get some level of affordability and also still produce housing.

Yeah. Can you tell me a little more about the affordable housing covenant and how that works?

So it's a tool that we use for pretty much all of our affordable housing funds currently. It is recorded against the property. I don't know the exact enforcement terms. I don't know if Becky may be able to weigh in on exactly how we enforce those, but there are, we use it on all our existing.

Something that's getting funding.

Yes, anything that gets funding has affordable covenants.

And there's been a few cases, I don't know, kind of on one hand probably that I'm aware of at least, where it was a affordable housing provision that didn't necessarily receive funding that was, or rather it was a code requirement to allow, for instance, commercial zones not having first floor retail, citing commercial, or citing affordable housing, where we had...

uh entered into a covenant with the essentially the same coverage that the city was funding yeah i you know it that all makes sense to me i hope that no one would you know try to cheat the system but it is going to be difficult to enforce on projects that don't receive funding or don't have some other sort of financial you know um hook and i think a lot of the projects even those that are quote unquote market rate probably are going to have 50% of the units at 100% AMI or less, at least based on how AMI is shaking out right now and what the equivalent rates are, like studios and one bedrooms, which are the units most likely not to have multiple cars. So it makes sense. That 100% AMI is pretty close to market rate. So I think you're going to have more projects than capital A affordable potentially take advantage of this. And I think that's great. but I think that just should be looked at hard in terms of the affordable covenant and how it would be enforced.

Can I speak to that just briefly? Becky Rood, Assistant City Attorney. So we have a few different models of the affordable housing covenant depending on the specific program, but all have relatively common structure in terms of annual reporting requirements to demonstrate compliance, the ability of the city to audit at any time, and then there is a financial hook in the um in the value of the parking that was excused and so that it's a contractual arrangement it doesn't mean that we would just hey you're in violation you give us the money there is the legal process but there is a valuation that is determinable and the city would be able if there was non-compliance the city would have a means to enforce the covenant and say You either have to be in compliance and provide affordable housing, or you have to compensate us for the value of the benefit that you received in the excusal from the parking that you would have constructed. Obviously, it doesn't, as in the justice that we get may not be ideal because we can't necessarily go back and get a parking structure, but we can get the value of the parking structure. And we have, all of the covenants have standard contract language within terms of default remedies, cures, and enforcement. And so far, my experience with them and the Affordable Housing Loan Fund and the MFTE, it's a system that has worked well and is actively monitored and enforced.

Well, that's great. That's very helpful clarification. I mean, if you go with Commissioner Wheeler's proposal just to get rid of all of them, you don't have to deal with that. But the last thing is we've relied in our site plan reviews and often at the level of comprehensive plan change, this body has often relied on the idea that site plan level stuff is going to be handled at the site plan level. i think parking is one of those things that usually gets handled at the time of site plan um particularly if we're moving it from the zoning code and it's becoming a little more um you know, market driven, I think it would be appropriate to consider with this code update a piece of code that asks applicants at the time of site plan proposal to explain their plan for parking and explain why they've chosen the number of spots that they have, not to ask for an additional parking study or anything like that, but it it would give um i think staff and the community the opportunity to understand why they're providing the number of parking stalls that they are i think we all know common sense wise that a project um you know further you know in downtown is going to be different from one um you know in orchards or something along those lines in terms of appropriate parking ratio and a section of code that asks or a section of the site plan application that asks the applicant to explain um their methodology would would be helpful so for consideration thanks thank you Commissioner Liddell I have no concerns with eliminating the parking minimum for affordable housing or across the board thank you a couple of questions

You kind of pre-answered my first one, just sort of figuring out are there other levers that can be pulled that the city has the ability to influence, to try and ease some of the pain points that we're seeing in this slowdown, right? So thank you for sort of that anticipatory slide. there but i was curious if in your experience there are any actions at the city or state level that have influenced that slowdown that are not remedied in the steps that you laid out and then the step that we're talking about today um i mean

It's a complicated question. I think historically we have seen the cost of construction increasing over time and some portion of that is driven by state requirements. I don't have data on exactly how much of that is. But things like parking minimums have historically driven those added costs. Things like downtown design standards can impact costs. And I think building code can impact costs. And there is a benefit to those. So it's not all bad and it's not all good. There's a lot of gray there.

Okay. Are properties generally just sliding in right at the minimum, or are they exceeding the minimum just in a general sense? For parking? For parking, yeah.

It varies. I think we've seen projects want to provide more parking. decent amount more than minimum parking based off of market conditions. And we've seen projects come in wanting to provide less than the minimum. Typically, I think the data shows that affordable projects tend to see a lower demand in parking compared to market rate projects. And I think we've heard from developers that some market rate projects see more parking as an amenity to attract attract tenants. So it varies a lot by project to project and where the project is located. Downtown, we definitely see lower parking needs or demand from developers at least than East Vancouver or some of the less dense parts of the city.

Great. And then the study that you referenced from, I think it was August 2024, is that somewhere on the city's website? If someone in the community were wanting to go and look at that as far as, I think it was a parking utilization study of downtown.

Oh, yes. That was completed as part of the parking study that was sort of parking plan that was adopted recently. I don't remember exactly where that was. It's on the parking website. Thank you. It's on the city parking website.

Perfect. Thank you. So if anyone were curious about that, they could go and check that out on the city's website. Excellent. Those are all of my questions. I appreciate the presentation. Thank you so much. Thank you. That takes us a little bit ahead of schedule to the break. Oh, the... May 13th, 2025 meeting of the City of Vancouver Planning Commission will recess until 6.30. The May 13 2025 meeting of the City of Vancouver Planning Commission will now resume after the 6pm break. That takes us into our next agenda item, which is the community forum. Do we have anyone signed to speak for community forum this evening?

Yes, we do. We have 123454 in person one virtual. Excellent. So

A community forum is held at each meeting of the Planning Commission. During the community forum, the public is invited to provide input on matters related to the Planning Commission's authority and responsibility for land use and development matters. Each speaker will be given three minutes to address the Commission. The chair will help you keep track of time. Remarks should be directed to the Planning Commission as a body, not to individual members or staff, and focus on subjects within the Commission's advisory purview. Community members who wish to submit lengthy or detailed testimony are encouraged to email their comments to planningcommission at cityofvancouver.us. Please note that the community forum is different from testimony provided as part of a public hearing. In the case of public hearings, individuals indicating they wish to testify on the public hearing item will be called upon during that portion of the agenda. We appreciate, welcome, and consider community input regarding land use policy. Please call the first person.

The first person will be Margie Barria.

