And welcome.

Thank you for being here tonight and for taking time to engage in the work that we are doing.

Your voice matters, and we welcome you and be glad you are here.

With that, City Claire, are you ready for the roll call?

Yes, thank you.

Mayor Malikutian.

Here.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Here.

Councilmember Breyer.

Here.

Councilmember Bargava.

So used to the beat.

Sorry.

You'll be here.

Thank you, Councilmember New England.

Here.

Councilmember Robinson.

Here.

Councilmember Simodoria.

Thank you.

Councilmember Robinson, would you please lead us in the flag salute?

Yes.

Please join me and stand if they vote.

I clearly fly the United States of America.

And the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

So we have uh two proclamation today.

Well, one is Martyr Luther King Jr.

Day that Councilmember Breyer is going to read.

And we have Troll Johnson, Vice President of the Bellevue Alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Teta Sorority, who is going to receive that after uh she finished reading the proclamation.

Please go ahead.

Certainly.

Whereas Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

devoted his life to the pursuit of justice, equality, and human dignity, reminding that nation that justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and that meaningful progress requires tireless effort and the persistent commitment.

And whereas, while Dr.

King's leadership helped inspire transformational change, many of the inequities he sought to eliminate, including disparities in health, education, housing, and economic opportunity continue to challenge our collective responsibility to advance equity.

And Dr.

King's call to embrace the fierce urgency of now remains a powerful and enduring reminder that building a just and inclusive society requires immediate action and sustained commitment.

Whereas on Martin Luther King Jr.

Day, we honor Dr.

King's extraordinary legacy and recognize the transformative impact of his leadership in advancing civil rights, challenging systemic injustice and inspiring service to others.

And whereas the City of Bellevue remains committed to fostering a community grounded in access, equity, and inclusion, recognizing these principles as essential to creating the beloved community envisioned by Dr.

King.

And Bellevue continues to honor Dr.

King's life and legacy through meaningful community events, including the annual local celebration and health fair at Crossroads Bellevue on January 19th, 2026, from an 11 a.m.

to 3 p.m.

And encourages residents to participate in the National Day of Service to honor his memory through action.

Now therefore, I, Councilmember Noreen Breyer, on behalf of Mo Melakutian, mayor of the City of Bellevue, Washington, and on behalf of the City Council do hereby proclaim January 19th, 2026 as Martin Luther King Junior Day.

And Bellevue and call upon all residents to reflect on Dr.

King's legacy, engage in acts of service, participate in the city's MLK Day events, and visit ML MLK Day.gov to discover additional opportunities to serve their community and beyond.

Thank you so much.

Please thank you.

My name is Daryl Johnson.

I'm a vice president of Bellevue Alumni Chapter.

I'd like to thank the mayor, Deputy Mayor, Citrus City Council members for this proclamation.

Today is also a special day for our sorority.

January 13, 1913, 22 college educated women founded our sorority on the campus of Howard University.

They were dedicated to public service and social action.

And one of their first events was the Women's March for Suffrage.

So we have we are definitely social-minded community organization, and we look forward to working with you on this MLK health fair.

And we hope that all of you will be in attendance in this health fair.

We support the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

and will continue to do so.

So once again, on behalf of Bellevue Alumni Chapter, I'd like to thank you for this proclamation.

Thank you so much.

If you go back to your seat and stay here, we can do a picture after the end of second proclamation.

Thank you so much.

The second proclamation is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month proclamation.

Whereas human trafficking is a pervasive crime involving exploitation of individuals through force, fraud or cohesion, and affects communities nationwide, including here in Bellevue.

And whereas the US Department of Homeland Trust Security estimates that millions of men, women, and children are trafficked it worldwide each year, including thousands within the United States.

Raising awareness and strengthening prevention, prevention initiatives to eliminate this crime.

Welcome.

Thank you.

More ways about how to identify it, but then also how to report it.

The best way to contact the Bellevue Police Department is to call 911 if you're experiencing an emergency.gov.

