Good evening, everybody.

Welcome to the regular Bellevue City Council meeting for September 16th, 2025.

Before we begin the meeting today, I just want to say a few words about political violence.

You know, we are all here today to be a part of our local political process.

And one of the things I appreciate so much about Bellevue is our ability to see our neighbors as people through our differences and to see our diversity of thought as a strength.

Political violence has no place in our society, and it only damages our ability to hold important dialogues as we make a better future together.

I'd like us all to take a moment of silence to recognize the far-reaching impacts of political violence on all of our communities and honor those affected by it.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so let's start with um a roll call.

Go ahead.

I'm here.

Deputy Mayor Malakutian.

Councilmember Bargavath.

Here.

Councilmember Hamilton.

Here.

Councilmember Lee.

Yes.

Councilmember Newman House.

Here.

Councilmember Sumodoria.

Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic or Witches.

One nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, we have three proclamations tonight.

The first one is going to be read by Councilmember Hamilton and accepted by Monique Martinez, if she'd like to come up and sit here.

This is for Teen Mental Health Awareness Week.

Go ahead, Councilmember Hamilton.

Thank you.

Whereas early identification, intervention, and treatment of mental illness and behavioral health disorders can improve and even save lives.

And whereas, according to the World Health Organization, half of all mental health conditions start by age 14, yet most cases remain undetected and untreated.

And whereas Teen Mental Health Awareness Day is designed to increase understanding of mental health issues facing teenagers and to eliminate stigmas surrounding preventative mental health care.

And whereas teenagers can experience high levels of stress and anxiety about school, family, friendships, health and finances, and whereas it is important to learn the signs and symptoms of mental health conditions in order to seek and receive help when needed.

And whereas teens today pave the way for a better tomorrow, making it essential that they learn early about the importance of mental health and have access to supportive resources.

And whereas it is important to acknowledge the intersectionality between mental health, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability as teens in marginalized communities often experience larger disparities in access to mental health services and higher rates of mental illness due to impacts from systemic harm.

Now, therefore, I, Dave Hamilton, on behalf of Lynn Robinson, Mayor of Bellevue, Washington, and on behalf of its city council, do hereby proclaim September 19th, 2025 as Teen Mental Health Awareness Day in Bellevue, Washington, and encourage all residents to play a role in supporting the mental health and well-being of teens in our community.

Welcome.

Thank you.

It's great to be here.

On behalf of for tomorrow, I want to thank you for your commitment to the well-being of our city's teens.

This proclamation reminds us that mental health is at the heart of a thriving community.

At 4 Tomorrow, we walk alongside young people through creative and therapeutic programs while also supporting adults and equipping parents with education with education, coaching, and tools to navigate both their mental health and their children's.

From tough conversations to moments of crisis, we strive to be a steady source of guidance and care.

Investing in our young people and their families is one of the most important ways to build a stronger, healthier Bellevue.

Thank you for your leadership, partnership, and standing with us in this work.

Thank you so much.

And Lonique is the executive director of Ford Tomorrow.

So thank you.

Go ahead and sit down, but stick around and we'll do a picture after.

Thank you.

Okay.

Next up we have Deputy Mayor Malikutian reading a proclamation for National Hispanic Heritage Month.

And that will be accepted by Tina Morales, the program manager for Youth Eastside Services.

Thank you, Mayor.

Oh, let's invite her up.

Come on up.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Oh, of course.

Hispanic Heritage Month first established in 1968 under President Lyndon Johnson and expanded in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan.

Honors the culture, history, and contributions of Latinos tracing their roots to Mexico, Central and South America, Spain, and the Spanish-speaking nations of the Caribbean.

And September 15th is a significant date marking the anniversaries of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, followed by Mexico on September 16th and Chile on September 18th.

And Bellevue is proud to celebrate the diversity of identities within the Latino community, including those who identify as Hispanic, Latino and Latina, recognizing the intersections with Black African, Asian, Indigenous, and queer communities.

And Latino residents represents Bellevue's third largest population group, comprising over 8% of the city's population.

And Latinos are also the largest population group in Washington State.

And the cultural, educational, familial, and economic contributions of Latino community members enrich all aspects of life in Bellevue and beyond.

And their resilience and leadership continue to threaten our collective future.

And the city of Bellevue celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month in partnership with community organizations, including the Bellevue Fiesta Latina on October 4 at Spring District Park, and Fiesta del Maíz on September 27 at Crossroad Park.

Now, therefore, I'm Malacutian on behalf of Lean Robinson, mayor of the City of Bellevue, Washington, and on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim September 15 to October 15, 2025 as National Hispanic Heritage Month in Bellevue, Washington, and call open all residents to honor this month by celebrating the traditions, stories, and contributions of our Hispanic neighbors through programs, ceremonies, and activities.

Thank you.

Welcome, Tina.

Thank you so much.

Mayor, Deputy Mayor, City Council members, city staff.

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for uh for creating Bellevue and having this national celebration of our Hispanic community and our contributions be felt here in Bellevue.

There's so much for us to be proud of here in Bellevue and the generations of Latino families who have made Bellevue home.

With that, I would like to dedicate this proclamation to our servants of our public servants in the city of Bellevue, many who I've gotten to know, and I know that their compassion, hard work is brought to light through not only their dedication to public service, but through culture.

I have seen the benefits to the community.

So thank you for the work that you do to upholding the values of what of what is important to me and that culture matters and that culture heals.

Lastly, I'll dedicate it to our Latino youth here in the city of Bellevue through Youth East Services.

I've had the privilege and honor of serving our Latino Latina community for the past 22 years.

And I can tell you that there's so many reasons for Bellevue to be proud.

That includes you, that includes our youth, that includes all of us.

So let our Hispanic Heritage Month be the bridge that's necessary for us to look at Bellevue, thank each other, get to know each other more, and celebrate all the contributions that are taking place here in the city of Bellevue.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Lovely.

So uh stick around.

We'll go ahead and sit down and we'll do a picture after.

And then our last proclamation is National Diaper Need Awareness Week, read by Councilmember Summa Dewaria and accepted by Helen Roton, Director of Development and Community Relations at KidVantage.

Helen, are you there?

You are come sit down.

Sure.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Councilmember.

Thank you.

Whereas diaper need the condition of not able to afford a sufficient supply of clean diapers to keep babies and toddlers clean, dry and healthy, can adversely affect the health and the well-being of children and their families.

And whereas national surveys and research studies should report that nearly one in two families struggle with diaper need, within 48% of families delaying a diaper change to extend their available supply.

And whereas a consistent supply of diapers is generally an eligibility requirement for babies and toddl to participate in child care and quality early education programs that enable children to thrive and parents to work.

And whereas without enough diapers, babies and toddlers risk infections and other health problems requiring medical attention, and parents may be prevented from assessing child care needed to go to work or school.

Whereas destabilizing the family's economic well-being.

And whereas the family, the people of Bellevue recognize that diaper need is a public health issue, and that addressing diaper need can lead to economic opportunity for families, stronger communities, and improved health outcome for children, and whereas through their essential work of addressing diaper need, diaper banks play a critical role in supporting families, improving infant health and well-being, and strengthening our local and state economy.

Now, therefore, I, Clara Suma DiWaria, on behalf of Lane Robinson, the Mayor of City of Bellevue, Washington, and on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim the week of September 15 to 21st, 2025 as National Diaper Need Awareness Week in Bellevue, Washington, and urge all residents to support diaper banks, diaper drives, and organizations that collect and distribute diapers to families struggling with diaper need so that all Bellevue children and family can thrive and reach their full potential.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council.

First of all, I want to thank you all for your support of human services and particularly of KidVantage over the years.

We appreciate it.

And we very much appreciate this opportunity to bring attention to such an emergent and difficult need for so many families.

Diapers seem simple, as one of our providers recently said, but they matter.

They matter more than we may ever realize because they seem like a small thing, but when you are without them, it makes all the difference.

Because diapers are essential.

Diapers are expensive.

Diapers need can create long-term problems in the child's health.

And as you heard from the proclamation, deeply affect both the mental health of the parents and of their ability to hold jobs or go to work.

Insufficient diapers can mean difficulty for a lot of parents.

They're also not covered by any federal assistance program.

Another one of our provider partners, because we work with about 80 different agencies across the area, said providing diapers through KidVantage allows us to support families in a more complete and dignified way.

Food is essential, but meeting basic hygiene needs like diapers helps families stay stable.

It builds trust and lets parents know they're not alone.

Looking across the country at this time when we're looking at diaper need, the best estimates are that right now to fill the gap between what parents can afford and what kids need would take almost 4.8 billion diapers a year to fill that gap.

It is basic need banks like Kidvantage and some of our partners in the area that helped to fill that gap.

This year alone, KidVantage will provide over 1.5 million diaper changes for local kids.

Everybody deserves to be known and to be seen.

One way we can do that is through giving families the diapers.

It shows them that they are seen, that we acknowledge their need, that we care about them, and we want to help.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

Um, also to city staff.

My name is Diane Kusslich, and a few things in terms of why I'm here tonight is I'm past president of Kid Vantage.

I'm also a resident of the city of Bellevue.

And I'm also a mom.

And so thank you very much for taking this issue that's so near and dear to my heart and providing your support.

It's much appreciated.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Angela Schmile.

I am a resident of Bellevue.

I'm a business owner in Bellevue, and um I'm a volunteer at Kid Vantage and pursuing joining the board there.

Um my family got involved in in Kid Vanage about 12 years ago as my kids were looking at for a way to volunteer.

And one of the biggest things that I've found has been an advantage of Kid Vanage is they allow volunteers at the age of twelve.

It's very unusual to find an organization that can do that.

Our kids are very passionate about knowing and helping other people, and I think Kid Vantage played a huge role in the compassion that was built into my kids.

Um and so I think it's a it's a wonderful organization.

It's great to see us a city that's supporting that.

Wonderful.

Well, let's um take a picture with you.

Okay, is there a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, City Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for oral communications?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

This evening there are 11 pre-registered speakers for tonight.

So I'll go ahead and go over a few of the rules that the council has in place before I start calling names.

So, first of all, the time for oral communications is for a period of no more than 30 minutes, and all topics must relate to City of Bellevue government.

People speaking to items on tonight's agenda will be called first, and then if time remains, people speaking to items not on tonight's agenda will be called.

The presiding officer is authorized in both of those categories to give preference to those who have not spoken to council within the last 60 days, or who will be speaking on topics that will come in front of the council within the next 60 days.

Speakers are allowed to speak up to three minutes, and only three speakers are allowed to speak to any one side of a particular topic.

And then finally, one final reminder that in compliance with Washington State public disclosure or sorry public facilities during campaigns, the use of public facilities that no speaker may support or oppose a campaign, and that includes one's own campaign or ballot measure.

So speakers speaking on that topic will be asked to stop.

So with that, I'll call our first speaker who is Julia Tai.

Good evening.

Mayor Robinson, Council members, and City Manager Carlson.

My name is Julia Ty.

My address is on the signing sheet.

Today I'm here representing Harmony, a 116-unit townhome community near the Porch Light campus.

I was on the city's Porch Like Good Neighbor Agreement Committee in 2021 and have served on Porchlight's community advisory group since its formation in 2020.

I support Portuight's mission and sincerely want them to succeed.

When Porch Light asked for my definition of success, I told them it is help men find stable living and regain their independence.

And doing so with minimal negative impact to the neighboring residents and businesses.

Regretfully, Portugal has not met my definition of success.

Problems have been steadily escalating around Portslight's campus and our neighborhood.

Repeated concerns voiced by the community have not been fully and timely addressed by Porch Light or the City.

One, men sleeping on the sidewalks on 139th Avenue across from our townhomes.

Two, men loitering and drinking.

It is common to find empty cans next on or next to sidewalks on East Gateway and 139th Avenue Southeast.

Multiple encampments on the green belt across from the townhomes.

Men sleeping and taking residence in the bus shelters near Bellevue College West Entrance.

Most of these incidents are not reflected in the city's crime statistics, but they have significantly affected the safety and security of our neighborhood.

A core body of the community advisory group members have developed an action plan to help turn the neighborhood around.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker on our list is Barrett Told.

No, okay.

I don't believe that person is here.

The next speaker is Susanna Chung.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and City Manager.

My name is Susanna Chung, and my address is recorded on the uh speaker registration.

For over 25 years, I have been living in a mile north of the Eastgate campus where Porch Light and Plymouth reside, like Julia Ty.

I've also been actively involved with Portugalite Advisory Group since its inception five and a half years ago.

Foremost, I too want to emphasize our community support of Partialized Vision and applaud this assess.

However, some of the current operating standards have created negative impact to the community, and the seriousness of these incidents have escalated and continue to be so.

The most serious offense occurred in our neighborhood is the murder and two other deaths.

Mr.

Jason Clark's murder in July and overdose back in August 2023, soon after shelters opening happened within steps from the shelter.

The third death, which is unsolved, happened near the Bellevue College campus last month.

How would you feel knowing people's lives were taken on your block?

I'm afraid not just for myself, my family, my neighbor, but also for the most vulnerable homeless men who, when kept out of the shelter, are left to room in the neighborhood.

After some dialogues amongst the community, the neighborhood members of the community advisory group, we made a list of asks for the city to implement.

Highlights of our asked, which I will be submitting, include and I'm not limited to one.

Create a new police sector to cover only Eastgate.

Susanna back up just a little bit from the microphone.

So we can hear you better.

Oh, okay, thank you.

All right.

So two, assign a police officer or security guard 24 by seven and increase patrol in the magnet area.