Hi there, good evening. My name is Margie Barilla. I am the CEO of Haven Treatment Center that just recently established 2805 East 19th Street. We are a residential treatment center that has paid our fees with the state of Washington for 60 beds. We also are a outpatient mental health hospital for children. which is five to 17. With that being said, the issues that we're having is the delaying process to issue a second occupancy permit, which doesn't quite make sense because if you already did a planning review for $10,800 for my first RTC, which still doesn't justify because of the fact that we were submission of our fees for 60 beds, they only allowed 30. Now we're requesting an in addition of $10,800 for another planning review for the outpatient counseling for children that only come in for group therapy sessions, individual and family sessions within a four-hour window. I'm asking for a further review and consideration of what they're asking because of the fact they've never experienced such a facility, which we are working towards becoming Joint Commission accredited. Also do a license as a residential treatment center and an outpatient mental health hospital for kids five to 17. 10 of the beds is actually reserved for children being trafficked here in the state of Washington. We have submitted our documentation for the bed preservation if they want to reserve all 60 beds for the state of Washington children, which is still under the need of how many children are being trafficked here in Washington state. We are asking for possibly for a further conversation with Sri and Mark Pearson which I have asked for an additional meeting to expedite this. We have a total wait list right now, over a thousand children here in the state of Washington needing outpatient therapy for suicide ideation, depression, and anxiety. So the further delay every day, those children that are displaced in the foster care system, we're actually getting started getting phone calls that those children have died under the care of CPS for the state of Washington. So every day we delay. I have assumed this building as a February 1st, right down the street from y'all. And we have already pre-invested over $983,000, not including our monthly lease to try to get our doors open. We do not have an issue with workforce. I have received over a thousand resumes within the state of Washington. I've brought in more than enough of qualified clinicians. I also have two psychiatrists. So we do not have a workforce issue. The concern now is the delay with the CO here in the city of Vancouver, and then now the construction review for the state of Washington. The value you're going to see with our organization, because we serve the age group of 5 to 17, we're also a faith-based non-denominational. We have a structured programming. We also are a pork-free facility, highly nutritional. And also, if you were to come out and visit our location, you will see that there is robust programming to where the day starts at 6 a.m. with prayer and meditation and lights out at 8 o'clock.

Thank you so much. Your time is up. Thank you. Thank you so much. The next person.

Yeah, can you please call the next person?

The next person is Richard Seekin and Sharon Peavy. You may also come up to the table.

A little different perspective for you. My name is Sharon Peavy, and I am director of a statewide organization called AMPOL. It's for manufactured homeowners to promote, represent, protect, and enhance the rights and interests of manufactured homeowners in the state of Washington through communication, education, negotiation, and preservation of our communities. What has happened to our once affordable way to live in a community within homeowners needs has been taken over by corporate monopolies whose only interest is to raise rents until seniors and young families lose their homes. Recently, thousands of tenants in our state, as well as manufactured homeowners, became involved to pass our rent stabilization bill, which is far from perfect. The new builders are now awarded most restrictions lifted on building have access to low interest loans or no interest loans, all the while their ability to change new tenants' rent increases to whatever they want. This rent gouging will not only continue for 10 years, but for 12 years. Rent gouging will be legal for all new building and the new tenants will need to endure 12 years or until no one can afford rent, and new apartments remain vacant. Many tenants are working three jobs now just to afford rent. At a roundtable meeting in Olympia, this was before our 5% yearly rent increase passed for manufactured homes with Bill 1217, One 84-year-old lady described her rent increased on her manufactured home at $1,000 monthly, along with her 7 to 25 monthly charge. This was happening in our state. She was headed to the street. We were in tears, including the present legislators who were there. We now ask for another small protection for our manufactured home communities. We ask for overlay zoning. Most communities house our seniors who want to live in peace and not lose their homes because of repurposing the land. Their homes were their biggest investment. Our cities claim they are working towards housing, providing affordable, stable living. Well, thousands of seniors already have a home and do not want to lose it. We had a meeting last year with our commissioner and some of our communities expressing how important this issue was to them. Losing a home later in life can be devastating. Without protections of this nature, senior citizens will be on the street. So we need overlay zoning for manufactured homeowners. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Is Richard Seekins present? I don't see a name online as Richard Seekins. And if they're not present, we can move on.

OK. Next person, please.

Next up is Tabor Kelly and Atul Mathur, who is virtual. So Tabor Kelly will be first.

Good evening, Commission. I noticed that on the agenda today was the workshop review of proposed removal of parking minimums for affordable and attainable housing developments. because obviously land devoted to parking doesn't produce anything other than creating an imperfect surface that creates problems. And additional, I just don't particularly like the government telling people what to do with their private property. When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, I don't remember a chapter where it said the government definitely had Anyway, that's all. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Last up, we have Atul, and we will allow you to speak over Zoom. Can you hear us all right?

Yeah, hi. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you loud and clear. I'm going to go ahead and start the minute timer.

Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is Atul Mathur, and I'm a resident of the village at the Fishers Landing. So at the risk of sounding like a tour guide, let me say that Fishers Landing is in East Vancouver. It's located just off the first exit on Highway 14 as you just cross Highway 205, and it just steps away from the Fishers Landing Transit Center on the other side of 164th Avenue. I've lived here for over 13 years. It's a wonderful, quite walkable neighborhood. We have about 42 single family homes, wonderful mature trees and beautiful landscaping. And what's not visible are other more wonderful backyard gardens and well-kept. Well-kept streets are very visible and it all reflects about three decades of community pride and stability. So we have a neighborhood association and I serve on its board as its president. And our association conducted a resident survey. And the context was the city's proposed rezoning plan under the Vancouver 2045 comprehensive plan. And our goal was to understand how informed the residents are about the plan and what they support. and what concerns they have about potential changes to our neighborhood. So in context of that new possibility and possibility B. So I'm here on behalf of my neighborhood association to share the survey results. I've also submitted written comments that you can see under the written public comments as the survey summary and the appendix. Essentially, we got initially without any email blast, no social media, just by putting a couple of street signs and the 32 verified responses and which it kind of had the same message, which is the one alignment, one message is the residents want to preserve their neighborhood's current character. And if you look a bit deeper into it, there are like 32 verified responses till 10th of May and 28 supported keeping the neighborhood as it is with top privacy. It concerns being privacy, traffic and property values. And since then we have received 20 more responses reinforcing the same. So our ask relief is, firstly, thank you very much for taking care of guiding the planning process. And we ask you that you respect this consensus and ensure any future planning reflects the voices of those who live here now. And at a personal level, I believe that the village is a true gem of the city. It's peaceful, walkable, connected, and it is worth preserving as it is. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Do we have anyone else signed up to speak for community forum? No. Okay. Given that there are no more individuals signed up to speak for community forum, the community forum portion of the meeting is now closed, which will take us into the next item on our agenda, the public hearing. The role of the Planning Commission is to review and 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 are 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're 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 how many people were 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 council. Would anyone on the Planning Commission like to disclose any conflicts of interest? Will you show respect for the people testifying tonight, whether you agree with their comments or not? Would you like to introduce the hearing item?

Yes, we have two rezoned proposals for you today. These are site-specific rezones proposed by the property owners. and they meet the somewhat narrow criteria set by the city council of items that essentially legislative changes that are appropriate to entertain before adoption of the updated comprehensive plan zoning code scheduled for the end of this year, with the potential that it may still over into early next year. One of the, perhaps the major council exception for not hearing items prior to the comprehensive plan was to provide for housing, particularly lower cost housing, but housing of any kind. It was explicit in their resolution direction to staff, and both of these proposals do provide for additional housing in the relatively shorter term. So both are being heard accordingly. As mentioned, the corporate plan is part

There we go.