That's V I C E H T at Belleview W A.gov.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Let's take a picture of you first.

Congrats on the new camera.

Very impressive.

Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

Sorry.

It has been moved and seconded.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

The motion passed.

City clerk, are there any speakers sign up to provide oral communications?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

This evening there are nine pre-registered speakers.

But my quick review of the topics, we're only going to be able to hear from seven of those folks, and I'll tell you a little bit more about that rule and others that the council has in place.

So 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, uh people speaking to items not on tonight's agenda will be called.

In both of those categories, the presiding officer has preference or can give reference 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 per person, and a maximum of three people are allowed to speak to any one side of a particular topic.

And we will have three speakers in support of the MFTE item, and so any additional speakers after those three would not be able to speak.

Additionally, I want to remind folks that in compliance with Washington State campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities during elections.

No speaker can support or oppose a ballot measure or support or oppose a candidate for election, which includes one's own campaign.

And one final note about tonight's agenda is under land use, which is item 11 on the council's agenda.

There is a quasi-judicial rezone, and the council will not be able to hear any comments on that item as it is quasi-judicial, and they cannot accept ex parte communications.

Yes, I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Your time begins now.

Good evening, Mayor Malakushin and Council members.

We believe that is one way to continue to be sure that projects can be feasible as we move forward the goal of affordable housing across the city.

We're also supportive of the 20-year homeownership option.

I think it's important for us to keep that goal alongside as we look at rental housing.

We've got to support homeownership opportunities across the board.

Diane, Bianca, and Robin have committed to align MFTE code updates with land use code updates.

We're looking forward to that.

We believe that is the most strategic approach.

It's coordination that is necessary to provide the certainty for developers to uh really feel like they can have the confidence in moving forward a healthy housing pipeline in the city.

And I'll conclude with uh edging you as the council to adopt those recommendations after your discussions in the study session today.

Uh, move the discussion forward, and let's continue to sustain Bellevue uh affordable housing pipeline.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Joe Fain, who also is joining us virtually.

Mr.

Fain, can you hear me?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Your time begins now.

Great.

Thank you, uh, Mayor Malakushin, members of the council.

Thank you so much for taking uh time to listen to our comments tonight.

Uh, we're approaching particularly appreciative of uh Bianca Siegel and Robert Schau for the work that they've done uh tirelessly on this issue over the last few months and have really a great appreciation for the time that they have put, particularly into the um outreach with impacted members here in the community and the development community in particular.

I'm also pleased to be here uh with my friend Patience Malaba, being able to testify uh jointly again on a key housing issue.

Um, chamber and EHR are in support of these staff recommendations.

Uh, view these as uh really good immediate first steps and realizing in particular the promise of the Wilburton rezone that was passed earlier this year.

Uh 2025 is a terrible year for uh permit applications on housing and particularly multifamily housing across the US, but particularly here in Washington State.

Uh, but even with some of the um interest rates and macroeconomic conditions that were driving down permit applications, you still saw regions like Phoenix generate permit uh uh volumes that were twice the rate per capita that the Greater Seattle area generated.

And Austin is three times the rate of what the Greater Seattle uh generated per capita.

So you can see that we still have a long way to go in addressing some of the policy hurdles that are slowing down the production of that needed housing stock.

And this MFTE supercharger that's being adopted, uh hopefully is being recommended uh in the Wilburton sub-area will go a long way in bucking that trend and has already done so just on the promise of its potential adoption, seeing a great uh number of um applicants that are put in the pipeline.

Uh I reiterate uh my colleagues' request and appreciate the commitment from staff about bringing forward future MFTE policy changes at the same meeting and at the same time as future rezones, so that we can adjust those all together and avoid the kind of six months lag that we experienced here.

Uh, and I think that uh that's an appreciated um position by staff.

And then additionally, uh it's important that we have uh key principle as we walk into these rezones, and that is the idea that these codes work uh for the development community work for housing providers on day one.