Three, banned people from sleeping on public space in addition to existing ordinance that bans camping.

Four, remove people loitering on public sidewalks and using substances.

For each house on our list, we request that the city responds to the following questions.

One, will this be implemented?

Two, if implemented, what are the details and timeline?

Three, if not implemented, what's the alternative?

We're more than happy to collaborate in order to bring safety and security back to our community.

Ms.

Chung.

Yeah, thank you.

Your time has expired.

I would do the same and encourage you to email the rest of your comments to council.

Thank you.

The next speaker on our list is Janice Kennedy.

If you're joining us on the oh, thank you.

I see your hand.

Can you hear me?

Miss Kennedy, can you hear me?

Miss Kennedy, can you hear me?

Can you speak a little bit closer to your microphone?

Okay, it's a little bit better.

We're gonna give it a shot here.

Go ahead and start now.

Okay.

Miss Kennedy, um, unfortunately.

Are you speaking from a cell phone by any chance?

No, no, no, if you could take it off of speaker phone and we'll give it one more shot.

And otherwise, I would ask if you can disconnect from the Zoom meeting and then reconnect, and I'll call your name again here shortly, but give it a shot now again.

You can go ahead and start speaking.

Okay.

Umfortunately, we I'm gonna ask if you can disconnect and reconnect to the meeting.

I'm gonna call the next speaker and then I will circle back and call your name, okay?

The next speaker on the list is Melissa Danberg.

Small neighborhoods, please wave your hands during my comments.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members.

My name is Melissa Danberg and I live in Newport Hills and have for 46 years, and I've been engaged in the neighborhood, including the recent Newport neighborhood area plan process.

I attended the July 23rd planning commission public hearing for the Newport NAP along with my husband and 20 Newport Hills neighbors.

I was asked to communicate some things for those neighbors who couldn't be here tonight.

We wish to thank Commissioner Carolyn Ferris for recommending the Planning Commission not move forward with a vote until verbiage and suggestions and additional policies pertaining to the commercial district could be discussed for inclusion in the NAP.

Those items were submitted by NHC president and Breshier and trustee Heidi Dean.

We also wish to thank Commissioner Ferris for asking about the community outreach and engagement process, which had multiple issues throughout the process that were brought to the attention of the community development director, the planning commission, the city manager, and to you, the council.

We respectfully that council return the Newport NAP to the Planning Commission for the discussion of the aforementioned verbiage and policy suggestions.

The commissioners agreed that they'd have that discussion before voting, but somehow that did not happen.

Represents the interests and concerns of only one small part of the Newport sub-area, while ignoring the interests and concerns of the larger part of the sub-area that will be impacted by the future of the commercial district.

Adding the Greenwich Crest and Newport Shores area neighborhoods to the Newport sub area has created a tail of two newports.

Unfortunately, with the outreach and engagement issues, most of the importance.

Yep.

My apologies, your time has expired.

I would also encourage you to email the rest of your comments to the city council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do see a new phone number connected online.

If that's you, can you raise your hand?

Okay, I don't believe that is her.

I will go to the next speaker who's Mahogany Tyler.

Good evening.

Thanks for having me today.

And I just would like to start out with um I've been living in Bellevue for the last five years.

Um and worked our way over to Polaris.

I've been a student for the last five years.

Um my finances have been crazy going to college and just living off of financial aid.

So I was reluctant to find a place over at Polaris with minimum rents compared to living downtown.

Um, however, uh, when we have to walk to the bus, uh, we have to walk my son to school.

We walk up the hill where the bus stop is, and I've never seen anyone using drugs the way that I I've seen it right there at the corner.

Um, and it's a consistent thing, it's an everyday thing.

Matter of fact, on a day we were walking, it was a group of men standing out on the corner, and they would not even let us in the sidewalk.

We had to literally walk in the street to get my seven-year-old to school.

This is very concerning.

We have a basketball court at the Polaris.

It's summertime, the kids are out, or it was summer, the kids were out.

And on this uh particular day, we're all outside, and all we see is cops running through the parking lot with their dogs, yelling at everyone to get back.

Apparently, someone from up the hill where the Plymouth shelter and the uh porch light shelter is because we share the same kind of parking lot almost.

It's weird, it's just a hill to go up.

I guess there was an incident up there, so it led it led into our parking lot, which caused a bunch of distraction, kids were scared.

Uh, we didn't know what to expect.

We didn't even know what was going on.

I have the police scanner on every day because of we're just terrified of what's next.

Every time I look at the police scanner, there's always Polaris, there's always porch light, there's always Plymouth.

It's an everyday thing.

This is so uncomfortable.

We have many families there, and it's very, very uncomfortable.

The street is blocked off there, so we only have one way up the road at this point.

I believe they're almost finished, I'm not sure.

Um, this is just alarming, and I just wanted to bring it to your attention.

I've been living there for a year, so ever since they opened the place.

So I've definitely seen the changes, um, and it's just getting worse, to be honest.

And so, yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say, although my time is not up yet.

But thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I do believe that that is our third and final speaker sharing opposition or having concerns about item uh six B on tonight's agenda, the Eastgate Campus update.

Um, the next speaker on our list is Sue Baugh.

Good evening, uh Mayor Robinson, Deputy Mayor Malcoutin.

Did I get that right?

City Council uh members, uh, City Manager Carlson and uh city staff.

My name is Sue Baugh, and I live at 4728 116th Avenue Southeast Bellevue and Lake Heights, and I've lived there for 35 years.

I'm here tonight in fit to speak in favor of the Newport Neighborhood Area Plan update that is before you tonight.

I want you to know that from my perspective, the city staff in charge of this project did a great job with the update.

Specifically, they did significant outreach to our neighborhoods, and they were very inclusive in the way they reached out to all of us.

They used many tools, including in-person meetings with groups, surveys, mailers, public hearings, or excuse me, public meetings, and virtual meetings, etc.

It's not always perfect, but they were really trying hard and they did a great job.

They made every effort to consider all the voices from the neighborhoods of Newport Hills, Lake Heights, Greenwich Crest, and Newport Shores, the four neighborhoods that are included in this plan.

Second, the staff members were very open and receptive to new ideas, suggestions, and thoughts.

I really appreciated that.

Third, they were very clear that the neighborhood update dealt specifically with the public realm.

They were 100% consistent with the with that throughout the process.

I am certain that you will hear from some that this update should somehow now be dealing with commercial space, meaning, of course, the Newport Hill Shopping Center.

As you know, that is being dealt with through HOMA as well as other shopping centers in Bellevue.

Finally, after listening to the entire three and a half hour planning commission meeting a couple weeks ago, when the update was discussed in greater detail, in my opinion, the planning commission did a thorough and very thoughtful review of this plan that is now before you.

I encourage you to move forward and approve it as it was presented.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker on our list is Faye Howe.

Good evening, uh guilty mayor, mayor, council members.

Um my name is Faye Ho, and I have lived in Newport Hills for 20 years.

I emailed you today with details about why Newport Hill Neighborhood Area Plan cannot move forward as written, but I want to highlight just a few urgent points.

The NAP claims that 80% home here are owner occupied.

That is false.

More than 60% are investor-owned.

I told the Plan Commission a couple of times, but the community profile was never corrected.

And this isn't just a number, the impact will.

The business now running out of single family houses on my street.

We have one piano schools, we have one preschools, we have one group house, we have all the rental houses, and we have two active development side right now.

Meaning one is completely bouldozed and the house being built, not by the permit.

And it caused many problems, including the use during the construction workers use the machinery, lift the gas pipeline for my gas pipeline, damaged my gas pipeline.

I'm just lucky to be here today.

So city also approved another lot splits on my street, and that caused many neighbor concerns, including neighbors have forced to appeal just to enforce the protections we already have because in the deed, in our deed, we have restrictions and countenance to permit that.

Newport Hills is a relatively affordable neighborhood in Bellevue, and that's why investors are targeting, but the NAP assume a stable owner occupied community, and that's simply not true.

So tonight I respectfully ask you, return the NAP draft back to the Plan Commission, require require staff to show the real data source and the merge the error for the 80% homeowner claim and or remove it.

And the policy to track investor ownership and unlicensed rentals and unpermitted house building.

So protect the residents instead of looking away from what is happening.

Please don't adapt the plan and that ignore the real data here.

Newport Hills deserve better.

And we're in uh investor targeted area, and we beg you to protect the people who actually live here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Martin Sealing.

I'm Martin A.

Sealing, not related to Martin Seelig of Seattle family-wise nor business-wise.

On behalf of the Burns family, of which I'm a co-trustee, I request that the council remove from its September 23rd consent agenda, the Cedar Terrace Pump Station S-16 rehabilitation project until after the staff and Burns family professionals consider new information that will benefit the city and achieve a win-win situation.

What's the win-win solution?

One, the Burns family grants the city the sewer easement.

Two, the city enables the construction of the same number of apartments that could have been built if the sanitary sewer had not been constructed.

The advantages to the city threefold.

One, it eliminates the ongoing maintenance of the existing sewer pump station.

Two, it increases housing density in an area well served by mass transit.

Three, it eliminates the time-consuming condemnation process with the city's requirement to prove public use and necessity.

The Burns Family Professional Consultants are active working with Kirsten Matt, senior planner, the lead on the critical area land use code amendments, and with Matthew Menard, senior planner, developmental services on zoning.

We have confidence that working together, we can achieve a solution for the betterment of all.

Many cities have these.

The Faith and Belief Advisory Council would include Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Sikh, and other representatives.

According to best practice places, Bellevue is 20% Christian, 16% Catholic, 1.5% Eastern, 8 tenths of 1% Jewish, and seven tenths of 1% Islam.

Mr.

Sealick, sorry, your time has expired.

I'd encourage you to email the rest of your comments to council.

The final speaker on our pre-registered list is Alex Zimmerman.

Thank you.

Hi.

For three year, Tory year, I spoke many times.

Why Pugisaun Energy?

And I come here and speak here, and I speak to them office to president across the street.

Across street, yeah.

Yeah.

Why you don't give discount for a low income senior citizen, disabled, veteran, blah, blah.

See, it'll give 50%.

50%.

They don't use this.

They give discount for people who own houses.

It's very interesting the rules we have.

We have a rules who support people who have houses.

How much price houses in Bellevue now?

Couple million dollars.

So you give discount for people who own a couple million dollars.

Who are you?

You are a bandita.

And I told you about many times.

You're mafia organized criminal.

You have 120,000 jungle slave, you know what this means, but is you exploitate like a black before.

It's very simple, you know what this means.

You stay in the same territory for many years, but as I know you, and I talked to this place for more than 40 years, and nothing changed.

So this is very interesting.

Because price in Bellevue go up every year.

So this 120,000 jungle slave who live right now here 65,000 Indian, 60 45,000 Chinese pay for everything.

Because price and rent go every year by 10%.

Price right now of the Russian Bellevue, 2500 bucks.

So 10% from 2010 bucks every month, every year, this 250.

So what's happened after two or three years under your command?

People will be paid three, four thousand dollars for the same apartment.

My apartment goes every year by 200 bucks, 10%.

Where is the problem?

Why you acting like a bandita?

You use this 120,000 jungle slave, like exploitation, make a plantation from Bellevue, like before with black people you did this, you know what this means.

You by definition criminal, a bandita.

Is this exactly what is you doing for many years?

It's very interesting.

If people, this 120,000 sleff, you know what is mean.

Very quiet.

I don't understand.

Why?

Because I scared.

You understand what this means?

It's very important.

So are you listening to me?

No.

Why?

Because your goal, very simple.

Sit in this chair, like a junta, because only 10% support you.

15,000 who could support you every year.

So right now, viva Trump, Viva New American Revolution, stand up, slev and happy cow.

We need clean this chamber totally.

Thank you very much.

That is the end of our pre-registered list tonight.

We do have time for one additional speaker, so I'd ask at this point if there's anyone who would like to make a comment to the council again as a reminder.

We do not we have reached the three-person maximum on the Eastgate campus update in opposition.

Miss Dean, I see your hand just confirming that that's not the topic you're gonna speak on.

Okay, go ahead.

Um good evening, Heidi Dean.

I wanted to finish my my neighbor Melissa Danberg's comments.

Um I wanted to talk about with the Newport NAP.

We're fully aware that this is not about HOMA.

However, the NAP does lay the groundwork for HOMA.

And so when you are presented with and potentially pass an NAP or a neighborhood area plan that does not take into consideration the importance of our neighborhood commercial district, then when HOMA comes around, it's very easy to go ahead and justify a massive upzone of our small neighborhood commercial district for nothing but housing and a small smidge of commercial space that's left.

That's not okay.

So Melissa was correct that what's happened is once you roll in Newport Shores and Greenwich Crest, and that's that section of Lake Washington Boulevard, you really have created a tale of two new ports because the folks that live down at the bottom of the hill by the lake, their interests and their concerns are very, very different from the folks that live up at the top of the hill that are impacted by what happens to the future of that commercial district.

And I really I really appreciated Carolyn Ferris listening and taking the time and suggesting to the planning commission that maybe they not move forward that night that they because I sent in policy suggestions, and so did um Ann Brashier with stronger verbiage for the commercial district because the problem that I saw was all of the stuff crossroads got all of these great policies about their commercial district and protection of their businesses and celebration of their businesses and their diversity and all that other stuff, and we got policies that said so, yeah, basically assuming that we're gonna get upzoned and what we're gonna do with your businesses when they have to, you know, vamoose.

So it really wasn't a good comparison there.

It was very unfair.