The citywide comprehensive plan is required to be adopted at the end of this year. There is the real possibility that Vancouver may join other, not just local jurisdictions, but some of the Puget Sound jurisdictions whose timetable have called for that to be adopted last year and spill over into the earlier part of next year for final adoptions. And as mentioned, the council did set priorities for what could be reviewed in advance of that, and these fall within those exceptions. Both zone changes are reviewed under the criteria set by city code, which is twofold. It's a comparison of the consistency of the proposed designation with the applicable policies of the strategic plan, the citywide strategic plan and the comprehensive plan compared with the existing designation. And second, number two is a change required for rezones. My understanding is it's essentially a legal requirement established by case law to document that there has been some change in circumstances since the zoning was originally adopted. Usually this is for almost all rezones. This is a fairly easy criteria to meet in this case. for both of these cases. I think the biggest change, there's been many, but the biggest would likely be the deepening of the affordable housing crisis and in more recent years, the extensive new statutory requirements facing Vancouver to address the housing crisis. So I would propose, given that my understanding is that the majority of the audience is here to testify to the 58th Street project to commence with that, and then that would be full planning commission view, culminating in a vote, and then return to the second of the two rezones, the Bella Grove proposal. And so very quickly, just to orient folks to the site, which I think I'm sure everyone knows well, certainly the audience. But this is a proposed rezone from R22 to R50. So as this map shows, both the two slashed area, which is the rezone site, and the two parcels adjacent to them, which could say large lots, single family homes, are all slated for R22 development. What's on the ground now is quite different. It's large lot single family housing. This is a map of zoning. So it shows to the north of the site is Schaefer Park, which is proposed or rather is in the process of master planning with construction anticipated to begin next year. and that would involve the construction there, improvements on that side of 58th Street, including sidewalk and widening. The property southeast of the rezoned site is zoned park, but it is in fact a stormwater facility. I spoke at some length with stormwater staff about its status. It has a couple of entry points. It is, and I think there was some written testimony to this effect, used by some residents for dog walking. And that's with the knowledge of stormwater staff that that does occur. It's a stormwater facility that the city had inherited from the county. It's my understanding is somewhat oversized for its function. So it does have some some extra land, but it is in fact a stormwater facility rather than a park. that's anticipated to be approved. There is some acknowledgement on the part of the city that some folks do use that for dog walking. A little harder to see on the map here, as mentioned, the two homes to the east and west of the proposed rezone site are larger single-family home sites, and to the southwest are smaller single-family homes, as you can see here. And before jumping on to the next one, I would just note that under either of the two possibilities, which are essentially what the city is titling citywide zoning options under the new comprehensive plan, recognize that final decisions haven't been made, are what we call medium scale neighborhood. I think for folks interested in that, if you go to our Vancouver, website describes the existing comprehensive plan, but also shows the possibilities citywide mapping of not just the colors involved and showing what these, that these two parcels here proposed for rezone are envisioned as potentially what we call medium scale neighborhood, but also describes what that is. The medium scale neighborhood would be likely none of this has been finalized, but it's sort of generally what's envisioned, what's been discussed at the council and some of the planning commission as well. Two to five story buildings involving some allowances for retail and commercial, but primarily residential. excuse me, with a range of middle and apartment housing uses likely to be involved. As per some of the previous discussions, I think back in February, both before the council and the planning commission as well, at this point, there isn't a density target, a maximum density target set for for these um in the medium density neighborhood it's likely to uh be be more reliant on the height limit uh when we talked in february that was envisioned at about 60 feet there has been some interest um we've heard in the community of going higher than that but that was certainly the last discussions we had before yourselves and the city council the um Just to be clear, the planning commission knows this, but I think for folks watching, these are not decisions that have been finalized. These will be discussed at length through the public process over the next coming months through the end of this year and possibly into early next. One of the important part of that process is the draft citywide environmental impact statement, which we anticipate being ready for publication later this summer. And we'll have a comment period and it will include the full extent of the proposal. It will show mapping for all properties citywide and what some of the parameters are that I'm describing now for all of these areas. That will be followed by public hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council. Several other forms of outreach will be occurring as well. And just to be clear, this isn't – although there is some uncertainty about what zoning will be applied, there is much that is known. We know that we have a state law requiring we adopt the new plan and the new zoning to go with it at the end of this year or early next. We know that there has been a spate of new housing requirements facing Vancouver and other communities. Those involve requiring in single family zones that we allow up to two accessory dwelling units. and that we allow middle housing of essentially up to six plexes in single family neighborhoods. What's proposed here is not an existing or proposed single family designation, but I think that's indicative of that some of the new housing requirements will be shared and spread. It will not just be a matter of multifamily designations or changing those, but also within single family zones as well. And lastly, and perhaps the most challenging of the new state laws is HPE 1220, for those who follow the details, which essentially based on the population forecast that Clark County chose for the county and the distribution of that to the city of Vancouver, The state assigns targets for the number of housing units that we need to accommodate, demonstrate capacity for in this comprehensive plan update. That is not a choice. For Vancouver, it's over 36,000 new units. They have to be at various, affordable at various income levels. This gives you a sense of the current zoning in the sort of larger area. As you look around, it is clear, and as I'm sure folks all know, and the Planning Commission is well aware, as you go to the south towards Vancouver Mall, there is more multifamily housing. As you go to the north, it's more predominantly single-family housing. Directly north of this site is the park, and surrounding that is lower-density multifamily housing of R18. This is the applicant's conceptual site plan. It is conceptual. At the rezone stage, unless there is a development agreement proposed or required, the site plan is provided as an indicator of what they're likely to develop and what they're interested in developing. It provides that indication. It's not necessarily a guarantee that that is what would occur. At the site plan review stage, which would be required if the rezones are approved or if they're denied and then some other development comes forward under the existing zoning, that was when site-specific issues will be looked at. And included in the site-specific issues looked at at the site plan stage is they have to do another SEPA analysis, State Environmental Policy Act analysis that hones in on some of the particular issues related to the actual development. The environmental analysis that's being done for the rezone, it's very high level. It simply looks at, compares the likely designation and acknowledges what may or may not be developed there and what the impacts are there from simply the change in the zoning. So in terms of some of the analysis and findings, and there's more detail in the staff report, but just summarize the high points here. The site is noted as already intended to be designated to be built for multifamily development. That hasn't happened yet, but that's the intent under the current R22 zone. Changing to a higher density of multifamily development would allow ads capacity for 45 additional units beyond what's currently allowed. It's certainly in those allowances consistent with what is envisioned at this point for the medium scale neighborhood designation. There is also, as noted, and I can jump back to it in the site plan, some level of separation between the proposed where the structure is generally envisioned to go and the certainly to the single family neighborhoods to the southeast and the abutting large lot areas. more wooded properties to the east and west of the rezone site here, which are also currently zoned R-22, envisioned to be zoned medium-scale neighborhood under the new comprehensive plan, although that's not been decided. briefly in terms of just to flesh out, I think some of the staff thinking behind the recommendation, which is in support of the rezone is that a number of the conference, the requirement for reviewing the rezone criteria directs us to compare the existing and the proposed designation, not necessarily what's on the ground now, but what's existing, what's allowed under the existing rules and what the new proposed rules would allow. And And in doing that, we are required to look at the balance of comprehensive plan and strategic plan policies. Admittedly, a lot of weight was given to housing, not just because it is a preeminent council priority, a crisis in the community, but also because we have, as mentioned, state laws which are very stringent in what we must do, how much we must plan for, and so forth. So certainly want to be clear on that and acknowledge that a lot of weight was given to housing. Other factors were looked at and we can speak more about some of the potential impacts to the surrounding area. We looked at both at the site perimeter, the abutting lots, what might be the impact there from the proposed development, and also on the larger surrounding areas and the infrastructure systems. And although the jump in zoning is significant from R22 to R50, the size of the parcel is 1.6 acres. So the number of new units that would need to be served by those infrastructure systems is relatively limited. And we can speak more to some of the particulars around that. We have Eric Hahn. transportation planner on the line with us or engineer rather who can help speak to some of the traffic issues by the proposed development. But overall, it's the staff recommendation as discussed more in the staff report is recommends approval. We have a sample motion language here if that's the direction the planning official wants to take. So with that, I'll turn it to your questions, either of me or other staff. And then of course, we have a number of folks who want to testify.