Uh, too often in these rezones in many jurisdictions, uh, they bet on the come and they create policies that are intended to work in the future or require incredible amounts of rent increases before they're viable.

And that certainly is something that we don't have time to wait for and would not want to build policies around.

So, again, we commend these to you.

Again, appreciate staff uh and urge your support.

Thank you.

The next speaker on the list is Brady Nortram.

Nordstrom, excuse me.

Greetings.

Uh, City Council Mayor, uh Deputy Mayor, um, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Brady Nordstrom, and I am with the Housing Development Consortium and also the East Side Affordable Housing Coalition.

Um, we work together as organizations on the East Side that um build, operate, and advocate for affordable housing.

Um, and that includes Bellevue, of course.

Um, so I I mean, I'll just echo what Joe and Patience were saying again.

I think I don't need to put too much of an emphasis on that because they did such a great job already.

We're here to support the staff uh proposal this evening.

Um it's well supported.

It's there's a lot of great uh rationale there.

Um, and the east housing roundtable letter that represents a cross sectoral agreement on a path forward for MFTE.

Um, in addition to the alignment there, I wanted to comment on a couple other pieces from the affordable housing side and for these future updates as the city is looking at these other areas.

Um, so first of all, it's already already been covered, but MFTE should be updated in tandem with uh an expanded affordable, well, with these land use code updates and affordable housing requirements.

Um staff analysis shows that neighborhood up zones do offset the cost of that affordable housing.

Still, uh MFTE is a critical complement that can really support both development overall and the affordability levels there.

And so you bring these together and you're able to look at the analysis as a full and then figure out where that dial should be for the city for all of these goals that are interconnected.

Um I think that this is not automatically assuming what that's gonna look like.

It's um calibrating on the neighborhood specific goals going forward.

Um we know that uh the I mean, just to brag on the current program that that exists in the city, uh, from the city analysis, it the current program is working as an incentive, even with the double counted units.

There's um there's one project that's used that, but in a voluntary basis, it shows there's there's something to that.

There's other the of course the majority of projects have used um the the clean MFTE there, but um so uh I guess uh then I'll just conclude by putting the focus back on the people that use these MFTE units.

Um, the average MFTE tenant makes 56% AMI.

Um, if the program is targeted just to 80% AMI, we're looking at a cost burden there.

So um so overall, we just appreciate the ongoing work and the ongoing conversation between council, staff, external stakeholders, the community at large, and um so again, we support the package.

Uh we look forward to partnering with you, and thank you for your values-driven leadership and for the deep care for a balanced affordable housing package in the future.

So uh just appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was our third and final speaker who'll be able to speak in support of the MFTE item on tonight's agenda.

So our next speaker on the list is Jesse Clausen, who is joining us virtually.

Ms.

Clausen, can you hear me?

I can.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Your time begins now.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Malikutian and Council members.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

I'm talking about parking initiation today.

As you begin the process of updating Bellevue's parking code, I urge you to take the most expansive approach possible.

The current code is severely outdated, not just in TOD areas or urban centers, but citywide.

If the scope of this work is too narrow, we will miss opportunities to support small businesses and align regulations with the Bellevue of today.

Please expand the scope of the parking code changes to citywide.

One clear example is the restaurant parking requirement.

Any restaurant that offers takeout service, which is basically any restaurant today, is required to provide 16 stalls per thousand square feet, which is the highest ratio I've seen anywhere in the Puget Sound region.

Requirements like this do not reflect real behavior, and they make it nearly impossible for restaurants to locate in existing buildings or in locations in Bellevue that don't have space for massive parking fields.

This is an issue that we're actively contending with in a downtown tower as well as in other commercial areas.

It comes up much more than you think.

It needs to be fixed.

These outdated ratios also block other types of businesses.

In the Richards Road Industrial Area, we are working with a biotech tenant that would have no more than 15 people on site at any time.

Yet the parking code requires over 100 stalls of parking.

The existing building only has 70 stalls, and it's in a critical area.

So it can't provide additional parking stalls in the location.