Um I sent, and I know I sent to you guys as well as to the planning commission the list of crossroads policies that I'd like to see.

I personally would like to see a business district um group to support our business district in the same way that the Bell Red Arts District.

I know that you were chairing that before you became a council member.

Um council member Samada Waria.

We deserve that.

We have been waiting and waiting and waiting for help.

We have been begging for that from the city, and nobody will do anything about that.

So I would like to have policies that protect and honor our commercial district as the heart of our neighborhood.

Um it really needs to go back for more work, and I really, really, really appreciate it that Commissioner Ferris suggested that.

And unfortunately, the way that that meeting got kind of manipulated, that discussion never happened.

It's not okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That does bring us to the end of oral comms, mayor.

I'll turn it back to you.

Okay, thank you so much.

Appreciate all the comments tonight.

Um, so next up we have a report from our city manager on two items.

Go ahead.

Diane.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

As part of our regular effort to provide updates to the council and to the community on our uh public safety data and the trends um occurring in Bellevue.

Tonight we have um some key representatives from our police department, Chief Wendell Shirley, Assistant Chief Andrew Popachak, and our public information officer um Drew Anderson.

They're here tonight to give you a short overview of the trends of uh to date this year and also to provide some highlights of the Bellevue Police Department work this year.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Chief Shirley.

Thank you.

Uh good morning, Mayor Robinson, Deputy Mayor, Maliputian, and the council.

Um it's a pleasure to be before you.

Um as our mission states, uh, your police department focuses our efforts and resources on three things the reduction of crime, the reduction of the fear of crime, and to enhance the quality of life of those that live, work, and visit our city.

We do this by using the philosophy called the PI.

Prevention, intervention, and enforcement.

And our officers can use any one of these approaches to accomplish our mission.

Next.

Good evening, council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Um, I wanted to go over our crime statistics year to date compared to 2024.

We have seen a significant reduction in crime in the city of Bellevue.

Uh, the data we're gonna present today is from January 1st until September 8th.

Um, as you can see in our previous presentations, we've talked about we split crime into three separate categories.

It's persons crime, property crime, and societal crime.

Of those three categories, property crime is our largest amount of crimes that are reported.

But I want to talk about persons crimes.

We are seeing an uptick of 2% in persons' crimes.

But because that's one of our smaller categories, like society crimes, it's actually a change of 14 crimes.

While it is serious, those crimes are serious, it is a relatively small total number, so 14 will cause a 2% change.

The largest reduction we saw was in property crimes.

We saw 1,495 fewer crimes reported in the property crimes category, which is 34%.

In society crimes, again, there's very few of these in the city.

We saw 10 few reported, but that is a 7% change.

Overall, we had 1,494 few reported crimes in the city, which is an overall crime drop of 28%.

Bellevue has historically been a very safe city and continues to be a very safe city.

Next slide.

First is shoplifting.

We saw 199 fewer shoplifts, which is a down 19%.

Motor eagle theft is down 69%, which is 275 fewer crimes.

Motor vehicles and motor vehicle prowl, which is the theft of property or items from the vehicle itself, is down 40% with 260 crimes, and theft of mail is down 76% with 218 fewer crimes.

We saw rapes and sexual assaults go down, 38%, but again, it's a small category.

Every crime is serious, and I don't want to seem like I'm minimizing those because I'm not.

It's just there's not very many in the city itself.

It was six less crimes.

Simple assault is down as well with 36 fewer crimes.

Violation order and aggravated assault and harassment are all up.

Again, small numbers, 17, 11, and 26.

What we have done is we have hired a Bellevue Police DV advocate since many of those crimes of biology of the order has to do with domestic partnerships.

Um that's previously been a position that was outside that we were contracting with, but we have now hired that person to work within the Bellevue Police Department.

Next slide.

One of our key focuses has been traffic safety.

This is an important area for the police department as well as for the public.

But overall for the year, uh, we have increased our speeding ticket.

The number of tickets we've written by 117%.

And as you can see, that's 1900 1918 speeding tickets for the city itself.

And I also want to make note that there were 208 DUIRS.

Traffic safety and safety of our roadway has been a key emphasis point for us.

Um, and also you can see we had a decrease of 21% in our traffic collisions.

This is a complaint I know comes from the community a lot.

We want to make sure we're trying to address that, and we are going to continue to this is gonna be a continue to be a key focus area of Bellevue Police as we try to address this area.

Calls for service.

So calls for service is the calls that we get in uh every day uh from the community.

And as you can see from the slide here, in 2024, we had over 52,000 calls for service come in, as opposed to the same time this year, uh, it went down to 47,000 uh calls.

That's a uh a reduction in about 4200 calls that we received uh this year so far.

Um and as it relates to response time, and when I speak to response time, I speak to emergency type calls, 911 calls where somebody needs assistance immediately.

Uh, our response time to go is three minutes and fifty-two seconds, and I can tell you just from my professional experience.

Anything under five, six, sometimes even seven minutes is is phenomenal.

And so to be below four minutes uh is is really speaks volumes to the men and women of the Bellevue Police Department.

Uh next slide.

Uh looking ahead, um, the community crisis assistant team, better known as CCAT, which is made up of five teams of two folks, um, one from mental health profession that uh is stationed in the fire department, and one police officer uh has been very successful.

Uh when the council in 2023 provided funding for the program, I believe this is exactly what you envisioned.

Uh CCAT has made nearly 1,500 contacts uh since its inception, and about 59% of those have been repeat contact, which means they've developed relationships with individuals.

I'd like to share uh a story that I think will really exemplify the hard work and the good work of the CCAT program.

Uh we got a call in uh from a person that was concerned about their friend who uh was considering harming themselves, and they asked us to go out and do what we call a welfare check on them.

One of the CCAT officers heard the call go out over the radio and recognized the name because the officer had dealt with that person before.

The officer had even went so far as to buy gas for that person for their car and assisted them with resources and shelter.

Um the officers text the individual and started a conversation with him and asked him if he wanted to harm himself, and he denied it and said no.

And so the officer went about the day.

Well, several hours later, that individual called the officer back and said, Yes, you know what, I am feeling a certain way.

Um, and they started talking.

The person told the officer where they were, the officer got there, the person was sitting there and they had a firearm uh in their hand.

Um the conversation continued to ensue.

Uh ultimately the C CAT officer with another officer from another agency were able to convince the individual to throw the weapon away, surrender himself to the CCAT officer where they could take him uh to give services.

I I think that exemplifies exactly what this council wanted uh CCAT to do.

As it relates to uh Bellevue Light Rail, the council also approved us to stand up our our own in the city of Bellevue uh light rail unit called Blue.

Officers work in pairs, uh, create positive safe environment for those folks who ride the train uh in our city.

Uh to date, we've had no major incidents on the light rail.

Uh it's also beginning to increase in ridership.

Uh, but we also know it is going to be essential once uh the lane connects to Seattle and also the sporting events in the World Cup that's coming up in 2026.

Next slide.

Cool.

Thank you, Chief.

Uh good evening, Mayor Robinson, Deputy Mayor, City Council.

As we have consistently shared this evening, the department's pie philosophy is no doubt creating a lasting and positive impact on this community.

Particularly, I want to highlight the prevention and intervention aspects of PI.

In 2025 alone, the department has implemented a form of engagement that I personally feel like that everyone would be very proud of.

We have a transparency dashboard on the department's city website where community members can research overall city crime trends as well as prior incidents in their neighborhoods.

Also, they could even learn about the demographics that exist within the department staff.

Our sector captains hold weekly meeting meetings with city stakeholders representing organizations big and small and across all neighborhoods.

The department also recently held its first firearms exchange and continued its popular steering wheel lock giveaway efforts.

The firearms exchange led to officers collecting 87 firearms and handing out more than $13,000 worth of gift cards to community members.

And for the steering wheel lock giveaway, the department has provided community members about 1,400 steering wheel locks for their vehicles.

And finally, we could continue to hold uh our annual summer youth camps and our jujitsu-based women's empowered self-defense class.

And we are all proud here to say that more than 3,000 women and girls have attended that class, and that's pretty awesome and a great accomplishment.

And so, as public information officer for this agency, it's truly a privilege to share this information tonight because believe me when I say this, it this kind of connectivity between the department and its community is very rare to find.

In conclusion, um, I'd like to assure you that your police department continues to position itself uh to be prepared for the future.

Uh continuing to work hard to hire the best candidates we can find and to make sure the organizational structure is ready to meet those needs.

Lastly, I'd like to thank uh the city council, uh city manager's office for their support uh in providing resources.

Uh I'd like to thank the men and women of the Bellevue Police Department, including my leadership team for their hard work and dedication in keeping this city safe.

And last but not least, this great community who has continued uh to support their police department.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chief.

Okay, wonderful.

Thank you.

Appreciate the um regular updates that we're getting.

We have a second item here.

Council.

Um we have one more city manager report.

So uh over the past two years, we've had two significant uh facilities open at East at the East Gate campus.

Those facilities are providing shelter and housing service to our community.

That's the Porchlight Men's Shelter in Plymouth Crossing Permanent Supportive Housing.

And they do provide essential services for community members who might not otherwise have safe place places to be.

She's here tonight to give council an update on the response and action plan.

Bianca.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

As the city manager mentioned, there are a number of staff across the organization that are involved in this work.

I have the honor of presenting it to you tonight.

We are going to be giving you an update on the community response as well as some of the program operations of our key operators at the Eastgate Housing Campus.

Just starting with a little background, I I know the council is familiar that there was a unique partnership that led to the creation of the Eastgate Housing Campus that allowed for the development of both shelter, permanent supportive housing, and affordable housing on this large site.

The city works with each of these agencies and residents and businesses on site and in the surrounding area to support these critical services and their success in the community.

There are over 90 formerly homeless individuals that now have stable apartments and the in the Plymouth Crossing building and the health supports to help them recover from long-term homelessness there.

And last year the Porchlight Men's shelter helped over 800 men find a safe place to sleep plus connections to jobs and housing and services.

Those are really significant and measurable impacts that this site has made possible.

Safety and community engagement have been a priority here since before the site was even identified.

And now that the programs have been in operation for just over two years, we are also aware of ongoing concerns.

We heard some of them tonight, and staff and operators have heard those as well from residents regarding unhoused community members in the area and the actions of some individuals in particular.

We acknowledge that there are you know there are impacts that are felt on the surrounding community, and we are working really diligently with our partners to improve outcomes for residents in and around the campus.

One of the ways that we do that, and we'll talk about more shortly, is through multiple visits each week to key areas around the campus and in the community where in the past there might have been an encampment or for uh folks loitering.

This is a responsibility that is shared between the city's homelessness outreach staff and porchlights outreach staff, and we do that in close uh collaboration with them.

Um when our teams encounter anyone in those areas who is needing assistance and is unsheltered.

We work with them to identify how to get them support and encourage them to move to a more appropriate or safer location.

The men's shelter maintains a good neighbor agreement that was established as part of their initial development in partnership with the community.

Um of the ways, in addition to uh the many men that they serve every day and throughout the year, some of the ways that they continue to work on being good neighbors include holding monthly community advisory board meetings, um which city staff, the police department, and staff from uh from Plymouth Crossing also attend as part of our ongoing collaboration.

Um Porch Light adopted East Gateway through the city's Adopt a Street Program and does regular cleanups there.

Um they do daily trash cleanup on site and multiple times a week have a green team that's shown in the slide here that picks up trash around the community as well.

Um they're also implementing some operational improvements that we'll talk about in just a moment.

Plymouth Crossing is uh permanent supportive housing, so that means that in addition to housing, these are studio apartments for single adults.

The residents have access to a range of on-site as well as off-site services that are designed to help them recover from homelessness and maintain housing stability.

Those services include 24-7 staffing, secured and monitored building entry, case management, counseling, health care, and other programs that are designed to support people who are living with complex and often disabling health conditions.

Well over half of the units are rented to people that have local connections to Bellevue and the East Side and were referred by local agencies, including City of Bellevue.

So city staff from multiple departments are actively involved in these programs and in the surrounding community.

One specific example in response to requests made at the community advisory group last year.

Our transportation department and PSE were able to do some roadway striping improvements and upgrade street lighting on Southeast 32nd, just behind the campus in order to improve safety there.

We are regularly on campus.

We join community meetings.

We talk frequently with agency staff.

We monitor the greenbelt areas and our human services staff monitors the contracts for services provided on site and of course work to enhance safety in and around that site.

There are a number of impactful changes that are underway.

These are summarized in more detail in the written agenda memo.

I'll touch on these just briefly here.

And these are also in direct response to community feedback and working with our partners at both agencies in order to identify possible improvements.

So Porchlight continues to work directly with neighbors to identify and implement really responsive actions in partnership with the city and with Plymouth staff.

They are changing their bed reservation system and scheduling in a way that allows men to not need to be on campus early in the morning in order to secure a bed that night and also to find out a little earlier in the evening if a bed will be available.

It is an ongoing case where there are often more folks in need of overnight shelter than there are beds available.

What this change means is that there's less of a need for men to hang out in the area in order to wait to find out if they are able to stay overnight.

And so it is an improvement both for neighbors and for the men who are served at the shelter.

They are also or have recently increased some of the consequences for guests who violate their established code of conduct.

Some of those violations can lead to a suspension in the past of three days from the shelter, and they've increased that to 30 days.

One of the intentions of that change is again to discourage men from perhaps camping nearby in hopes of coming back to the shelter after just a few days with a longer break and access to other shelter, which Porch Light staff will provide transportation to other locations.

The hope is that that can minimize some of that disruption.