Thank you. Commissioner Cowell? Vice Chair Powell? Commissioner Liddell?

I would like to hear from Mr. Hahn about the traffic.

Eric, can you hear us?

Yes, I can. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good evening, Commission. My name is Eric Hahn, Senior Engineer with the Transportation Division, City of Vancouver. Um, do you have specific questions or, um, do you want just my general observations?

Your general observations. And then I do have specific questions about, uh, the streets and the impact the streets have already and what impact this development would have.

Okay. General observations. When we're looking at rezones, we don't typically get into a lot of detail. Obviously, we look at a comparison of a theoretical development under the existing zone compared to a theoretical development of the proposed zone. And then, of course, we compare that against our existing transportation facilities to see if we have any particular points that will cause failure with the accepted or with with the rezone in this case there isn't any of that 58th Street has plenty of capacity we expect that moving forward when this entire area is built out 58th Street will still have capacity left over upon full build out of the area none of the intersections. are failing and we don't expect the additional trips from this rezone or the subsequent development to cause any failures as well. The one issue that I think is of concern primarily on this corridor for public works at least would be the state of the sidewalks and the pedestrian facilities. We do recognize that there are a fair amount of the missing segments on this corridor. We currently do not have a sidewalk project in our TIP for this corridor, so we are relying on the development of each parcel to provide those incremental sidewalk improvements. However, I would also say that once this project moves forward and constructs their frontage, combined with Schaefer Park and the street frontage improvements that will be built there. We will have fairly consistent sidewalk for about a half mile of this corridor. Granted, again, there will be some gaps that we will have to fill as we can with redevelopment. We are also intending to have a A pedestrian crossing, a signed and lighted pedestrian crossing constructed with this project to create a connection to the park from the south side of the street. Those are probably the highlights. Any questions that you might have, I'm happy to answer.

So when you say there's nothing failing now, what's the definition of failing?

We use the standard performance criteria for intersections. We look at, of course, what we call level of service, and it's graded through A through F, just like report card grades. The intersections, the main primary intersections nearby, such as the intersections along Andreessen, during the peak hours, I believe, I don't have this in front of me, so I'm going by memory. I believe they are in the... level of service D in some cases. Again, this rezone won't even touch that. So we don't expect, again, that that to cause any trouble.

Okay. That answers my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Beck. Commissioner Wheeler.

No questions. Thank you.

Commissioner Jay?

No questions. Thank you.

Okay. I think I just had a couple here. You mentioned that there was If it gets confirmed, if it goes that way, likely medium scale identified for this area already, which it sounds like we'll have a lot of ifs, but it sounds like we'll have about a 60 foot height limit. For people who may not be used to thinking about development or land use planning, how does that compare to what's being proposed today?

It's relatively consistent in terms of the density. For instance, as Envision now, the medium-scale neighborhood would align. Again, for folks listening, this is on our website, Our Vancouver, or you could Google the Vancouver Comprehensive Plan. This type of designation envisions two- to five-story buildings, which is relatively consistent with the proposed zoning at the Envision conceptual site plan. It does include additional allowances for some level of retail and commercial that currently don't exist or only in a very limited fashion in this zoning district. So there would be a little bit more allowances for that, although by no means unlimited. um other otherwise it's it's pretty you know the the as you said a lot of ifs and and the details haven't been fleshed out and more importantly reviewed by yourselves the planning commissions the the community and so forth you are the planning commission yourself and the city council excuse me um and the community um but what's envisioned is generally consistent with what the r50 that's proposed here and that is is certainly a a major driver in the staff recommendation

So, if we look at it in terms of thinking about what we're likely to see in the future, whether it's through this rezone or the comprehensive plan, given the, let's say, the requirements from the state that the city is under with the GMA and the comprehensive plan process, we're likely to see development of that size in this area. Okay, I think those are all of my questions. Do we have an applicant presentation for this?

uh thank you planning commission uh for considering this zone change i think that mr stodgrass covered everything uh for this zone change and if you do have any questions we wouldn't have an answer commissioner beck any questions commissioner wheeler commissioner jake

Mr. Cavill, Mr. Powell.

I do have some questions. Thank you. So we heard from Mr. Snodgrass that the comprehensive plan will likely increase a base zoning allowance for this zone. Why this rezone application? Why right now?

Mr. Comornici's developed many sites around this area. He's wanting to do something different. He's a visionary when it comes to development. We give more input, but generally he does his own thing. And all the developments end up a little bit nicer than the previous one. So this situation here, it's R22. It's allowed to go up to 50 feet right now. So the impacts of the... And it's conceptual right now, of course, but the building elevations we sent the planning commission, I don't know if Mr. Snodgrass shared those with the planning commission.

We haven't seen any elevations.

My apologies, but five stories is already allowed and there are 22. So the impacts of the building he'll be building here with the additional units versus the 22 and the 50, there's no change in building height. The only changes that the neighborhood will see is additional trips. And the city's transportation plan, they've planned ahead. So any trips that go into these corridor areas, the city charges additional fees on top of the normal TIF fees for any impacts and to plan for future capital improvements in those corridors. So I think the city's doing a good job. education program they have now. So there won't be much of a change, just more units.

And that's kind of where my question was headed and something that the city, you know, um, can't really speak to is something that the commission can't speak to, but use the applicant can, um, in a little more detail, you know, you mentioned that the, the building footprint and the, and the height, the dimensions were unlikely to change. Obviously you would need to, you know, submit and get an, get a site plan approved, invested before the, before the zoning changes upcoming. So I assume that y'all are fairly far along, um, if it are you the applicant willing to kind of commit because i have concerns not really about the density but about the the height um that going up to r50 would would allow potentially up to 70 feet um but are you the applicant willing to you know commit to to us and eventually to city council if necessary um to to stay under that five-story limit

Um, I can't answer that question. I could text the applicant and get back to you if that's all right. Right now, right now, what I do know is he's planning on a five storey building.

Yeah, you don't have to answer that tonight, but I would be prepared, you know, going to City Council with that because I think that's a primary consideration with the zone. It's not just the density, it's the additional dimensional height limit.

We completely understand.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Liddell.

Yes. How did you arrive at the jump from 22 to 50?

That's a good question. I think that City Council and Planning Commission put the R50 in the code for a reason. It's there to promote higher density in certain areas. And as Mr. Snodgrass mentioned, this property's already put into place with the new comprehensive plan to go to the medium scale neighborhood. So it's already gonna hit that density during the year. there's the opportunity there to create more housing on this lot and the impact from that housing is minimal. So that's how we chose just to go to the R50.

Okay, thanks. Thank you. I think those questions kind of covered everything that was kicking around in my mind. So I think we'll move to public testimony. Thank you. Thank you. We have signed up for public testimony this evening.

We've got a few people. Our first two will start with Anastasia and Charles Donald LeBaron.