Bellevue may lose an employer doing groundbreaking research and development simply because of an outdated parking formula.

The visitor parking requirement, the residential visitor parking requirement is another vestige of a suburban area that no longer represents how Bellevue lives or travels.

Removing it would also reduce unnecessary site constraints and development costs.

It should also be addressed citywide.

Across all land use categories, the message is consistent.

Mandated parking minimums do not reflect actual need.

Businesses know when they need parking and when they don't.

They self-select into buildings and locations that meet their operational needs.

If parking is essential and a site can't provide it, they simply won't lease the space.

This is exactly why the market is better suited to determine parking demands than rigid ratios.

I encourage the council to direct staff to take a comprehensive citywide look at the parking code.

Modernizing these standards will support economic vitality, small business retention, and a more flexible future ready bell view.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next three registered speakers, I believe, want to come up together, though that you each will only have three minutes to speak.

That's Jack Shannon, Keen Thompson, and Douglas Smith.

If you can just state your name before speaking so we know who is speaking.

Thank you.

I'm Jack Shannon.

I've asked to say some words about the South Maidenbauer Reservoir Project.

My home for 40 years has been 407 94th Avenue Southeast.

Utilities plans a very large buried reservoir in my Greenbelt in the Greenbelt in my neighborhood.

Greenbelt is home to a large variety of animals, deer, bobcat, ducks, children, dogs, neighbors.

The buried reservoir provides ultimate security for drinking water and allows a top surface for other values, such as I just mentioned.

Seattle has six such reservoirs or the park on top.

Characteristic of the Seattle Parks is minimum fencing, minimum buildings and vegetation.

The comparable they use a open space philosophy.

Comparable for us, it's copted.

Crime prevention through environmental design.

Both philosophies say keep the space open such that first responders can see who's there and what's going on.

When I say Seattle has minimum fencing, the most property taken by a fence in a Seattle property is about 2%.

For us, it's 32.

In the middle of that 32% is planned a bare concrete building.

The code requires that any building be compatible with the architectural form of surrounding buildings.

We don't have any bare concrete homes in my neighborhood, certainly none with 750 feet of fencing.

So what's happened here is in order to get utilities that provide safe drinking water, we've compromised our system just a little bit.

The difference between what we're doing and what Seattle has done is Seattle has used a landscape architect to design the final product.

We rely on utilities.

Utilities is a grand group of engineers providing a reliable safe system for drinking water for generations to come.

They're not architects, they're not designers, they're not landscapers.

And for us to rely on them to provide that uh source is the wrong thing to do.

Uh Jay Hummel project manager says we do not do cosmetics.

If that uh property is going to survive anywhere near the semblance of what it is today, we need to ask you to promote encourage support utilities hiring or contracting with an independent design architect for the final product.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for having us here this evening.

My name is Keene Thompson, and I live at 702 94th Avenue, Southeast.

I moved into the neighborhood in 1960 with my family, so I've been there for quite a while.

The utility department is planning in the planning process for the Maidenbauer South Reservoir, a six million gallon fully buried reservoir adjacent to my property.

This will require the digging of a 200-foot diameter hole 45 feet deep, the edge of which will be 100 feet from my bedroom.

Thus, my interest in the project.

It also details my and the neighborhood's concerns about the project.

We were first approached about the project when we were first approached.

We told the city that is the neighborhood group we were in favor of it.

If we continue to have access to the site, as we have had for the last 20 years.

The city stated that I quote, a new reservoir in your neighborhood would have impacts on you and your neighbors, particularly during construction.

But we are interested in finding ways that it might offer meaningful long-term benefits to the neighborhood as well, if the site is selected.

Well, the site has been selected, and so far no benefits have been planned.

Quite the contrary.

A third of the site is proposed to be fenced, blocking access and views.

Utilities has simply pulled off-the-shelf plans, plopped them down into the center of the site with no regard for neighborhood benefits.

Please read my provided documents that includes a letter from Utilities, debunking or a suggestion of concrete hatch covers and less fencing.