At Plymouth Crossing, they are preparing to launch some enhanced on-site medical support services and have ongoing partnerships with health providers.

One of the outcomes of that, in addition to improved access to health care for folks who really do have some pretty serious chronic conditions who live there, may also be reduced demand on some of our EMS services for providing additional support.

City staff, first we monitor various metrics regularly.

And our colleagues in the police department earlier this year completed a SEPTED safety analysis for the Metro Park and Ride site up the street and is are talking with King County Metro staff about implementing those recommendations to improve safety and conditions at the park and ride.

They're also exploring assigning staff to the Eastgate Infactoria substation position, which has not been filled in the past few years.

So providing some more direct staffing, hopefully in the future there.

These are the weekly monitoring visits.

So we will have an increased presence there.

And to help increase transparency and information for the community, we're going to be launching an FAQ page on the city website about permanent supportive housing and about the operators there.

We're also evaluating tools to help increase transparency for any future permanent supportive housing in the city.

We're going to continue to assess these actions to make sure that they are making a positive difference.

We will monitor data.

We continue to hear from neighbors who attend the advisory group meetings, and we will adjust as needed moving forward.

This is a long-term partnership for some really important services.

Homelessness and housing instability are really complex regional issues, and we are really committed to continuing to seek the best possible outcomes for everyone involved.

I wanted to highlight for folks who are listening.

If you see unhoused folks in the community in Eastgate or anywhere else who are in need of support, we encourage you to report that through our My Bellevue app that goes directly to our outreach team and they can help prioritize that response.

They're usually able to get to people within 24 to 48 hours during the week.

You can also reach us by emailing homelessness at BellevueWaW.gov.

We really do appreciate when folks reach out to us because it helps us to serve the community.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation, and thank you, City Manager, for bringing this up at your report.

Can we ask that we get an update in a month of what's going on?

Yes, we can provide that to you.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Um would that be a presentation or a written update?

It can be whatever we want it to be.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll talk.

We'll we'll talk to everybody about that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um can I ask a question?

No, you can ask you.

Yeah.

You can do questions.

Do we have a discussion?

No, we're not having a discussion tonight.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um, so on consent calendar, do I have a motion to approve?

I move to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, we're gonna take a 10-minute break.

We'll come back at um 7 30.

12 minutes.

And we have two study session items.

Um city manager, would you like to introduce them?

Mayor.

Deputy Mayor, Council members.

Part of the Puget Sound Regional Council's uh regional growth centers program includes monitoring and redesignation.

And Bellevue has applied to retain the designation for our downtown as a regional growth center.

The council launched an update to the downtown sub-area plan in January 25 to initiate this process.

And tonight staff will be presenting the planning commission's recommendation.

Um we have Chair Kanlu with us here tonight from community development, Tara Johnson, our planning director, and our planning manager Kate Nessie.

And the ask for the council this evening is to consider directing staff to return with an ordinance to adopt the changes to the downtown sub area plan.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Tara Johnson.

Thank you, City Manager Carlson.

Good evening, Mayor Robinson, Deputy Mayor, Council members.

Um, so tonight um we're starting off with our first comprehensive plan amendment.

So we have a couple study sessions.

Um it's the update to the downtown sub-area plan as city manager Carlson mentioned.

Council launched this earlier this year.

The update is really focusing on supporting the redesignation of downtown Bellevue as a metropolitan regional growth center by PSRC.

So tonight we're um requesting council to provide direction for staff to return at a future meeting with an ordinance to adopt amendments to the downtown sub-area plan.

We're gonna start off our presentation, provide some background and context on the reason for the update.

Um we'll also uh go over the scope that council provided direction on at launch.

Um we're gonna review what we heard from the community as part of our overall engagement and the feedback that they provided.

We'll also have uh planning commission chair Conloo provide the planning commission recommendation, and then finally we'll conclude with asking you for direction.

So to start off a little bit of context and background on this process and the reason for the update.

Um some of you have have experience with um sitting on PSRC boards um PSRC goes through this process uh every about every five to eight years, so it varies to really uh reviewing and evaluating how various regional growth centers are doing in terms of meeting their goals and priorities.

The purpose here is to make sure that the center is performing well, so each center has established targets that they have to achieve, both with uh what they call activity units, which includes jobs and housing.

Um, and also um recently in the last few years, Vision 2050 was adopted, which is the region's growth strategy, so to ensure that all the centers are aligning with the policies under Vision 2050.

We currently have one regional growth center, which is also a metro center, and that's downtown Bellevue.

Um really the advantage of making sure we are retaining our designation in addition to uh our significant role in the region is to ensure that we're also being competitive and able to receive federal transportation dollars.

Um in the comprehensive plan as well that was recently adopted.

A lot of our growth is really focused in downtown Bellevue.

So it's a really it plays at a really important role.

The redesignation process um pending council action.

The next steps would be advancing this through the PSRC process, which includes uh the growth management policy board and then the executive board, and uh they'll be doing that with all the centers.

So, council direction when we launched at the beginning of this year, um, council provided um definite direction to really focus the update on what was required under the PSRC requirements, and to not um since we recently went through the periodic update to really not have any other kind of change with strategic direction.

So, with that, I'm gonna turn things over to Kate to walk us through the process and engagement.

Great, good evening.

Um, as Tara mentioned, the council launched uh the update on January 14th this year.

Planning commission held two study sessions and uh a public hearing on July 9th.

Um, and at the after the public hearing, they uh recommended the update uh to council.

Um, and so here we are at your study session tonight.

Um, in terms of the scope of the update, council directed us to update the the data and descriptions of growth uh and development in the downtown.

This is primarily updating population and jobs for 2020 2044 that was adopted in the comprehensive plan.

Um, in addition, there were some quite old descriptions of things like the Grand Connection and East Rail.

So those uh were updated as well to be more current.

A paragraph was added to the narrative to describe how we engage uh with the community as we have described in our policies in the community engagement element of the comprehensive plan.

Um the maps and figures were also updated to be readable to a wider number of people by increasing their size and modifying the colors and symbols so that they are more closely aligned with ADA requirements.

Um and finally, uh there was a limited uh updates to the policy, uh, only nine policies that had substantive updates.

Um, and these were to address residential and business displacement, planning for historically underserved communities in downtown, and to address the environment.

Uh because of the narrow scope, the engagement was very targeted.

Uh, we heard from downtown stakeholders about a few issues related to small business space and again the narrative description um was outdated for some of downtown Bellevue landmarks.

Um, and for the most part, the suggestions uh were that were suggested were made to the plan.

Um I'm now going to pass uh to Chair Conlu to give the planning commission's recommendation.

Hi, everybody.

Um good evening, Mayor Lane Robinson.

Deputy Mayor Mo Manakutan and Council members.

Um I'm reading, I'm a good reader.

Um the goal of the planning commission is updating the downtown uh sub-area plan was to maintain the support uh the current strategic direction of the downtown sub-area plan to support its continued uh designation by uh PSRC as a metropolitan regional center.

Um, downtown is cultural commercial and entertainment and residential center, not only for the east side, but only for our region.

Um the amendments support this continued regional regional role for downtown Bellevue.

The planning commission heard from stakeholders through the update process and made a few changes at um Thora and uh Kate uh mentioned that.

At the public hearing after we uh implemented all the changes, uh, we heard support for these changes from public.

We also support all of the updates to make the maps more readable and the narrative more current.

Um the planning commission recommends the amendment to the downtown stop area plan.

Thank you.

With that, um that concludes our presentation, and we end with asking counsel for direction for staff to come back at a future meeting um with an ordinance to amend the comprehensive plan.

Okay, great.

Thank you for the presentation.

So I'm gonna go first because I am the representative on the PSRC, and you know, as we heard last week, our city has seen tremendous growth in our downtown core in the last five years.

And um I want you to kind of go over some of the pros and cons of take getting this designation.

But I I know there are cities in our PSRC region who would love to be able to have this designation, and um it takes a tremendous amount of planning on our part and uh advance work to prepare for that kind of growth, and I'm really proud of us for doing it so well because um the data from the economic development program last week just really underscored that we have been doing the work and we have been seeing the benefits and the growth from all that.

So if you could just kind of give the pros and cons of this designation, I appreciate it.

Yes, absolutely.

So downtown Bellevue has actually been a regional growth center for many years, so it was one of the earlier centers that was designated, and so we've been able to retain this designation.

Um of course, one obvious advantage that I that we mentioned as part of the presentation is our ability to be competitive for federal transportation dollars, so it enables us to compete, and we've seen the results of that with all the light rail, uh transportation improvements.

So that that is a significant benefit.

Um Bellevue also plays it's not just uh downtown Bellevue isn't just um regional growth center, it's also a metro center, and so Seattle has a few, but there aren't most of the growth centers are not metro centers, which is an even higher designation and um additional requirements uh in terms of density, jobs, housing, um, and then of course we have our growth targets that are established that were established with uh periodic update, which is citywide.

Um, but part of this update is also looking at specific targets, which I don't know the exact numbers Kate can tell us for downtown Bellevue.

So we do have specific targets, so it it is an ambitious uh goal, and but we are making progress as you as you've relayed uh with the ED plan update.

Um the numbers speak for itself, so we are we we do think we're gonna be able to meet those targets.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Have anything to add?

I think you covered it.

No, that's fine.

Thank you.

And it's you know, it's great that when we commit to that kind of growth that we are targeting it to our downtown and to certain areas, and it's not just willy-nilly all across the city.

So that's what good planning does for us.

Okay, um, Councilmember Sumaduier.

Thank you, my oops, sorry.

Um, I thought it was really amazing that we are the third in the region for the growth, just right behind Seattle Downtown, also Lake South Lee Union.

It's really a big number for us.

Um, and so because I think that you know, more activity really means we can have more business, more mixed shoes of different businesses, and also way less crowd dependent.

So it's going to be a really great for the environment as well.

One question I had was um what exactly what is the biggest benefit of the destination like either funding or boost of small business?

What are the biggest most attractive benefits?

Um I think yeah, similar to uh the question um that Mayor Robinson raised, there are multiple benefits, but the obvious one is of course the federal transportation dollars.

Our transportation department um is very active and works very closely with PSRC, so it's a pretty complex process, but we have to submit uh submit applications for our to get funding for various transportation projects, and so they do an excellent job because as I as I mentioned, we've been really successful with gaining funding uh to fund a lot of our transportation improvements in the city.

And so PSRC has a growth strategy, Vision 2050, which really focuses on development around infrastructure and really around transportation infrastructure.

And so downtown Bellevue plays you know, plays a significant role as within part of that regional growth strategy.

So those are some of the edges.

And I really love this is connecting the planning that actually doing.

What are we going to do in the future?

You know, I think as a city we're really focusing on the growth equity and environment.

So one last question I want to ask is how are we truly gonna have this growth benefit the whole city at Belleview from this destination?

That's a really good question.

Umendments that are before you are really focused on downtown.

Um but volume one, um, which went through we as part of the periodic update, we made a number of similar changes to the policies relating to equity, um, business retention, displacement.

So there are a number of those policies that reside in various elements of the of the comprehensive plan.

And um, so that applies citywide.

And then um, as you'll see with the next study session topic, um, as we update our various neighborhood area plans, that's an opportunity to really fine-tune some of the that policy direction on at a smaller neighborhood scale.

Thanks.

I'm excited to hear about it.

Thank you.

I would also say that it focuses our transportation dollars where the growth is, which is downtown, which will help with cut through traffic.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um, Councilmember Lee.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Uh great.

I really am glad that uh we are having this opportunity.

Obviously, I believe Bellevue, especially downtown deserves this designation.

And as you mentioned, we already have this designation, but it's just going to be update to fit whatever the newer requirement may be.

And I also agree with the mayor.

Uh our growth is really focused in downtown.

And I think that's how Bellevue is such a creative city.

Uh, you know, we have the neighborhood, you know, still neighborhood, and uh where we all live and enjoy our neighborhood characteristics, but downtown is the way the growth is.

Um I do have some questions, which I think uh council members moderio already asked one, but I just want to clarify a little bit more.

Uh what are the advantages?

You mentioned a few.

You know, we can apply for grants, uh, eligible for you know more competitive.

Is there any disadvantage?

Um well um it does set pretty ambitious goals, and so um as part of our presentation, we mentioned PSRC goes through this monitoring process, so every five to eight years.

So there is a risk of us if we if we do not meet the goals of losing the designation.

Okay, and then we um then we'd lose kind of that role, the our our role within the region, we'd uh our federal funding may be maybe at risk.

So those are some of the disadvantages.

Okay.

Well, I'm confident that we can't meet those skills unless the districts for us to get that.

I don't think that's the case.

Otherwise, we won't bite it, right?

So I'm glad to hear that.

So I do have a then a couple of questions.

One is you mentioned uh historically uh underrepresented how do you define historically underrepresented and how are we going to work with them, help them?

I'm gonna pass this to Kate.

I think uh it's historically underserved.

So those are the the communities who have uh historically been left out of the of the planning process or maybe haven't benefited from growth uh in the same way that everybody has.

Um there is a definition in the comprehensive plan, like an official definition that I cannot bring to mind.

Um, but that's the general definition of the historically uh underserved populations.

I would like to know, especially within our downtown area, right?

Where that's what we're talking about.

People who live there, people work there historically.

So yeah, so um the the requirement from Puget Sound Regional Council is that we plan for um these populations.

We do a lot of that planning in our volume one, but we did make some um updates to a few policies in the downtown plan where we thought that there was uh maybe a particular way that we could address this in downtown.