Good evening, Commissioners. I'm addressing you tonight as one of the residents of one of the abutting homes of this future development, and also as a representative of about 100 Walnut Grove residents that I spoke to personally. And I would just like to summarize some of our discussions here today. For the first, the 58th Street, I submitted photos to you, but if you had a chance to look at it, it is narrow. It's not going to be able to handle 350 additional vehicles per day. And it will encourage use of our neighborhood streets for parking and commuting to arterials, which is our concern. The second thing is I did not personally know the Schaffers, Raymond Schaffer, but my family and my neighbors did. And we want their memory and their park to be the priority when we are developing Walnut Grove. They have dedicated this park to protect our nature, to protect our peace and our quiet in the middle of urban hustle and bustle. I want to protect the conversation and not have it go into how do we cram more apartment units and focus on the park instead. The majority of Walnut Grove is R9 and all the properties bordering it all are single family homes. R50 is wildly out of proportion in height, in density, in character. Our tallest buildings are two stories at this time. Our community park is our distinct feature. It's our vibrancy. And we will not stand by an apartment complex being argued as the vibrant and distinguishing feature of our neighborhood. It will overshadow what we have now, quite literally. R50 is a five-fold increase from the majority R9 development and zoning that we currently have in Walnut Grove. And to comment on the commission was inquiring on what sorts of developments have been done in the past. They have been all luxury apartments, not very affordable to low income residents. And the future propositions, including this proposition, will also most likely be a luxury apartment. And I feel that that goes actually towards decreasing diversity of housing in Walnut Grove. So to summarize, as stakeholders who have lived here for decades and know the streets and who know the community best, we unequivocally oppose this reason. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you. Please be sure to state your name before you begin your comments.

Certainly. Charles Donald LeBaron. Thank you for allowing me to be here. I'm just a homeowner. I don't represent any HOA or any of the people that live in the neighborhood. I'm new to the neighborhood. We moved about three years ago from Minnesota. It's a real pleasant neighborhood. Let me just say I'm not a NIMBY individual. I don't believe that there's a problem with multi-family or multi-unit complexes in this particular neighborhood. I'm asking that the council take a look at the community and be reasonable about the size of a multi-family or multi-unit construction in this particular spot. You've got the parks, you've got a school, it's a residential street. They're talking about an extra hundred cars and trucks driving along the road that can create problems down the road. And with change, I think the complexion of that community. Now I know there's a severe housing problem, not only here in Vancouver, but in the country. I was even reading an article about Vienna, Austria has a housing problem. So I'm not opposed to the idea of all sorts of different type of housing that is being built to accommodate people of all income groups, all racial groups, all ethnic groups. We do need the housing, and I don't have a particular problem with a multi unit in this particular location in this zone. I'm just asking for it to be reasonable. I think 77 units in this neighborhood and in this particular community is excessive. and something along the lines of how it's presently zoned would be more appropriate, and I think would go in some ways to handle the housing problem, because obviously right now it's single family dwellings, large property, that could be and should be divided up, but I think it should be a smaller number rather than 77 to keep the community tenor, if you will, or atmosphere as much as possible the same as what many of the community members want, and yet at the same time take care or help alleviate the housing situation that we do need to address in this city and country. So thank you.

Thank you.

Next two is going to be Margo Rice and Paolo Roland Lozano. They're both joining us virtually.

It looks like one of them is perhaps in the room.

Oh, perfect. Hello. You're here, so we'll have you go first, and then, Margo, you will go second.

Please be sure to state your name before you begin your comments.

Hi, good evening. My name is Paolo Ronosano. I am one of the neighbors of Walnut Grove. I'm actually one of the neighbors that will be affected, I feel affected, because I am one of the corner lots where the parking situation will be going. Just a little history. I moved to Vancouver. I lived in Portland pretty much my whole entire life until 2018. I've seen the housing in Portland. I've seen how it goes where a lot of units are being developed. It's causing a lot of traffic jams. There's a lot of accidents. We're saying that safety is top priority for all the departments in the city of Vancouver. But I mean, where were these sidewalks 10 years ago, five years ago? Where was the crosswalk? You know, we're so worried now with this development that why are we worried now when it could have been dealt with a few years ago? Just another thing. I keep hearing about minimal impact. I mean, when was the last time someone's lived in Portland and saw the impact of the housing that's caused over there? It goes from low income. I've lived in a low income apartment complex. At times I was unable to live in them just because there was all these restrictions. It's impossible to live in low income situations in housing. And I've seen it. I've lived through it. I've seen this. I moved out. I was finally able to buy a house. And then what happened? The rent where I left, it rose up. I was already paying $1,500, $1,600, and it kept going up. It is not low income. A lot of this is just, I don't know what it is, but then I hear about retail. I mean, it's a neighborhood. I don't think about going to the retail store right there. I think about walking my dogs to the park. And we should probably focus more on the park for the community. There's a lot of young kids now that I've been seeing. My kids aren't the youngest ones right now, but I'm seeing more families going to Walnut Grove, and I think we should respect the neighborhood. Thank you guys for your time.

Margo, can you hear us? We'll move on, but Margo, if you're here, we can come back to you. Charles Brasher and Robert Siegert.

be sure to state your name before you begin your comments.

My name is Charles Brasher and I live in the Walnut Grove Robins Glen development and I thank you for allowing us to come here and talk. I prepared detailed written testimony which I hope you will read because it deals in large part with the stormwater treatment that control facility behind. And I think that's really significant, but I don't want to talk about that now. I guess I would like to just further stress that the proposed zone change and development would totally change the livability of our neighborhood and not for the better. My wife and I have lived in Walnut Road, Robin Glenn's neighborhood for over 20 years and have seen many changes, but it has always been a very nice place to live with a nice mix of properties. The proposed four to five story, 770 unit apartment building built on 1.6 acres, which is only two lots of land would be a travesty for our area. is a terrible idea to propose siting it between a newly developing Chafer Park across the street to the north and a water quality storage and treatment facility directly behind to the south. Traffic from the apartment building will overload 58th Street as well as the other neighborhood streets. In addition, it would cause serious negative impact to the water quality storage and treatment facility behind it. I therefore strongly urge the Planning Commission to reject the proposed zoning change. Please read my detailed testimony as well. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Bob Seart. My wife and I have lived at Amherst Commons, which is on the north side of that complex on 58th Street. We've lived there for over 20 years. Little by little over those years, homes have gone up all around us. Little by little, traffic has increased along with more truck traffic and people using the street as a cut-through from Andreessen over through the mall area. In spite of the recent additional addition of so-called speed bumps, the traffic goes no slower nor has it reduced any traffic. This proposed 77 plus unit apartment complex will only drastically increase traffic and noise. Our quality of life has steadily decreased Over the years, do the continuous traffic increase the noise and congestion? This potential addition is unwanted and will only make our lives and those along 85th and connecting roads intolerable. This is to say nothing about the negative impact any addition like this complex to the area will have on our home resale value. I strongly oppose the rezoning needed to allow this proposed complex to move forward. I respectfully request the zoning change be denied.

I believe Margo Rice is now back with us online. Can you hear us, Margo? We're having trouble hearing you.

Is there anyone else on the list?

Yeah, we have Deborah Petrie and Jonathan Wheeler.