From what I can tell, they have not done any research on alternative security hatchet covers as we have asked.

Where are our meaningful long-term benefits?

I'm holding utilities, the city, and you, the city council, to your word, and will be fighting for those promised benefits.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Doug Smith, and I'm here tonight in support of the messages delivered delivered by my neighbors, Keen Thompson and Jack Shannon.

Regarding the South Maidenbauer Reservoir Project.

My family and I reside at 9701 Southeast 7th Street.

I want to begin by emphasizing something important.

For several years, our neighbors have engaged with the Bellevue Utilities Department in good faith.

We have shown up consistently.

We've reviewed technical materials, we've offered alternatives, and we've tried to be constructive partners, not adversaries.

This has not been a last minute objection or reactionary concern.

It has been a long-running effort by residents who care deeply about our community, public safety, infrastructure integrity, and the long-term character of Bellevue.

Over that time, we've heard repeatedly that fencing is the only viable solution to meet operational and security needs.

Yet through our own research and examples from peer cities, we've demonstrated that secure and regulatory compliant reservoirs can exist and coexist with open, natural, community-oriented spaces.

Spaces that protect infrastructure and provide environmental and civic value.

At this point, what we are asking for is not a redesign mandate, but council oversight, influence, and process guidance.

Specifically, we respectfully ask the council to focus on three next steps.

First, we asked the council to request an independent review of design alternatives, including non-fencing or hybrid security approaches used successfully in other cities with comparable reservoirs.

This would provide an objective framework beyond a single departmental lens.

Second, we ask for council overview and input, taking community feedback into consideration before final design decisions are locked in.

Third, we asked the council to ensure that this project is evaluated not only as a utilities facility, but part as part of Bellevue's broader goals around open space, environmental stewardship, and livability.

Values this council has consistently championed.

This is a rare site, elevated, green, and overlooking our city.

With thoughtful oversight, it can remain a secure water asset and become a shared civic space that reflects Bellevue at its best.

We appreciate the work of the utility staff and we appreciate your time tonight.

What we are asking for is your leadership to help bridge the gap between technical delivery and community-centered outcomes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

And that is the last speaker on our pre-registered list.

So at this point, I would ask if there is anyone else joining us this evening who would like to make a comment to the council.

Please raise your hand.

That goes for those folks online as well.

And just one final reminder, no additional speakers on support of the MFTE program or on our quasi-judicial item.

Okay, Mayor, I do not see any additional hands.

I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you, Charmaine.

Again, thank you so much for everyone in person or via Zoom, shared your concern with us.

We really appreciate that.

Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion pass.

We have our top.

Jeez, I'm gonna have to break myself up.

Oh, report of the city.

Great, yes.

Yeah, we you skipped over the city manager report actually.

Diane, I'm sorry.

We have a report of the city manager.

Thank you very much, Mayor Melkit.

Um we do have one report tonight.

Um it is the second week of January, which means the legislature has begun.

Um, as of yesterday.

So I'd like to invite Katie Kassimbahalse, our intergovernmental director, assistant director for intergovernmental relations, and introduce uh Diana Hart.

Uh Diana is our new state relations policy advisor.

Uh she has been on board um a little over a month, I want to say.

Okay.

About that.

Um they're here tonight to just give you an overview of what's happening in the session, what's anticipated to happen, and then how the staff as well will be working to support the city's legislative positions in the very short session.

With that, I'll hand it over to Katie.

Thank you, City Major.

Mayor.

Deputy Mayor.

Um Mayor Halapuchi and Deputy Mayor Hamilton and Council members.

I'm Katie Kasimba Halsey.

I am the assistant director for intergovernmental relations, but I am really supported by an incredible team in intergovernmental relations, which just got one team member bigger.

Let me just refresh your memory that we have three regional policy advisors.

We have one federal and international policy advisors, and now Diana, who's our state relations policy advisor.

Diana has a really strong background working with cities, including Kirkland and Woodenville and Duval, and now the best one of all.