But you know, to your point, um you can't just focus uh underserved populations just on town town when it really impacts the entire city.

Yeah, at the same time, I don't want to have any in the community or population that's left out.

Yes, yes, so it's someone to be so second question, the last one.

You'll talk about landmark.

I'm just curious.

Bellevue has such a short store, short history.

What are the landmarks we're talking about?

Um the uh we heard a comment from Bellevue Square that our description of Bellevue Square was outdated.

Um so I would call that a major landmark in downtown, and um we updated the description of Bellevue Square.

Maybe you can call me the Landback.

Thank you.

So I just wanted to be clear so that we know what to expect, right?

If somebody else has any ideas and thoughts, it might be a good thing to recognize because we know we didn't buy Bay as the waiting center, you know, in the old days.

It's not a very good uh, you know, sort of landmark, but that is it's a landmark.

So I wouldn't let you use the Ron L or the right landmark.

It's nice to know.

So historical perspective, I think the city would value.

Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Thank you to Chair Conloo and the entire planning commission for their work on this, and of course, appreciate the hard work of Tara Kate and other staff members.

Um glad to see this coming to us for sure.

We have a tremendous amount of growth and density in downtown Bellevue, and it's important that we support it.

I noticed in the agenda memo that uh the density growth, this has been mentioned a little bit in downtown Bellevue.

I was the second highest among regional centers, and it is now the third most dense regional growth center behind South Lake Union in downtown Seattle.

And while our region is interdependent and to a large degree, our fortunes are tied together.

When it comes to well-managed, thoughtful and intentional growth, there's no regional growth center that is as viable, livable, memorable, and accessible as downtown Bellevue.

And I appreciate the council leadership, the current and past staff professionalism and stakeholder involvement that has contributed to our success in achieving our goals in downtown Bellevue.

A lot has been accomplished, and there's a lot more to do.

Um this, you know, as you mentioned, a narrowly focused update that primarily ensures we continue to qualify for the federal transportation funding.

But I'm just curious to know uh when we may do a more comprehensive update of downtown.

Any idea?

Yes, I'm happy to address that.

Um so as you may recall, um, I think it was in August we launched Factoria and Eastgate.

Um we recently completed work on the periodic update.

Um and then council provided direction for the next two cycles of neighborhood area plan updates.

Um so at this point, um downtown Bellevue would fit in in the future once those plan updates um are complete.

Um unless there's um you know, either there's opportunity through our uh annual amendment processes.

Um but typically if it's a council initiated uh amendment, then that's something that uh council would need to provide direction for.

Okay, and then downtown would be included in HOMA as well, right?

Is that considered considered a mixed use area?

Yes, um, but that's amending the land use code.

If you're speaking to amending the downtown sub-area plan, um then that would be a different different effort and s and separate from Helma.

Okay, yeah, great.

Um just a call out for policy SDT 81 and the grand connection.

Uh I know we've had the grand connection in our plans for a long time, but considering how transformational it is going to be for the city, I'm thrilled to see it prioritized anywhere and everywhere.

So thank you for all the great work.

Ready to move this forward.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilmember New Enhause.

Thank you, Mayor.

And uh great presentation tonight.

Thank you so much.

Uh suined, right to the point.

Love it.

So thank you.

Um and really um also just um staying within that that that that tight scope in terms of the entire plan.

Um uh the the growth targets aligning with the uh the you know our plans for for for growth, um, the uh the the measurements uh for the housing uh for for the jobs, etc.

Um, and adding policies um that uh hopefully reduce our environmental impact as well in terms of um uh greenhouse uh gas emissions.

So I appreciate that in there.

I have one quick question before we, you know, I'm ready to move this forward, and that was just about the displacement comment that you made, residential as well as commercial.

Because part of this plan is to add some policies to that.

So I'm wondering, um, I don't know if this is for you, Tara, but can you just give that a little bit more color in terms of what that looks like?

Um, and and I'm thrilled that you heard that during the outreach process, um, you know, especially for our small businesses.

It's uh it's it's a critical issue right now.

So uh I'm curious to hear a little bit more about what you heard and what um what we can do to mitigate that uh that that impact is obviously we want to make um uh Bellevue as um hospitable as possible for those small businesses to to be here and to thrive.

Absolutely.

So I can start off and then I'll have Kate weigh in on um some of the specific comments we heard through outreach.

Um so as you're aware, we have policy direction now, our proposed policy direction in the downtown plan that addresses um you know res both residential and small business displacement.

We also did that with our economic development element with volume one, so there was there's specific policy direction there that would apply citywide, and that's um that's a specific requirement under the PSRC criteria.

And what is a requirement under Vision 2050 or rather policy direction under Vision 2050 is that we address um those displacement issues.

Um so that's something we we wanted to make sure gets addressed.

And then you heard a little bit um last week on the economic development plan update.

So that does have will have strategies, does have strategies right now to address to address small business displacement.

So that's the way those policies do get implemented.

Okay.

Anything, Kate, do you want to add on on outreach?

Um to meet that um planning for um the potential for small business displacement um mandate from PSRC, uh we proposed a policy DT23.

Um we uh heard from stakeholders that they were concerned that um the way it was originally worded, they were concerned that it could lead to mandatory commercial, affordable commercial space.

Um and so we um worked on with the economic development team to reword that and to really focus on supporting um any type of space that will um help uh small and emerging businesses.

Um so that could be a new business, or it could be businesses that are displaced.

It it really just supports that um space however it happens.

Well, um, like my colleagues have mentioned, I'm also thrilled that this keeps us eligible for the desperately needed federal uh transportation dollars as well.

Um yes, Grand Connection, big piece of this, and I'm a huge fan of it, but there's so many other pieces to ensuring that people are able to get in and out of downtown as well.

And then last question, just about the outreach.

How is the outreach a little bit different in uh your approach in downtown versus other sections of the cities, given the fact that you know it is our fastest growing neighborhood, a lot of folks living in uh uh apartments or buildings that might not be you know as um accessible as a single family home, for example.

So just just curious how you how you how you tweaked um to get that to get that outreach and get that feedback from residents.

Certainly, Keith, you want to take that?

Sure.

Um the scope of this particular update was very narrow.

Um and um we have heard comments from uh stakeholders in downtown even up to today that um and from council members that um it downtown might be ripe for a a broader look at and a broader update, but um the because this was so targeted, we really had um targeted uh or I don't know uh stakeholder involvement.

So we really just involved people to the to the ability that we had to make changes.

So we didn't want to say what do you want, because there's really a very narrow scope.

Gotcha.

Thank you so much.

Okay, Councilmember Bergeva.

Uh thank you.

Sorry.

Thank you.

Uh great presentation.

Lots of work that went into it.

Thank you, Dara, Kate, and to Chair as well for the planning commission work that goes into getting us to this point.

Really appreciate it.

Um that are really positive have been talked about at length, so I'm not gonna go into that at all.

I have a really simple clarifying question, and it could be answered as yes, no as well if you think that's okay.

The growth expectations that we have in the new designation that we're going after are probably very similar to what we had before.

I don't know if they're more aggressive growth expectations.

But let me finish.

Um because it could put a higher demand on infrastructure over time, if they are, and is there anything that is you think a higher cost burden for the city as we think about meeting the expectations to climate designation that may not already be part of our forward looking plans?

Um yeah, so the the updates to the plan were to um uh update the numbers in the plan to be what council already passed in the comprehensive plan.

So there wasn't any um difference in the growth expectation.

What this does is really provide resources to support that group.

That's it.

Simple clarification.

Thank you.

Very supporting.

Okay, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Um before I start, I just wanted to give space to Chair Hanlu.

Have we not heard something that you wanted to share about the meetings, how it goes, and something that this body likes to hear, but they have not heard yet.

Sorry to put you on the spot, but I have to No, it's all good.

I think um it was great question from council members.

Uh, and then most of the points has been covered, but one of the things that I have in my cheat sheet note, it was about the um displacement and that policy that we had a big discussion about that, and we changed the policy the way that it's not um sounds like mandatory, as Kate was mentioning that, and we had a good discussion about that one.

We have some discussion about uh camper properties and those definition that we had it about.

Um it was pretty old and 20 years old.

That was another highlight of the discussion that we had, and so many comments we received, and the other one was about the map and the lining of the maps that um has been shared with you guys.

Those are the three um high level, I think subject that we talked in detail in the planning commission.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

Tara and Kate, great uh presentation.

Uh the downtown sub area plan is, in my opinion, the foundation to Bellview's future, as everyone talked.

And I really appreciate the thoughtful approach that you guys went through, aligning uh the whole plan with our equity, sustainability, and growth management goals.

So amazing job.

Uh downtown is the heart of our town.

Uh it is our identity and growth.

It should be all about downtown Bellevue.

Uh the opdates not only help us remain eligible for regional and federal resources that we all talk about, but also ensures we have the opportunities of growth while protecting what we all believes what makes downtown vibrant uh is live ability, is gathering spaces and its role as a cultural and economic center.

Uh great job staff, great job planning commission, uh, and all of the community members who in the whole process they came and they provide their thoughtful input uh that's ensure Bellevue position itself as a regional leader and keep our downtown thriving for decades to come.

Everyone mentions the federal transportation funding, and I think Councilman Lee also mentioned the risk.

Do we have any clue how what skill are we talking about?

Like if we miss it, how much money are we talking about, or these are all not known as of this moment?

Um very good question.

Um so this this sets the stage for Vision 2050 rather sets the stage for future planning efforts.

So currently, right now, um, and the two council members that are on the PSRC committees probably know uh a fair amount about this, but PSRC is midway in their process with the regional transportation plan, and so that's really the mechanism for allocating federal transportation dollars.

And there are, as you may be aware, there are some unknowns with the federal funding, so that's still being trying to be resolved through that process.

There are a number of public uh public meetings, outreach meetings that are happening relating to the regional transportation plan in the next couple months.

Um, so I'm happy to provide more information if you're interested.

But that's really the mechanism in figuring out where those transportation funds get allocated, and then of course, each uh jurisdiction then has to compete for that funding, and then PSRC prioritizes that.

No, that's great.

Uh so we should be all positive that federal funding comes through after the piece uh after they went through their process.

One question I have, and again, I maybe you don't know the answer as of this moment, uh, but I would love to hear uh when we talk about the displacement prevention policies that uh Councilmember Newman has brought up.

How can we plan to measure and implement these new equity and displace displacement prevention policies beyond our amazing language that we have?

What is our plan for that?

Very good question.

Um there are a number of tools.

Um I think one of the other council members raised a similar question.

Uh one tool is the economic development plan strategic plan, which is underway.

Um, but our economic development team right now has a number of programs where they work with small businesses to address some of those displacement issues, um, try and find them new locations.

So all of that work is ongoing right now.

And then in terms of um residential displacement, those are things that we're actively working on through our Office of Housing, our various affordable housing programs, the affordable housing strategies underway.

So those are those are our uh implementation plans that really work to implementing the policies that um that you're recommending.

Thank you for your response.

Uh I would love to see some kind of direct mapping, like we change these policies, and in direct result, we are not seeing businesses displacing.

So if we can get to that point, I think uh that would be the data-driven city that I think we should all hope for.

I think that my last comment is also about uh what council member Bargawa touch on.

That we I know that in CompLand we did all of these infrastructure capacity planning through all of our plans, and we know that we are capable to deliver that, but it is my concern that we are growing very fast as a now metropolitan regional center.

Uh, are we ensuring our infrastructure capacity from mobility transportation utility?

And can we keep pace?

And I think that goes back to Councilmember Hamilton.

That I think the Grand Connection is one of those that we are going to be able to move people after all of this growth and other transportation needs or uh infrastructure needs that we need to be aware of.

Thank you, and uh great job.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, Chair Conlu, thank you for coming down tonight.

And uh Kate and Tara, thank you very much.

Is there um a motion?

I move to direct staff to return with an ordinance to adopt the changes to the downtown sub area plan and the general documenting ordinance for all proposed 2025 annual comprehensive plan amendments.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, that passes.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Okay, city manager, would you like to introduce the next study session item?

Thank you very much.

Um, we're gonna ask the staff who's here to remain, I believe.

Maybe Kate is no, Kate is also staying, so we'll um add uh Toon Dooling, our senior planner, and um Chair Conlu will also remain.

So this study session is um um a topic you're familiar with.

So the great neighborhoods.

You are all um aware now that two neighborhoods uh update plan uh plan updates are undertaken every year.

And in 2024, crossroads and neport updates were started, initiated by council.

So this evening, um, the team is here to uh review the proposed amendments to those two plans, crossroads and newport hills, uh, and to provide the planning commission recommendation and to secure direction um this evening.

So with that, I will turn it over to Tara.

Good evening, thank you, City Manager Carlson.

Um, so as part of this presentation, we're gonna review with council um two additional uh comprehensive plan amendments for our 2025 cycle.

So these are amendments to two of our neighborhood area plans, uh uh updates to both crossroads and newport.

And then we'll also be transmitting the Planning Commission recommendation on both those neighborhood area plans.

And we have Chair Conloo with us.

So tonight, similarly, we are asking council direction to prepare for staff to come back at a future meeting to prepare ordinances to adopt each of the neighborhood area plans and the general documenting ordinance for all the 2025 CPAs.

So that would include the downtown amendment as well.

As part of the presentation, just a little bit of structure for tonight.

Both the recommended plans for both crossroads and Uport are separate comprehensive plan amendment actions.

And so we're going to be presenting them a little bit separately as part of the presentation.

And council will be providing direction on each neighborhood area plan separately.