Please be sure to state your name before we begin your comments.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Deborah Petrie, and I have resided in the Walnut Grove Robins Glen neighborhood for over 20 years. And I've seen many changes since I've lived there. A lot of it has been with the traffic on Northeast 58th Street has really increased. That is a big concern that I have that I wanted to address was the traffic and concerns for students who attend Walnut Grove Elementary School. They use 58th Street to cross from 76th Avenue. There's also students that catch the school bus for middle and high school at that intersection as well. So I'm concerned for their safety with the increase of traffic that this proposed development could bring and i also wanted to share about my concern with existing trees vegetation and soils that are critical elements of the environment mature trees provide a greater amount of biomass than newly planted trees contributing to shading of pavements and improving air and water quality. Trees are part of the city's history and character. And I would like to propose that the proposed development design this project to minimize native vegetation loss to the maximum extent feasible. This requires examining multiple design options to minimize native vegetation loss. My concern is that by removing existing trees, the proposed plan does not attempt to meet the neighborhood's character for a three-story building that is allowed at the R-22 zone, let alone a four or five-story building allowed for a higher density zone change. Large trees provide more shade and better screening of neighboring properties than new, smaller trees. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Jonathan Wheeler. and I'm here to voice my strong support for the proposed standalone rezones to facilitate more housing in the community. We all know that our city is facing a housing crisis, and the cost of housing has become increasingly unaffordable, making it difficult for young families, essential workers, and even longtime residents to find or maintain a place to live. The proposed rezones are a necessary step towards addressing this crisis, providing opportunities for new, diverse, and more affordable housing options. I anticipate that you'll hear a number and already have heard a number of arguments in opposition to these rezones, so I'd like to directly address some of the most common concerns. Number one, these rezones will increase traffic. While it is true that any development may result in some additional traffic, the reality is that our city must prioritize housing over excessive concerns about minor traffic increases. Moreover, well-planned infill development, especially when paired with active transportation and public transit improvements, can actually reduce the overall need for car trips. Compact, walkable neighborhoods allow people to travel shorter distances for daily needs. Number two, this will change the character of our neighborhood. Our city's character should be defined by its people, not by maintaining an artificially static landscape. Communities must evolve to remain vibrant and inclusive. Adding more housing means welcoming more people, bringing new energy and ensuring that our neighborhoods do not become exclusive on planes only accessible to the wealthiest individuals. Number three, property values will go down. Numerous studies have shown that adding housing, particularly well-designed housing, does not negatively impact property values. In fact, it often stabilizes them by maintaining demand and reducing the pressure that drives speculative pricing. Number four, our infrastructure cannot handle more residents. The answer to this concern is not to block new housing, but to ensure that our city is proactive in maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure. We cannot solve our infrastructure challenges by halting growth, and instead we must manage growth responsibly, and the revenue generated by new housing can help fund necessary improvements. And lastly, number five, this rezone benefits developers, not residents. While developers do build housing, it is our residents who benefit. More housing means more options for renters and buyers, which leads to more stable and affordable prices. It also means that residents who are currently struggling to find a home will have more opportunities. Members of the Planning Commission, we must not let fear and misinformation dictate our city's future. By approving these standalone rezones, you're making a choice for a more inclusive, affordable, and vibrant community. Please do not allow a loud minority to derail the future that our city needs. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Who do we have next?

In person, we have Tabor Kelly and Ralph Harris.

Please make sure to state your name before we begin your comments.

Thank you, Commission. My name is Tabor Kelly. I'm sure I don't need to tell this Commission that on November 6, 2023, the City Council declared a homelessness emergency. For this reason, I strongly encourage this Commission to support the rezoning of both Bella Grove and the 58th Street project. Along those lines, I would just like to point out that there is a strong incumbency bias in this testimony because all of the people who live in that neighborhood today show up to talk about it, but none of the people who will live in that neighborhood in the future are attending this meeting tonight. Additionally, all supply increases are good supply increases for having more housing. I'm sure that these new apartments will not be the cheapest apartments in Vancouver, but people who can afford to rent a new apartment can also afford to rent a cheaper apartment. And by renting that new apartment that they can afford, they leave another unit vacant because they're not bidding up the supply of the cheaper housing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

My name is Ralph Harris. I retired from the Navy and moved to Vancouver in 2000. I purchased my house about 2005, and I live about two lots from this development. on 58th Street. I heard a gentleman earlier talking about no traffic problem on 58th Street. Well, he is wrong. He doesn't live there, apparently. Hasn't spent any time there. It takes me up to a minute, sometimes more, to back out of my driveway. It's a corridor to the mall. Many people go that way. We finally got them to put in speed bumps, and all the speed bumps it's accomplished is vehicles slowing down and then gunning it to the next speed bump. Apartments, they usually put in one parking spot per apartment. Most people have two cars. So that's going to put a lot of cars on 58th Street. There's already been a lot of accidents there. Again, he said there's no problem on 58th Street. There's been at least four accidents at the intersection of 82nd Avenue and 58th Street. Four. When I moved there, there was a lot of, it was good neighborhood. Since then, I counted them on the map today, There are over 100 zero-mot houses that have been built there, two apartments. They just put in a new place. I don't know if it's considered apartments or duplexes or what they are. They're really ugly and bring down the neighborhood. I know they're gonna build apartments there, but I ask that they lower the amount of the apartments and not increase the amount. There's a lot of empty land in Clark County, and they can build a lot of apartments out there. They don't need to increase the size on 58th Street. Crime, we hear at least a couple gunshots per month. speaking of gunshots last wednesday i was driving down i-5 i was delivering blood for the red cross blood drive in a red cross vehicle and there was a road rage incident that happened right beside me a truck and a car following him the truck hits his brakes slammed on his brakes trying to get the guy off his butt. And the car, he started shooting.

Thank you. Your time has expired.

And I have a bullet hole in the side of the Red Cross van that proves it happened. I've got pictures if you want to see them.

Our final two in person are Joel Schmelzer and Stephen Karras.

Please be sure to state your name before you begin your comments.

Council members, thank you. My name is Joel Smeltzer. I am a fairly new resident of the Walnut Grove Estates. It's a HOA just north of the proposed development. I currently spend between an hour and a half and two hours at the park every day, walking my dogs morning and night. I have had the chance to end up chasing off two different people sleeping in the park. And there's a couple more that I just try to avoid and go around and just dealing with that kind of situation. Another situation that in the area, I have a electric assisted bicycle that I try to commute with to work in East Vancouver. And that area along 82nd, 258th to go down back to my house, the bike lanes there, there are bike lanes there, but they are oftentimes parked in by cars. And that is from the development that has already happened along 87th and then going down towards 58th, going down towards this development. this going from R-22 to R-50 is going to make that even worse. Right now, there's multiple times that people can only do one way at a time because if there's somebody walking alongside 58th right now by that park, the cars have to go into the other lane because there's just not enough space in that area. Another thing we've experienced as the HOA is that the last development this person developed ended up along, the only access to it is now through 62nd Street, which is part of our HOA. And as one of the board members, I'm fielding a number of calls on near misses. It's a street that used to be able to have the kids play with, and they would walk right there to the Walnut Grove Elementary School, which right now is at a 16 to 1 ratio. And if this goes in, to keep that ratio, they're looking at another additional five, at least five classrooms, which the school doesn't have. So we're going to be going a brand new school into portables again. And the HOA is actually trying to look at eliminating parking on those streets of our HOA because we have so much overflow parking from the development that is now coming through our HOA. We've had multiple people with near misses almost weekly. but we haven't had a vote on that. I didn't have time to do that, but I know that I'm fielding the emails from all of our residents and the housing development or that new housing development has definitely lowered the property values of the HOA along that street because of the amount of traffic that's there. And we're not able to just put in speed bumps ourselves. We're gonna have to do it with the city and we have to do a whole approval process on that. So that's one of the things we're fighting. I oppose this increase. Sorry. Thank you.