And she also has experience in working down in the state legislature.

So we've got a real home run in hiring Diana.

I'm gonna move on and tell you a little bit more, and then I'm gonna hand it over to Diana.

So, first of all, I wanted to mention this is information only.

Normally we love to answer your questions and get into the details of the legislative session, but this is the city manager's city manager's report.

So I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about how we'll continue to engage, even if questions today isn't available.

I'm gonna hand it over to Diana for the agenda.

Good evening, Council.

So tonight we're gonna briefly touch on expectations for this upcoming legislative session review, Bellevue's legislative agenda, a really quick touch on AWC's legislative agenda and talk next steps for the next 60 days of legislature.

The 2026 legislative session began yesterday, and this will be a short 60-day session, which will go by in a blink of an eye and end on March 12th.

Short session is the time for legislators to make necessary budget adjustments from the budget they adopted last session and um in reflection of caseload and revenue projection changes.

The legislature will also take up considerations of new policies and programs.

Any of the hundreds of bills that they considered last year that were not adopted are available for consideration this year, in addition to any of the hundreds of bills that they may introduce this session.

Uh dropped more than 500 bills.

So we are busy at work, even though session just started yesterday.

As we look at this current political climate, um, this last um election cycle was a unique one where we had a larger number of state races on the ballot.

Um this did not, this was due to all the appointments that we saw last session.

This did not change Bellevue's legislative delegation and did not change the legislature's makeup politically.

This upcoming general election will have an impact as we see every member of the House and half of the members of the Senate up for election this coming November.

That typically means that the legislature is likely to get out on time as they are unable to participate in their campaigns when they're in session, and they're less likely to consider tax policies and new complicated proposals.

However, we have seen a really big turnover in the legislature in the last couple of years, so that sort of more um tradition, maybe less entrenched than it's been in the last um or we've seen historically.

As we look to hot topics this year, um, we'll continue to see a big focus on the budget.

Last year there was substantial work done to fill the roughly 16 billion dollar shortfall the state was experiencing over the four-year outlook.

The legislature will still have to grapple with a more than two billion dollar shortfall that they have to fix in the supplemental budget cycle due to a projected revenues declining and increases to program caseload.

The caveat that that shortload that shortfall doesn't include any new proposals that they may consider this year, so they'll have to play with potentially new revenues, program cuts, or revenue adjustments to fill in that gap.

As the legislature exposed um program adjustments and transfers, um, we do expect that they'll consider new proposals as part of that.

A payroll tax proposal has already been introduced this session, and the governor has thrown his support behind an income tax on individuals earning more than one million dollars a year.

The state has also indicated an interest in responding to federal action or actions by the federal government that have reduced funding and changed programs that have historically benefited Washingtonians.

This is most directly seen on the human services front.

A lot of those impacts has resulted in a prioritization of preserv uh preservation or at least minimizing the reductions to Washingtonians, especially those that are most in need.

Any of which will just exacerbate the budget shortfall that the legislature will have to consider, which again has that sort of ripple effect to other ongoing programs considered by the state.

We're also continuing to see a focus on housing affordability.

The legislature has adopted a lot of legislation in the space over the last handful of years.

We're continuing to see a focus from members in this space as there continues to be a shortfall of affordable homes in our region.

The legislature has already has introduced a lot of new bills around this already, and we've seen the governor throw support behind a new office of housing.

And with that, I will turn things back to Katie to talk about our legislative agenda.

Thanks.

So you may recall, except for Council Member Breyer, back in October of 2025, we approved the 2026 state legislative agenda.

And we're looking forward to working with you and each of our council members in implementing and working with legislators on the legislative agenda.

You may remember at that time that we have the key legislative priorities and then the state policy state policy statement.

I always get myself tripped up on that.

I'll talk a little bit more about each.

For the key legislative priorities, those are the areas that city staff and we hope the council members will really focus on in 2026.

They are issues that Bellevue will really champion, whereas other issues might be championed by an association or other groups.