So we'll start off and provide some background on the comprehensive plan and the way neighborhood plans really fit in with our overall long-range planning strategy.

We're also going to discuss the overall process as well as touch on the extensive engagement that's happened and occurred throughout the process.

We'll provide an overview of what's included in each of the plans.

Chair Conlo's here to provide the planning commission recommendation.

And then at the end of the presentation, we'll be asking council for direction.

So just to provide a little bit of context, our comprehensive plan really serves as the city's foundational and guiding document and is divided into two volumes.

So volume one contains citywide policies, and volume two really focuses on our neighborhood specific goals and policies.

So a little bit of background on the Great Neighborhoods program.

In 2018, Council initiated the Great Neighborhoods program to enhance neighborhood areas through updates to the plans.

The goal was really to create plans that reflect local priorities and also foster community connections.

Since the program's inception, we've completed neighborhood plans for Northeast and Northwest in 2020 and 2021, which were the first two under this program.

Then we paused to complete the periodic update, and then we started work on crossroads and Newport last fall, and then council recently initiated work on Factoria and Eastgate.

And so this map just shows the iterations, and council also provided direction on future iterations for the 26-27 and 27-28 cycles.

I'm going to turn things over to Kate to walk us through the next few slides.

So tonight's agenda item covers uh two separate amendments to the comprehensive plan, as Tara mentioned.

Uh the first one's an update to the crossroads neighborhood area plan to replace the existing sub-area, which dates back to the late 80s.

Um, and uh the associated map uh the uh adjustments that need to be made.

And the second plan amendment is a Newport uh neighborhood area, which uh replaces the existing sub-area plan for Newport Hills, um, and that had its last major plan update in 1994.

Um, and there is also a map of uh adjustment for the Newport uh plan as well.

Um, in terms of the timeline, um, the neighborhood area planning process is divided into um four phases.

Um the discover phase and uh not to toot my own horn, but we I pulled this directly from our launch, so we stuck to the timeline.

Um, but it's divided into four phases with community engagement in each phase.

Um each year, a new set of plans is uh launched and goes through this, it's 15 to 18 month process.

So um yeah, I'll move forward.

Great, thank you, Kate.

Um so community engagement is at the heart of neighborhood area planning with the focus on residents and inclusive engagement, also means proactively connecting with communities that typically do not engage in our planning processes.

Um, therefore, also staff offered both in-person and online engagement, providing platforms for people to be heard in a format uh that they're comfortable contributing.

Uh staff also prioritize opportunities to meet with the community where they are at uh by attending their meetings and hosting events in different parts of the neighborhood.

Uh staff put together uh interactive engagement activities for the community to identify urban design priorities to improve uh their neighborhood's public spaces uh as part of the expanded scope for this uh iteration.

Um, as the last round of great neighborhoods took place during the pandemic, uh staff benefited from now being able to again conduct in-person engagement, driving robust participation in both crossroads and newport.

And as we continue to refine our engagement approach, um staff already applied lessons learned uh to ongoing engagement activities uh in Eastgate and Victoria.

An example is for instance uh our mailed questionnaire that is part of a broader set of tools to reach the community and get their input and raise awareness of our planning work.

Um, that questionnaire was in the hands of better track responses to inform potential follow-up action from staff.

Um, and we're also sending that out, or we already send out that uh questionnaire earlier on in the process to get the word out uh early on.

Uh neighborhood area plans are organized by plan elements, um, providing policy direction on enhancing different neighborhood assets.

Um, each element includes an overarching goal and a set of policies that align with the overall community vision for a neighborhood area.

Uh a neighborhood's neighborhood identity is reflected in the unique aspects of both the built and natural environment and policies in this section identify and strengthen those physical and cultural elements that anchor the neighborhood.

Um, mixed use and neighborhood centers that element provides uh those centers provide goods, services, amenities, and housing opportunities for the community, and policies in this section help support the continued evolution of these centers as places that are convenient and attractive.

Um, and then community gathering spaces that include both indoor and outdoor spaces are envisioned as welcoming and inviting places for community to connect and policies in this section center around opportunities for enhancing and connecting people to these types of spaces within their own community.

Uh mobility and access is a fourth key element of neighborhood area planning because its policies help shape how people move around their neighborhood to get to their daily needs.

And then last up is environment, which encompasses natural features such as trees, streams, and open spaces, uh, all of which uh foster a connection to nature and contribute to Bellevue's identity as a city and a park.

Uh neighborhood area plans define and emphasize the priorities of a community through a series of narratives and associated goals and policies.

And uh these goals and policies are supported by that narrative, shaping the overall vision for the community and defining the areas, important themes.

Umcept maps are included to illustrate the framework for enhancing neighborhood gathering spaces as well as neighborhood connectivity.

And these are those maps, uh, both for crossroads and newport.

And community members were engaged through interactive workshops where they could imagine the type of spaces, public spaces that they would like to see in their neighborhood.

Uh these concept maps help visualize opportunities and strategies for improving public spaces that are important uh to the community.

And through both policies and maps, uh, these plans provide a framework guiding how the city invests in public spaces to create a cohesive, connected and um well-functioning neighborhood area.

And I'll now pass it off to Planning Commission Chair Hanou.

Um I start with the crossroad neighborhood plan first.

Um the planning commission recognized the important role of the crossroad plays as a culture and transportation center for Bellevue and East Side.

Um the commission has been reviewing um the progress on the update over the past year.

Some of the key updates that were important on the Planning Commission were the policies to support active transportation and transit access as well as mixed use center and the neighborhood center and crossroad mall.

The planning commission staff to support existing business while at the same time making sure that the growing area would be livable and walkable as it develops.

At the public hearing, we heard support for the draft updates.

Do you want me pause here?

Okay.

And as I mentioned, the crossroads plan policies are organized by plan element, and the recommended policies are the result of an iterative process with the community as the community review different versions of policies over time, starting with initial draft policy ideals that were shared out with the for the community to review back in January.

The community's feedback informed a right wide range of changes and refinements up to the public hearing in July to better reflect community priorities in those policies.

And just to give a quick overview, there are policies included in the crossroads plan with respect to small business retention, strengthening the business districts and crossroads.

Other policies seek to support crossroads designation as a countywide center and its role as a focal point for jobs, housing, and recreation.

And finally, other policies address creating and strengthening community gathering places, improving mobility options, as well as building a healthy and resilient community.

And then to highlight some themes in that sort of came became clear through extensive community engagement.

One was that community members uh value crossroads proximity to services and amenities within the neighborhood area itself, as well as the ease with which they can access other neighborhoods, taking advantage of crossroads central location to further improve access.

The community supports making it easier to get around, especially on foot, on bike, and accessing transit.

The crossroads community uh enjoys and has mentioned it often the important gathering places that are already within the crossroads neighborhood area and are available to them, such as the shopping center, uh the crossroads community park, and also supports creating and enhancing uh gathering places, especially focus around play and creativity.

Uh lastly, um the community identified an opportunity to strengthen the role of neighborhood schools um within crossroads, uh, there are several schools as community gathering spaces, also as a way to increase access to green spaces that are available on those properties.

I'll hand it to Chair Khan.

Um the planning commission was pleased with the robust and committed engagement by the community to add the update the newport plan over the past year.

One of the key updates that were important to the planning commission were the policies to support the neighborhood center, anchored by the neighborhood hill shopping center as a vibrant nexus of neighborhood connection.

In addition, the commission made sure that we honored the closed-knit and connected character of the neighborhood and the strong connection to nature.

Prior to public hearing, many residents asked for more time to review the proposed update to the plan to accommodate this.

We delayed the public hearing.

At the public hearing, we heard many suggested amendments and followed many of the suggested changes to the policy.

The planning commission recommends a comprehensive plan amendment for the Newport Neighborhood Area Plan and related changes.

So the Newport Neighborhood Area Plan is um divided into the same sections as the crossroads neighborhood area plan.

Um I wanted to take a moment and distinguish uh the HOMA initiative from the update to the neighborhood area plan.

HOMA is implementing um policies that are found in the citywide plan and and not the policies in the Newport Plan.

Um, although uh it will have an impact on the parcels in the neighborhood center.

Um but this neighborhood area planning process didn't address any land use changes.

It was focused on the on the public area in um in Newport.

The section or element of the neighborhood on neighborhood identity focuses on supporting a walkable community with strong connection to the natural area and convenient shopping and service opportunities.

As a mixed-use center, the policies support a mix of commercial spaces that support small businesses and residential space both.

The vision is for it to continue to be a center of community life and commercial activity.

The element dedicated to community gathering places focuses on providing for the evolving needs of the residents.

The element on mobility and access focuses on meeting the needs of people using all forms of transportation to circulate within the neighborhood and to connect to places outside of the neighborhood.

And finally, the environment element focuses on care for parks, trails, and green areas within the neighborhood, promoting safe water and human and animal habitats.

Some of the themes that we heard from the community through the engagement process became the uh basis for the update to the plan.

We heard that uh folks appreciate how friendly people are in the neighborhood and how connected the neighborhood is.

Um of the reasons that people choose to live in this neighborhood is because of the easy access to trails and parks and natural areas, um, and there's strong support for improving those uh that access to these areas and connection between them.

Um there's also uh there was also a call for the city to work with the Bellevue School District on the future of their properties because they have the potential to be a really key asset uh to the neighborhood, uh perhaps providing some of the gathering spaces.

Uh we heard a lot about the Newport Hill Shopping Center.

Uh while there's a wide variety of visions for the future of this shopping center, something that we heard very clearly from nearly everyone uh was that they wanted it to continue to be a commercial heart uh for the neighborhood and a place of connection.

So uh the policies in the plan really focus on that.

Uh there's also a desire for more indoor gathering spaces with many visions for how this can be achieved through redevelopment of the school sites, as I mentioned, or the shopping center, or there's many other ideas that we heard.

Many, many people noted uh traffic congestion, especially at rush hour in the morning and the evening, and uh support policies uh that will address this.

And uh finally, there's a desire for um better walking connections.

While there are many paths in the neighborhood, they don't always connect, and so um supporting those safe connections is key.

And now I'm going to pass it back to Tara for the final slide.

So that concludes our presentation, Mayor.

Um, we're asking counsel for direction on um both the uh crossroads neighborhood area plan as well as Newport, as well as bringing back a general ordinance for all the comprehensive plan amendments.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much.

Deputy Mayor, let's start with you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you.

Tun, welcome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Tara, Kate, uh, all of the staff for significant outreach and thoughtful work that been into this neighborhood plan updates.

This program is one of my favorite because it really shows the power of community-driven planning.

And it is clear that you put a lot of effort and try to at least meet people where they are and ask for their feedback.

Both crossroads and Newport plans highlight the unique character of each neighborhood while also aligned with our city-wide priorities.

Uh I really appreciate Ben Chair Khan Lu mentioned that the commission had additional meeting then of the newports.

Uh community members ask for additional time, and this is shows the real care for community trust building and how responsiveness you are.

Uh, thank you for our community members who provide all of those feedback.

Uh, planning commission, uh, Chair, thank you for representing them, uh stakeholders and staff for all of your efforts who brought this plan that truly reflect neighborhood values and priorities.

Uh stakeholders and staff for all of your efforts to brought this plan that truly reflect neighborhood values and priorities.

Uh I remember long nights that uh you guys go over policy by policy by policy and wards meeting and uh takes us to 11 p.m.

some nights, but I think it's worth it because it's truly repress represents our values.

I have two questions from uh chair and maybe two uh comments from the staff.

Uh there was Chair Hanu, there was some uh long discussion on different types of transitions, uh bike uh road, but this pedestrian to kind of address traffic that we are uh anticipating all of this growth brings.

Can you just uh talk more about all of those discussions that happens in the planning commission about different transition uh type of transitions?

Would you like to know in both um neighborhoods?

That would be awesome, yeah.

Okay.

I think we have it specifically, and Kate, feel free to fill in and chime in.

Uh, we have a specific for Newport Hill that um there was a lot of conversation about the pedestrian areas that are not connected, then walkability is also but not doable.

Um we have um some conversation about the uh bike lane and how it's hard even to bike um during the nighttime if you want to commute by the bike, and we had a conversation about uh speeding uh in the neighborhood, and then with all the increase in the in the um mixed use and all the stuff that we want to go and the growth that we are considering that might impact the traffic more.

We have a couple policies that I don't have it on top of my mind, okay.

I'm looking at you, but we tried on those policies uh probably you have in your packet um to consider those.

And for um crossroad was the same.

I think we had a big question and ask from the um from the neighborhood about the pedestrian area to be more walkable and be more connected.

We had a conversation in the crossroad um for the area that is kind of far from the east from the light train, but there is a potential that we can make that more walkable and more bikeable to just people can commute.

Um, and those are the one I remember.

Um Kate, do you remember anything else on tune that I missed?

I I think you covered it.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's a great response.

And I think uh maybe Councilmember Hamilton has more stuff to talk about that.

Uh I saw an email uh last minute on that.

Uh the same in the we talk about that in high level for downtown uh Chair Hanlu, but also can you tell us about some of the policies that you have for mitigating displacement for small businesses, especially in both uh neighborhood, but maybe on the new port, and what kind of policies we are trying to implement to avoid displacement?

We try to add some uh policies in the comprehensive plan version one, and then now specifically in the neighborhood plan about um how we can encourage and have an incentive uh policies to help the small businesses or the current businesses not be um displaced and have some program to help them.

And as Torah was uh covering at the city of Bellevue, have some program and department in place that they can do that.

But we put the policy in place again.