Good evening, members of the committee. I'm Steve Karras. I've been a resident of Walnut Grove neighborhood for about 15 years since I retired from the Air Force. And I'd just like to say generally that so far I wholeheartedly agree with all those who oppose this change, all the sentiments and concerns that have been expressed. These are all things, if I had enough time, I would have listed for you myself. I have to note that those that have stood here and supported it, I think some of them are speaking hypothetically or maybe a little ideologically, and I think there are certainly those who have a profit motive personally, but I have to say for all those who do support this, I don't think any of them have to live in this neighborhood. and deal with the consequences of what they're proposing. I will call out a couple of things that I will mention that those who have said, hey, we're not in opposition in general to the idea of a certain amount of development that is natural, that's unavoidable, that has happened in the neighborhood. I do want to point out that in the 15 years I've lived there, I can say... I tell my friends this, it's probably an approximation, but I would say it seems like maybe 50% of the trees have been cut down and, you know, multi-unit dwellings or more densely constructed residential facilities, you know, townhomes or whatever, have gone up in place what used to be single family homes. And yes, the character of the neighborhood changes when we lose trees. It's been mentioned that we have a park there, building a large structure across the street will block the sunlight. Again, we'll change the character of what we're attempting to develop for the neighborhood to better that community as a whole. Traffic though, this of course is the thing that I think I can disagree with the most in the sense that we heard from the gentleman who represents the city on this. I've spoken to this gentleman. I believe it's the same guy, but certainly his office. Within the past couple of years, we in our neighborhood have made multiple complaints about traffic and have asked for some kind of mitigation, be it new stop signs. As we've said, those speed bumps haven't done the job. There is a traffic problem and that has to be studied a lot more. Parking, I believe the gentleman told me there was a formula when new construction, I think he said 1.3 or maybe it was 1.6 cars per household. That sounds like a 1950s standard. I think that has to be re-examined too. So there will be an impact and it will not be a positive impact if the scale of this development goes forward as proposed. We oppose that. Thank you.

Has anyone else signed up to speak for the public here?

Margo, do you want to try to talk one more time? I see that you're unmuted, but we're still not hearing you, Margo. We did receive your written comments, and if you have any further comments, we can absolutely accept them and send them to the commissioners in the minutes.

Okay. With there being no other person signed up to speak for public testimony, the public testimony portion of the hearing is now closed. Now, Brian, if I'm wrong, in the past, I know that we've sometimes had the applicant respond to some of the public comments. Is that something that's part of the order?

If the Planning Commission wants to hear further from the applicant, you're welcome to do so. I'll leave that to just sort of a consent, you know, whether or not from my fellow commissioners.

It seems like we'd like to hear if there are any responses to the public testimony that we just heard.

Is there any specific questions the Planning Commission has based on the opposition?

No, this is just time to have you respond to the public testimony that we just heard, if there are any responses from the applicant side.

We don't have any responses.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

That takes us into discussion. Commissioner Cavill, thoughts or discussion?

Thank you.

Vice Chair Powell?

Come back to me, Chair. I'm still processing some things.

Okay, I will. Commissioner O'Dell? Yes. partially because of public comments, but in large part because I visited that area. I drove it and walked it. And R-50 seems like a real shove in that particular area. It seems like a lower density would fit better for lots of reasons. The streets are narrow. And it just doesn't fit. I mean, all of a sudden, you're walking through that neighborhood, and then you're going to pop up an apartment. And I can see the apartment popping up, but not quite so invasive. So I do not support R50. I would support a lesser.

Thank you.

i love the idea of infill housing throughout the city and in that way i support this proposal at the same time i'm very torn i also don't like the removal of so many mature trees and the massing of the building in the site plan being proposed to be shoved up next to the street um We haven't seen any elevations, and I don't see that as a way to maintain the character of the neighborhood. To me, a character of a neighborhood is a livability quotient for the people who live there and for the people who will live there. And you want to welcome your new neighbors, not hate them because they happen to live in a building that now sits next to the street. I think additionally, adding that quantity of units where there is a lack of infrastructure in both sidewalks and bike lanes over to Andreessen for transit is a real issue. On a narrow street, where will people walk except in people's lawns or on the street and increase lack of safety? So overall, those are my challenges on this project. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler.

I'm strongly in favor of this proposal. We are facing a housing crisis. At best, people are struggling to afford housing. At worst, they are dying on the streets. We are also facing a lot of economic uncertainty, and it feels like in a lot of ways the time is taking to build new housing. We need to act quickly, and we need to get as much new housing as we can for the good of the city and for the good of our future. I'm strongly in support of this.

Commissioner Jackson.

I'm definitely largely aligned with this project and the proposal. I do recognize a lot of the negative externalities that do come with growth, especially which I do think that the city should look into more as some of the traffic issues, because I do think there's a very narrow area and I do especially, I'm very empathetic to those concerns being raised. Nevertheless, I think the worries are greater for the negative externalities of not doing anything in terms of growth. And so I think

uh these units are are needed and but I do think that more can be done potentially to mitigate some of the impacts of them but I will be supporting this and thank you thank you have a crystallized get those thoughts this this tough one chair thanks um for coming back to me again I'm kind of stuck on some of the dimensional allowances of of r50 when I read through the criteria when we developed our 50, the wording strongly suggests that our 50 is meant for an urban area, for things that are well connected to transit, adjacent to amenities. And while I do think that we need the additional housing, I feel that R50 is a step too far. As Brian mentioned, it is generally in line with medium density neighborhoods that we plan to implement in the comprehensive plan, but it is a step above. And in the existing conditions and without some of the additional code and design considerations that we're going to implement, into the comp plan, I feel like we might be a year too early and a zone too high. That said, I'm kind of with Commissioner Liddell. I think that there's more housing that could fit on the site than R22. I'm just not sure that R50, again, imagining that it could potentially go to 70 feet, that would be allowed. It's a step too far for me, I think, at this point.

That sounds like you're thinking maybe something like an R30.

Yeah, we can't, as a commission, to be clear, we can't suggest proposals that are not in front of us. So we have to say yes or no. That said, something that is more directly in line with a medium-scale neighborhood and caps dimensionally what the building could look like at a medium-scale neighborhood makes more sense to me and gets us that additional housing. So that's something that would be more appealing to me if it came before us. Excellent. Thank you.

As far as my comments, it's a hard bar for me to not just generally be in favor of building more housing as we try to combat the housing crisis in which we are in the midst of. That being said, I also think it generally behooves the idea of more housing in my mind when I see the concerns of the impact the community has addressed. I think we've had many things that have come before this Commission that have addressed community concerns. We've had some that have come before the Commission that really haven't necessarily. Looking at this one on the merits, I tend to agree with Vice Chair Powell's comments. that we perhaps are going a little too far with this, a little too close to the comprehensive planning phase. And I would like to see maybe more of what's in the comp plan take effect on something like this. Looking at the materials, I mean, it does feel like almost a little rush to sort of beat that timeline, but I'm really not certain there what would have been, I think, the difference maker. But at the same time, truly, I think it's a firm belief that warehousing is needed as we face the housing crisis that we're in. So I'm very torn on that one. Do we need further discussion on this item? Is everyone kind of set in where they feel or have our fellow commissioner's comments jog something in the mind? Do we feel ready for a vote? Okay. Then the chair will entertain a motion.

I'll motion based on the finding in the staff report on May 13. For the public hearing the the Planning Commission to recommend approval of the 58th Street zone change from our 22 to our 50 at 7711 and 7809 and he 58th Street tax slots 10797 1000 and 10792 000. A motion has been offered. Is there a second?

I second.

A motion has been offered and seconded. Please call the vote.

Commissioner J?

Aye.

Commissioner Wheeler? Aye. Commissioner Beck?

Nay.