These are really our key priorities, including economic prosperity and partnership, really requesting that the legislature proposes to if they propose new revenues or any kind of reduction in the budget that they consult with Bellevue and other cities on that.

Also, affordable housing that's been consistent in former years, transportation, including the business access and transit lanes, and streamline permitting, which includes our request for some funding for our pilot program that we've been establishing here in the city of Bellevue and how we can utilize that for the eCityGov.

Next, we have the state policy statement.

This is much broader and it provides some guidance for advocacy on policy issues where we may not be the lead, but we certainly may want to weigh in whether that's support, oppose, or providing feedback on the legislation itself.

We um have we review hundreds of bills each session, and so we really rely on the state policy statement to guide our work so that we can be responsive and nimble in a very fast-paced environment.

I also just want to reference that AWC also has a legislative priorities and a legislative agenda.

Councilmember Newenhouse served on the committee that really helped to influence this legislative agenda.

And while we may not always be aligned with AWC, there are opportunities for us to really think about them as a resource.

We also have opportunities to think about how we partner with other cities or organizations to be more effective on issues that we really want to share with the legislature.

And finally, I just want to note that things are moving really fast already this session.

We've got the AWC City Action Days that are scheduled for next week.

And I want to thank Deputy Mayor Hamilton and Councilmember Summa DeWiria for heading down to Olympia with us next week, and we're including some meetings with legislators at that time.

And even if you aren't able to join us for that trip down to Olympia next week, there's plenty of other opportunities to be involved.

We would love to engage you when we need a phone call or a person to testify, or perhaps an email into a state legislator.

And Diana will reach out to you when those opportunities are presented.

And we also welcome you to let us know if you're finding opportunities that we should know about.

And as I wrap up, I just want to acknowledge that this is the start of a conversation over the next 58 days and then some.

We also encourage members to sign up for AWC emails every Friday, they have updates that uh podcasts or webcasts that they provide.

And then, of course, we'll be coming back to you if we need additional direction or feedback on policy issues that aren't already covered by our legislative agenda and just for general updates.

And with that, that concludes my presentation, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Thank you so much.

We are also looking forward to working with you all.

We already did approve our consent calendar.

So, City Manager, back to you for introducing our first study session out of the two that we have for tonight.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

Our first study session is a presentation of parking reform land use code amendment.

And staff will provide the general scope and objectives of this land use code amendment.

It is intended to implement changes mandated by the state requiring local jurisdictions to adjust and limit the minimum parking standards in addition to several other requirements.

There are also some opportunities here through this land use code process to consider other changes that support or may support objectives of our comprehensive plan.

So tonight, staff is seeking council direction to initiate this land use code and is also looking for some direction on the scope of this process.

We have Rebecca Horner, our director of development services department, Nick Whipple, Code and Policy Director, and Sean Edgehill Senior Planner.

And with that, I will turn it over to Rebecca.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council, Rebecca Horner with Development Services.

We're very excited to be here with me tonight.

As mentioned Nick Whipple and Sean Edgehill, who this is his first meeting before you tonight.

So very excited to break him in on the parking reform.

So we our agenda tonight includes oh, we'll be seeking direction from council and scoping options, and we're gonna lay before you a lot of different scoping options.

So our request is to give us as much specific feedback as possible in your direction tonight so we can have clear guidance that we share with our stakeholders through the process.

So our agenda tonight is to give a refresher to all of you on what is minimum parking.

What does that mean?

We'll also review with you two pieces of precipitating legislation that uh led to our work item tonight.

We'll, like I said, go over a variety of scope options.

Uh, you received some feedback during public comment time today, so there's definitely interest in what that scope looks like.

We'll talk with you about our proposed community and stakeholder outreach and get your feedback on that as well, and then again ask you for clear specific direction on what you would like us to do with the work program.

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

Great, thank you, and good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and members of the council.

Um, so as Rebecca noted, we'll start first with just orienting us to what is minimum parking.