I don't remember the policy ones.

Next time we need to have that.

Sorry, I didn't bring my policy packet.

I actually I love this kind of uh talk, not directly going to the policy.

We all have access to the policy, but I appreciate you.

Thanks.

Uh the uh Tun, maybe you can answer because you brought that up.

There was low mailed uh questionnaire response rate.

Uh what lesson learns we have learned to maybe for future engagement?

We have Factoria, we have Eastgate.

How are we doing uh to increase hopefully those responses?

Yeah, it's a good question.

Um so first of all, for the iteration of Great Neighborhood of the Great Neighbors program that was just launched last month.

Um for East Cate and Factoria is that now we send out the communities, the questionnaire at least like a month earlier in the process to make sure that the full community can sort of take note of the planning work that we're doing and all the engagement activities that are coming up.

Um so the timing changed.

Um, the other element um sort of that we are trying to get a better response rate this time is that we're now better able to track responses, sort of the geographic distribution of responses within a neighborhood area that will allow us to do targeted follow-up in areas where the response rate is lacking.

Um, and also because we are sending out this questionnaire earlier in the process that gives us also more time to do follow-up and um when we do follow up that additional community members get involved, like still relatively early in the process.

That's awesome.

Thank you.

That would be great if we can increase that response rate.

I think my last comment is a vishful thinking.

We hear a lot from our residents in this process.

How can they track how their priorities is in the plans?

I know it is reflected in the policy, but how can we map that again?

Uh and then also show how they are implementing.

I think that would be a closed loop for them to say, okay, I spend this much time.

I came and I provide this feedback.

Now my feedback is a policy.

Now this policy is going to implement, and that's the result.

I think if we can have that narrative and storytelling, the data for them, I think that would be amazing.

Uh thank you so much, Mayor.

And thank you so much for you guys.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hamilton.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thanks for the presentation.

Uh, I think this is really important and exciting work.

And uh just want to add on to what uh the deputy mayor was talking about, and really commend you on the engagement process.

Uh you set out some challenging goals uh for the process, and with the one minor exception uh that's already been talked about a bit as far as the questionnaire, um you met all of those, and I think that's really amazing.

20 meetings with neighborhood leaders and groups, targeted outreach to youth, older adults, foreign-born and non-English speaking individuals, racial and ethnic minority groups, and more.

A bunch of eighth graders at Old Middle School, I think that's really awesome.

Uh 15 relationship building conversations with community leaders and organizations in each area.

Uh you had a goal of 150 people to attend at least one in-person or virtual event, and a minimum of a hundred community members participating in in-person events per neighborhood area.

You stretched and did a great job.

I think that's really impressive.

Um, I think too, following on uh with the deputy mayor, I I'm just really impressed that already uh with the questionnaire and how that process uh in was included in uh Newport and Crossroads, you've learned from it and you're already uh making some positive changes there, and and I think that's really great.

Um just one uh request for a change.

Uh this uh two, I I talked a little with my colleagues.

Uh there is something in the desk packet.

But um as it relates to CX 25 and 26, uh the recommendation is for the improvement of pedestrian and bicycle network facilities for access to frequent transit network stops to nearby light rail stations, including through the coordination with Redmond consistent with the mobility implementation plan.

And while I think this isn't major, I it does strike me as a little too narrowly focused.

And so I think we should also prioritize uh the improvement of pedestrian and bicycle facilities that connect folks to a wide range of destinations, shopping, doctors' offices, library, so forth, who knows, maybe even downtown uh someday.

Uh, I know that's in other parts of the policy, so I know it is mentioned, but I would love it if we could in a way kind of mention it again, and just at some point um if my colleagues agree, I think if we just insert including in between facilities and for in each amendment, you know, we emphasize the importance of all pedestrian and bicycle facilities and a little less emphasis on where they lead to.

So I think it uh some point if we uh if my colleagues take a look at that, and that sounds good, I would love to include that in the direction uh for moving forward.

So uh other than that, thank you very much, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Newenhouse.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh again, great job on this.

Um I won't go into additional accolades that my colleagues have already uh provided, but um great job all around.

Thank you so much.

I'm just gonna ask uh uh a few questions uh because the presentation was was um was great, and a lot of my questions have already been answered from uh from my colleagues.

Um question, so crossroads right now uh does not have any kind of a formal neighborhood association still, is my understanding correct.

Um did um th these conversations, and and I'm sure there's quite a wide disparity.

Um sorry I don't have the numbers in front of me in terms of the number of people you engaged in, Newport versus crossroads.

I'm just curious, is there an opportunity there where we uh identified some community leaders that potentially we could have the community development team maybe work with to help them give them the tools uh to have uh have a greater voice in in in the future.

Not that they didn't have a voice now, however, maybe give them tools to get uh better organized and and and um and in ways that um you know we can work stronger uh with them and they um can get a better sense of how to work with the city and to uh to communicate their their their their needs, be it for pedestrian bike lanes, um what whatever it might might might be, just thinking going going forward, um not that we did not hear from them because clearly we did, but um certainly would love to see um you know strong uh neighborhood associations throughout our city, and unfortunately not every neighborhood has that.

Um so anyways, it'd be it would be great if if perhaps those are identified that we could have uh Emil or Mike's team uh maybe um uh re reach out.

Um both I I saw that uh the vote was unanimous uh for for for both.

I'm just curious, was there any um sticking points at all or or or areas of concern or areas that perhaps weren't addressed um for for either community?

Um I'm just curious if anything stood out or if it was like, yep, this is great, uh love the direction, let's go.

I can start off and then um welcome both Kate and Ton and Chair Kanlu to weigh in.

Um I'd say crossroads in general, I think there was a lot of support uh for the policy changes.

Um it has it's a it's a little different from Newport um and the Newport Hills shopping center in that it is a countywide center, so it's larger, it's really gonna be a focus of both jobs, housing, there's uh additional requirements in terms of policy direction that we needed to include.

Um so I'd say crossroads in general, uh very positive support.

Um as you've heard from public testimony, Newport um is uh is a neighborhood of many sub-neighborhoods.

And so that really came across with the outreach and the conversations we had, and even with the dialogue with the planning commission and feedback that they heard.

Um so you've seen their different different viewpoints on on what Newport should look like.

So I'd say that is something that is going to be an ongoing uh conversation that happens through the HOMA work and post that even uh as development moves forward.

Okay.

You had other things to add.

Nope, you covered it.

And then I wanted to bring up um Fay How's comments and see if that um A is accurate, but even if it is accurate, would it really change the recommendation at all?

She had mentioned and she followed up by email as well that um homeownership is not at a 80%.

I'm looking to you, I don't know if these are accurate or not.

So um, but I want to uh respect her concern here and and just check with you on that.

So if that's correct or not correct, would that impact dramatically impact the recommendations that we're making here for the uh for for for this for this plan?

And um, yeah, I guess that's what I uh what I want to want to understand because she clearly is concerned that the data is not reflected accurately um in in the recommendation, so um we would would like to have a better understanding of of the data and also the impact right or wrong um that it would have to plan.

Yeah, I I saw that email, and so I had our um city demographer Bryce Tuggle um pull the numbers for Newport the um com um so used to say in comprehensive plan.

The census American community survey numbers were just uh they're updated every September.

So um he pulled updated numbers.

Um it's five years, so it's nine uh twenty nineteen to twenty uh twenty-three um as opposed to the numbers that are in the plan, which is twenty eighteen to twenty twenty-two.

Um and it shows it has gone down a little bit, so it it may be that her perception of it becoming more renter occupied is accurate.

Um I think in terms of um how we plan for the future of of Newport um and the vision for you know what the Newport neighborhood looks like and feels like and how it functions, I think we want the same neighbor kind of neighborhood, whether the people rent or or own.

So I think that the policies um are good policies regardless of how people um maintain their housing.

Okay.

And just one addition is um um the plans, the policies that are included in the plans, whether it's for crossroads and neport are really driven by community um engagement and the input that um community members provide.

It's just sort of building on what Kate said, not like a direct reflection of like any Census Bureau data profile whatsoever.

It doesn't inform like our engagement.

We know better how like the composition of a community, if there are maybe a lot of older adults that we want to do targeted outreach for, but the plan and policies itself are not like directly reflective of a community profile that's like uh based on uh census pure data.

Great.

And then my only other, I guess, comment uh question is that um uh it'd be great to follow up with uh Bellevue School District regarding the interests um that the community has uh so we don't lose sight of that.

I think that's uh a great opportunity.

So great.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Councilmember Virga.

Uh so I want to just uh even though it's been said many times, I want to say thank you for the great work.

It really is uh you know the backbone of how we will think about neighborhood evolution and uh representation of community voice and the development of the vision for the different parts of the city.

So this is really really great work and very, very important and grateful to the council as well for setting this up and getting this process going for this planning process.

You know, a few years ago, so this is um you know what great planning should look like.

Uh I also want to take uh a minute to thank uh the staff for what they do.

I've uh you know, come spend five years in the planning commission and know the hard work that goes into these sessions and the amount of rigor that everyone puts in.

So uh very, very appreciative.

Um also thankful I'm not doing that right now for the many hours it takes.

Um and then uh to the planning commission as well, um, Chair Kanlu and the whole commission, a lot of great work.

I don't want to I also want to take just another uh second to say thank you for the engagement from the communities uh for the coming out and staying engaged and staying involved in the process, bringing voice and meaning to where the direction is going uh to align with the inputs from the community, super important, and it's uh great to see the level of participation you've had uh in these two communities uh in the neighborhood planning process.

I want to still uh you know stick with community engagement for a second, although I think Councilmember Hamilton's just sort of comments address a little bit of the question I was gonna ask.

Uh um but there was uh Tunis, you sp laid out so objectives of the community engagement to make sure that you're able to include voices that are not typically represented.

And so I heard council member uh Hamilton's inputs on that.

Is there anything else that you want to say that might you know uh flag things that you did uh that were outside to make sure that you have a full representation of the community voice uh like sort of like um targeted engagement that we did for equity?

How did we make sure that voices are well heard, especially for people who don't typically get involved in the process uh beyond what council member Hamilton already laid out because you laid out a number of sections that you know you I think there's really great work.

Yeah, sure.

I I think it's like it is data driven, like when we develop an engagement plan, we do look at the composition of a neighborhood area and a community, and then we look at like uh what types of groups might not be um uh find it as easy to participate in our planning process and our engagement activities.

What we usually do is to work with sort of intermediary organizations uh that we have established relationships with because that makes it easier.

Um, for instance, our cultural outreach assistants are a great example of that, people who are very central to their respective community, um, and we work with them because it makes it easier, it's sort of bridge the gap between maybe us as staff and the community that we're targeting with that engagement um by by working together with them.

Um yeah, that has driven great participation.

We've for instance uh particip uh engaged um um manarin speaking, older adults in crossroads.

Um we've um uh spoken with Spanish speaking students um uh in our in our in our school system as well.

Um, and that is reflective of sort of the the demographic makeup of those neighborhoods, yeah.

Um I also want to add that with the community engagement team, it helps uh it helps the city uh maintain those relationships as uh Councilmember Newenhouse was saying um over time.

So we're we're not developing a one-time relationship, we're developing a long-term relationship so that we can continue to build um that capacity as a city.

Okay, that's great to hear.

Thank you.

Uh couple of other really quick things.

Uh there was uh in uh Newport, sort of uh some of the community concerns around increased traffic and congestion and and some concerns there.

Uh I'm just curious from a policy framework, not specific policy, you don't have to go there, but just from a framework, how you're thinking about that would be mitigated with.

How would that be addressed through the policy framework?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Um, a complex one because there are many different components to it.

So uh at this stage we're setting policy direction for the neighborhood.

Um development proposal that would that would occur, um, has to go through kind of their own review process, and there'd be traffic impacts assessed at that point.

Um there are other tools that we have.

There's the mobility implementation plan that's underway right now, and that's looking at how can we prioritize multimodal connections, improve those connections, um assessing where there are gaps in like transportation networks.

So those are all mechanisms where we can really address some of those traffic traffic impacts.

Does that get at your question?

Yeah, I mean, so what you're saying is like from a policy framework, there is the idea of impact fees, and there is also additional mechanisms in place that we can look at multimodal traffic needs and make sure that when we do detailed development plans that they're addressed in that process.

That's correct.

And um just to expand on that a little bit.

Um development proposal has to mitigate the their transportation impacts in addition to impact fees.

So they have to find ways to mitigate some of those impacts.

Got it.

Um there was also some discussion about some, and maybe this is the sticking point.

I think it was uh uh Council Newnhouse who brought this up, but there were some comments today that we heard about some hesitation from specifically Council of Planning Commissioner Ferris and some debates around Newport.

Uh I don't know if the sticking points came to that.

I'm just curious what that debate was and where you got to unanimity, obviously.

So yeah, I can cover that one.

Uh when that comment came up, we decided as we did through the planning commission, and you were part of that process.

We decided to go line by line by policy and make a decision and vote for that.

Basically, we covered that one line by line, and we voted and planning commission vote for all of those.

We discussed line by line.

So, yeah, okay.

So there was clarity established at the policy level and agreement unanimous, or at least voted across the commission to get to a place where we felt good about them.

Correct.

Okay, awesome.

Um that's it.

I think great work and uh looking forward to next steps.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Lee.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I want to uh compliment how difficult it is, you know, the staff and also especially any commission, commission chair, Negan.

Uh it's not easy.

Uh we talk about outreach, we talk about uh, you know, codes that govern the whole area.

And this area is a big areas.