Commissioner Cavill? Aye. Commissioner Pyle?

Nay.

Commissioner Liddell?

No.

And Chair Adegwame?

Nay. The yays and nays being heard, if my tally is correct, the motion fails. I believe that closes the public hearing item this evening and takes us into the next item on... Is there another ? Yes, the next item on the public hearing. Oh, sorry.

I thought you were speaking in general.

No, sorry. That's that item of the public hearing. We'll move into the next item.

I think I know what you mean.

Brian, did you have any comments to introduce this item?

Yeah, this is the second of the two site-specific rezones. The site is larger relative to the last proposal, but the change in zoning is a little bit less pronounced. In this case, it's R18 to R30 on a little over six acres. It's in the eastern part of the city, not far from Burbage Creek, which forms essentially the southern boundary of the rezoned site. If I could ask the folks leading to...

Please do maintain quiet in the room. We'll pause for a minute while we have some shuffling in the room.

This is the map of zoning within the area. The site and properties to the east and west are zoned R18. Properties to the direct north and south are zoned R9, as mentioned. Burbridge Creek forms the southern border of the site. There's actually a good deal of hydric soils and wetlands throughout the site. There was a, by the same applicant, a prior site plan approval sought and gained, which we'll look at in a second, which provides a likely indication of which portions of the site would be developable under city critical area standards. Jumping out to area-wide zoning, you can see the arrow there. As mentioned, R18 to the sides, R9 zoning to the north and south, a larger industrially zoned area in the light blue. This is the prior, or excuse me, this is the proposed site plan. We'll look at a second at the prior site plan approval, which essentially proposes to both propose to develop the northern two-thirds of the site, essentially. The prior approval is 102 units. With the rezone, the applicant would either seek to modify that prior approval or submit a follow-up site plan review for 164 units market rate approval. if the rezone is approved with the units proposed on the west side of the property parking on the east and the southern portion, which is captured in the site plan here to remain undeveloped. So in terms of the change, this would allow for 62 additional higher density units beyond what's currently allowed, generally also consistent with the density allowances under the envisioned medium-scale neighborhood association, the proposed zone in this case is a little bit less, it's the R30 zone. It also does abut higher density uses in the form of townhomes and a mobile home park. So that is essentially the basis of the staff recommendation, and we have sample motion language here if the Planning Commission wishes it.

Thank you. Commissioner Beck?

I'm a little confused about the configuration of the property. On the slide above, we show the x i guess the next slide um yeah it looks like it's cut in like a notch is taken out of it but the site plan doesn't um align with that configuration yeah it's a little bit obscured here the and it may have also been that when this map only

I drew up this map through maps online that it only captured one of the properties, but the site does in fact include both. So it includes the smaller piece in the northwest corner as well as the remainder backwards L. Thank you.

And do you know the height of the buildings that are planned and are these apartments? We say garden apartments. I'm not sure I know what that means.

Well, we might direct some of those questions to the applicant, or if you'll give me a minute, I can review the application. I understand these are four stories that would generally be envisioned, three or four stories. But we can have the applicant clarify.

Is the applicant here?

No, I don't see him.

Okay. That's all my questions.

Thank you. And if the applicant does present later, we can try and address it at that time. Commissioner Wheeler?

No questions. Thank you.

Commissioner Jay? No questions. Thank you. Commissioner Cavill? Vice Chair Powell? No questions. Commissioner LaBelle?

No questions.

I also have no questions.

Okay. Moving right along, I think if the applicant is not in the room or online at this time, sort of roll into any public testimony that is, or anyone who's registered to give public testimony. So do we have anyone registered for this hearing item?

I don't believe so, no.

Okay. Being that there are no persons registered to provide a public testimony, this concludes the public testimony part of the hearing. It kind of just moves us right into discussion. So, Commissioner Cavill, thoughts? All right, Vice Chair Powell.

Thanks, Chair. I think that this one is... is is generally acceptable i will say it's disappointing that the applicant's not here yes for their hearing um you know going up to um applying for a rezone of of this magnitude is is a big is a big deal um and they should be here uh that said um the limitations within r30 i don't have some of the same concerns that i had with with the last result so generally um okay commissioner o'dell any

with the proposal. I agree with Commissioner Pyle that the applicant should have been here. That's it. Commissioner Beck.

I don't have concerns with the proposal. I wish the applicant was here.

Commissioner Wheeler.

We are in desperate need of new housing. This will be good.

Commissioner Jay. I echo the sentiments of the previous commissioners.

I will also echo those same sentiments. I think it can be really impactful for applicants to be aware of community sentiments which are provided at public testimony. And also, sometimes we have questions which just the materials might not answer, but the applicant may be able to apply on or give more feedback on. So I wish they were here. And we are in the midst of a housing crisis. So to me, this makes sense.

Chair, could I could ask one clarifying question? Brian on the on the maximum density that's allowed? Or is the applicant able to capture all of the wetland area and apply it to the northern part of the site in terms of the max density? Or is the wetland area excluded from the developable acreage?

My understanding is they could under, well, they did under the prior 102 units and under the 164, they could average it out.

I would just say, Chair, I think there's a perfect example of why an up zone for more density works because you've got a site that, if you just could go more vertical, can accommodate more on what would otherwise have been a larger developable piece. This is the type of thing that I think on a site-specific application makes a lot of sense.

Okay, do we feel the need for further discussion? Do we feel ready for? Okay, the chair will entertain a motion.

I move that Based on the findings in the staff report and the May 13th public hearing, the Planning Commission recommends approval of the Bella Grove zone change from R18 to R30 at 13401 and 13309 Northeast 59th Street tax lots, as noted in the attachment.

Okay. A motion has been proffered. Is there a second?

Seconded.

A motion has been proffered and seconded. Please call the vote.

Commissioner Jay?

Aye.

Commissioner Wheeler? Aye. Commissioner Beck? Aye. Commissioner Cavill? Aye. Commissioner Liddell?

Aye.

Vice Chair Pyle?

Aye.

And Chair Iguami?

Aye. The yeas and nays being tallied, the motion passes. And that closes out that public hearing item, which then takes us into next part of the agenda, which is comments. Are there any comments that my fellow commissioners would like to add to the record? I'll start with Commissioner Beck. No comments. Commissioner Wheeler. Commissioner Kaye. Commissioner Cavill. Vice Chair Powell. Commissioner Liddell. Okay, I do have some comments. Just to note that some things that have come before the Commission before, including, I know we looked at the Heights District previously, the old Tower Mall redevelopment. I've been on the Heights Community Investment Committee along with Commissioner Beck for quite some time. They're in the process of a second RFP, which is really exciting. It's always nice to sort of get a touch back to something that we've seen before in the Commission. So that first RFP process went through. fairly smoothly. And I think the city is working with the people who are selected for that RFP or that team rather. And the second one is in process. So just an update on something that has come before this commission before, which is also nice to see. In terms of the comprehensive plan, which comes before us quite a lot, I have also been on the community partners team for the comprehensive plan update with the city of Vancouver. And we're seeing progress there as well. I hope to be able to bring some comments from that next session and our next meeting on the 27th about how that process is going. I know that we see it a lot, so it's maybe not as impactful to comment on, but I'd love to bring some of that sentiment here as well. So I'm going to try and do a little bit more to bring those to this forum as well, just to have that touch point. So those are all the comments that I had. Any comments from staff? Okay, then that being all the comments there were the May 13 2025 meeting of the city of Vancouver Planning Commission is hereby adjourned.