We heard earlier Newport that includes waterfront new pushworths and includes Newport Hills, it includes uh Greenish.

It's very different.

And so you come up with some decisions, you know, which I guess you have to.

Uh so that's pretty challenging.

That's why I have spent so much time.

Uh but I don't number two points.

One is uh general.

When you talk to people with different characteristics, different neighborhoods.

You cannot use the same code.

What differences can you differentiate?

How can you apply it in the in a sense that may either you make a compromise, maybe that's just not good, or you make separate distinct considerations.

And then maybe we can talk about it.

Uh so that's why I was a little confused, you know, because when we're first earlier heard that there's some comments, like uh Commissioner Farris very interested, but then he will pour back, but then she wasn't able to prevail.

The comment is that her shaking head that you they they really didn't get a consensus.

I don't know, but I just want to make sure, you know, clarify that.

So that's a big challenge.

Same thing with crossroads.

Crossroads is a commercial center, but there's also lots of apartments.

There's also residential areas and uh new developments, you know, the substance is as well.

So it's it's same situation, same situation.

Uh you know, I don't think we can just say, well, you are the minorities, sorry.

You know, you don't count by by counting how many percentage.

So you know, I think we need to at least we have to have the report, have the consideration.

Then I think the council members and the community have to come to some kind of understanding agreement.

We have to make some tough decisions.

If we cannot do it, we have to be honest about it.

If we can, then I think we need to make enough effort to do it.

That's the general idea.

So specific to our reach.

I heard uh you mentioned that uh you go to organizations that traditionally we work with that we know represents a certain community.

That's something I'm concerned about.

Because when we go to the same o samos, same connections.

It's the same connections they may have not working, not be working with the community.

That's not a big evolved.

That's not being invisible.

That's not being visible.

That's being neglected.

Because if that if they're not, they already are under the umbrella that we already have connection with.

So that's what I'm concerned about.

We need to actually find it, generate new contacts.

Somehow we're gonna do it.

Uh ideally, maybe the uh the organizations that nobody has to really work with, the elected.

Then we can reach them.

You know, but if they're already being reached, that means they already in the network.

And that's not what we really want because we already have them connected.

So I think that's the portion I'm concerned that might be forgotten, neglected.

I don't want to know how you plan maybe to reach that.

And I think we can have some ideas.

We obviously we do.

So that's those two main things, and then the specific outreach methodology.

So I'm shallow if you can say a few things.

I can start off with I think your first question about how um how the two um how the two neighborhood areas are kind of distinct from each other.

Um Toon kind of walked through uh our overall process.

So we started off with getting feedback from each of the communities or each of the neighborhood areas on what their priorities are and what they've what some of the big value uh value focus areas are.

And so that really provided um the framework for developing um what some of our big policy focus areas needed to be.

And they they were different.

Um the values identified in Newport were different from crossroads.

And so that resulted in different policy policies for each neighborhood, um, different vision for each neighborhood.

We updated the vision for each of those neighborhood areas, um, as well as the goals, associated goals and policies.

I I'm not talking about Newport and Crossroads.

I'm talking about Newport.

I'm talking about Newport Hill and Newport Shore.

Okay.

So within Newport itself.

Yeah.

Do you want to speak to uh how we engage with the sub-areas?

Yeah, I I think you know, you are correct.

There's a it's a neighborhood of 3,000-ish people, they don't all agree.

And uh, you know, I'm sure that you've heard some of that disagreement in the comments um to council.

And so um what we really focus on is the areas where there is agreement and um where we can uh create policies that will um provide a uh a good path forward that um people in the neighborhood can support.

And um to your second point about engaging the same old people, um we have you know there's people who are very deeply involved in the city and have a lot of knowledge, and we of course want to engage them in this process.

They're really important uh members of the city, but we do also want to reach out to people who haven't been engaged.

So um as Tun mentioned earlier, we um have our cultural outreach assistants, they have um strong connections to specific uh community groups.

So um in Newport we engaged with um Korean speaking moms um at Was it Korean speaking moms at the at the library that's um really close to the neighborhood.

Um we went to a storytime that they go to.

They they didn't they're not going to bring their small toddlers to uh you know, an event that we might hold here in City Hall or even in the Newport Hill Swim and Tennis Club.

So we went to where they are in order to engage with them.

So we are um doing that outreach to um meet new people.

So we are um doing that outreach to um meet new people, and as I mentioned, um with the uh engagement team, we're able to um identify and sustain those connections so that we can build on them as we go forward.

So the next time we engage with the mom's group, it's not the first time they're talking to the city, it's now the second or third time, and um and they they are also building their capacity um uh as uh um community members and um civ uh civically engaged people.

And Kate, can I add something?

I I had a privilege to attend most of those sessions actually.

The variety of the activities was there.

We have the kids that you guys saw that when we have a collage table that they were like sticking um pictures together um to vision what do they like, their neighborhood looks like, and some of them, most of them I want to say.

Um they have um tall trees, they have bike lanes, and they wanted to see trees when they're walking to school or walking home.

And it was really nice that all the ages they have different activities that they could attend.

We have like at least one, I want to say five to seven activities for um different groups of people, and then the other thing that was really nice.

We had a walk through the neighborhood that that was really interesting for me personally.

It was my first time be there.

Thank you.

Well, I'm glad that uh you kind of uh explained a little bit more for me, because so when I heard you were saying you go to the people who already have contacts, these are the same old contacts.

But you are saying that no, maybe you have developed some new contacts.

I'm glad I hope you do that.

I think that's fine.

Yeah, so yes, once you cover, I'm happy.

The point of you know, consensus.

I agree.

You can get consensus.

But I'm pointing out is it's not consensus per se.

It's the characteristic of a neighborhood that are different.

So it's not comparing different neighborhoods, not different neighborhoods, yeah, different areas in the same neighborhood that disagree, and then they can disagree, I assume that's what the case.

But if they are the same neighborhood characteristics, everything, and they need to come, then this too can disagree, then we can at least figure out you know what is the compromise, what is what makes sense.

But it was a disagreement between uh different groups because it's a company, different uh needs, different requirements.

Well, one is uh under under the water, the one is underhill.

They have different needs, different requirements, different topographies, different conditions.

Uh that's what I'm concerned about.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, um, so there are policies about connecting to Lake Washington that certainly um have more to do with Newport shores or Greenwich Crest.

Yes.

And there are um policies about um the topography that have more to do with um Newport Hills or connecting to um the Newport, the city, or not Newport, the city of Newcastle to the south, or commercial spaces there.

So um you're right, there are policies to address all of the different areas of the city.

When does necessarily have to apply to the other?

Yes.

That's why I'm asking some differentiation distinction.

Thank you.

If I could add one thing there, is that um really a central element of our planning work was urban design uh and in the plans are also uh uh concept maps, um and those are really instrumental in getting feedback from throughout the neighborhood area to identify priorities to improve their public spaces, their community gathering spaces or the ease of getting around.

I think those maps really show the different priorities in each of those sub areas that are part of Newport or Crossroads and reflect those like specific communities' concerns and opportunities that they see for the future.

Okay.

Thanks.

Okay, thank you.

Council Member Sumadary.

Um like my colleagues, I want to thank everyone who's in this, and especially neighbors from every corner of Bellevue, that's really important because the common goals for staff and also the planning commission, all of us.

We just want the common good of Bellevue.

We want the best version of it.

So when we work really hard together, that's really showcased the effort and the story time is brilliant.

I really want to come with you next time.

Um so with the 10%, um, the response was below the 10% uh goal of the response.

I had a question about because you I want to plow you have the process of improving the process, but what what type of action do you intend to be the targeted follow-up the data?

Uh like how we would follow up on like a lacking response rate?

Yeah.

Yeah, I would defer to the staff that is sort of lead it leading that effort right now for Eastkin and Fictoria.

But I think that could be like potentially through like targeted mailers or anything sort of targeting maybe like established neighborhood groups in a specific area where the response rate is lacking, anything like that, like sort of to really target uh the those specifics of neighborhoods.

How many language are the surveys on?

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

I was just gonna say, yeah, the intent is to have these smaller, maybe smaller focus group discussions.

So we'll evaluate what the best approach is.

If we're not getting our response, we're not getting a high enough response rate, then maybe we have to change our approach, and a survey isn't the best tool to be utilizing.

So that's something we have to we're we're working through right now.

Okay, thank you.

And then how many languages are the surveys in?

Yeah, so seven.

Yeah, I think four, yeah, at least like five or six, and then different ones that we identify as the top languages in each neighborhood area.

Uh, that's based on based on like a the demographic like community profile.

So what we do, there's like one uh in the English language, the survey that goes out, but then we link in different languages to our website where people can take it in a language that they're familiar with.

Um, what about visually challenged community groups?

How can we reach them for the survey?

That I I think that's a really uh great point.

Um, and uh one that we haven't fully thought through.

We do have um opportunities, but ADA.

So we have that on our survey information.

So if that um if someone approaches the city, then that's something that's a service we can provide.

Yeah, because I would think that there could be that could be like an area where maybe our elderly generation, elderly community um have a hard time to access to, and then if we can support that, then we can have more full picture of different community members we can hear about.

Um and then my next question is I mean, I think from the study, I see there is very common themes, even though every neighborhood is unique, it's super unique, but a common theme is you know, both neighborhoods are wants to work with Belvi School Fund Belly School District, and then you know, the needs and desire to be gathering.

Um, I think it showcases that you know mobility and working space, hence the safety and accessibility element is very crucial for every neighborhood we are in Bellevue for transportation.

Um because I see there's a really common, a really strong common desire for us to collaborate, improve neighborhoods, and to be connected really meaningfully with each other in the community.

Um have we thought about um a way to improve implify this voice of all the residents through this to strengthen our goal?

Can you can you clarify that a little bit?

Because you know, I think are you talking about expanding beyond the the neighborhood area and and maybe doing a citywide focus?

Is that is that what you're talking about?

Well, I think that you know, I I believe there is a when this is really good data, we can reflect on that.

And then I wonder if we can align other goals from different neighbors and different neighborhoods together and then find some pinpoint where they are.

Um I'm I haven't seen all the you know top list of I'm sure everybody's everybody's list is really long and then very unique, and then I I'm and I'm sure all we all wanted the best of value.

And I just wondering when we align that I see these commonalities.

So I think the commonality between the neighbors could be way more than we think it is.

So maybe um could we play like an area where we can put different opinions of neighbors together, or like we can, you know, when we have the surveys, we can be more targeted, different voices.

So we can actually kind of see if there's a middle ground we can together.

Um, because when I reach out to different communities when I go to block parties, I think I can tell everybody just want the best of their neighborhood.

And how we get there is how we work together.

Um so this is just a thought, but I would love to hear if we can do anything about that would be great because clearly everybody's passion is really strong here.

Yeah, so I I think that's definitely something we can we can take into consideration and and see how that how that fits in with our overall engagement approach.

Yeah, and then my next last question was um for these amendments, because there will be obvious improvement of our neighborhood, would there be any environment of fiscal impacts from these amendments?

Um these are policy uh guiding policy framework and policies that will guide uh we talked about that, I think, in response to some of the other council members' questions.

Um will guide other implementation efforts.

Um development has to go through their own process.

So anytime a new development occurs, it'll have to go through environmental review.

But I'd say this policy these policies do have, I think one of the focus areas is the environment, and so we're really looking at ways to enhance that.

So, in other words, every step of the way, it's very um clear about what are we doing with the neighbors together, right?

And we share with different uh sectors of the team.

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Okay.

Try not to be too long here.

So um thank you all, appreciate your good work.

Um, these are two totally different neighborhoods.

They couldn't be more different, in my opinion, and yet they have similar concerns and similar needs.

Both want to have a commercial heart for their community, both want ped bike connections and that interconnectivity.

But I'm sure the solutions are completely different as well.

So when I look at what's being planned for these communities, I get so excited when I see the bike lanes and I see how easy it would be for people to get around in so many different ways.

And I think, well, realistically, are we gonna give them that?

You know, I mean, what are the chances that we're actually gonna put these bike lanes in?

It's just scary to me.

So I hope we're looking at how we might generate funding for these critical interventions that we're we're deciding that are necessary for everybody that they that they've all decided that they would like to have.

So I hope that we take it just a step further and not just say it's a great idea, but um so council member Hamilton had a recommendation which I have no problem with.

Can I get a head nod if we're all okay with that?

Okay, you two all right, good.

So um I'm gonna ask our deputy mayor to make a motion, including that uh amendment there.

Uh mayor, before I do that, may I uh make one point clarified for myself and maybe council member uh Lee.

There I've heard several times the council the chair, not chair anymore, the planning commissioner Ferris incident.

And although no one should rely on my memory, can I tell you what I think happened in that meeting and you guys correct me if I'm wrong?

So there was a PDF letter that sent to the planning commission as suggested policies for new port, and then because it was a long letter, I think in the meeting, Chair Ferries, planning commissioner Ferries suggested maybe we should review that before we can continue, but then planning commission body decided to do that live.

So then every policy in that PDF brought to the table, you guys discussed, discussed, and then you said yes or no.

Some of them you adopted, some of them you did not adopt it.

Is my recollection of that night around 9 15 correct or wrong?

It's 100% correct.

Great.

I move to direct the staff to prepare ordinances for final action to adopt the proposed amendments to the crossroads and newport neighborhood area plans, including council member Hamilton's recommendation and the general documenting ordinance for all proposed 2025 annual comprehensive plan amendments.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, thank you.

Uh let's see.

I think that is the end of our meeting, and with that we are adjourned.

Thank you very much.