Um, just a kind of a basic start here for this project.

So, minimum parking is a land use regulation.

It applies to projects, developments, um, and their requirements are to provide a specified number of parking stalls off-street, so within their project, either a garage or a surface parking area to accommodate any land use that they are uh proposing on their site.

So that could be a residential project, so then the parking would be based off of the number of dwelling units.

It could also be that they're doing an office project, and so then the parking is based off of the use in tandem with what's the floor area of that use.

That's gonna determine how much parking do you need to provide off-site or off-street, rather.

The historic purpose here is to prevent some spillover parking on nearby streets, make sure that there's parking available for users of that building, particularly during peak demand.

Um, the parking standards are generally based off of engineering manuals and standards, and typically would assume kind of a worst case peak demand.

So Bellevue's parking history.

Um, we were able to locate at least the oldest zoning book that we have on site.

Um that was from 1962, and open that up to find that we had minimum parking requirements in 1962 and likely before then as well, um, when the city incorporated, I'm sure.

Um what we also saw in looking through those 1962 regs is that they're largely similar to the regulations that we have on the books today, um, with the exception of when council has adopted changes for our TOD areas.

We've updated the code over time, but the citywide parking standards mostly match what we saw in 1962.

Um so that means that the underlying approach really reflects the development patterns and transportation assumptions of that era, which are a bit different today.

So some examples there, we were able to see some uses that had parking assigned to it that were maybe more common during that period than they are today.

Bowling alleys, airfields had parking requirements in dance halls.

Those are maybe less common today, or at least have different labels.

And then looking forward, the council did adopt, as you all know, an update to our comprehensive plan in October of 2024.

This set the vision for the next 20 years in Bellevue.

So that's really what's kind of directing some of this change as well.

A lot of policy support around transitioning us to more transit-oriented development, leveraging that investment in high capacity transit, the two-line coming online.

Also looking at ways to encourage flexible and context sensitive parking standards.

And then just an overarching theme, knowing that we have some pretty hefty growth targets to address, looking at opportunities to remove unnecessary barriers to redevelopment.

Some of the challenges of having a six decades old parking standards.

Often we're seeing that more parking is required than what the current demand is necessarily wanting or supporting.

We're also getting feedback that this is a cost driver for a lot of projects.

So increasing that cost, also reducing some of the efficient use of our valuable resource of land.

So we are seeing examples where surface parking is going in places where we might want a residential building.

As Rebecca noted, the state did provide some mandates or clarification on scope, I guess, for this code amendment.

So there were two bills that were passed.

In 2024, Senate Bill 6015 was passed, and then the following year, Senate Bill 5184 was passed.

So with the first bill being passed in 24, that looked at more of the parking stall dimensions.

It also spoke to some of the surface materials that cities can allow for parking stalls, and then clarified some rules around whether you can allow enclosed or unenclosed parking to meet the minimum requirements.

And then the following year, last year, uh Senate Bill 5184 passed.

And this was a broader bill that looked at reducing minimum parking requirements across the state.

These bills do apply to future developments, so they're forward-looking and would apply to residential, mixed use, and commercial developments.

We are looking at a compliance deadline of January 27th, 2027.

So we do think if we can get this initiated tonight, that gives us adequate time to be able to do some effective outreach and really get to a good product for you all before the state mandated deadline.

So now I'll pass it to Sean.

He's going to walk us through the specifics of each bill and then go through some scope options with you all.

Thank you, Nick.

So with 5184, the main items that came through under this bill were largely that the minimum parking requirements that we were allowed to put forward are being reduced.

Residential uses are being almost in half for most uses, unless there is usually like a zero parking requirement associated with it.

For multifamily, it is half a space per unit, is now the highest that we can require for minimum parking.

And for single family, it is now one instead of what is generally been the case for the last few years, which has been two spaces usually to place within a two-car garage.

Commercial spaces are now to be reduced to two spaces per thousand square feet.

As mentioned previously during the comments, one of the larger changes that you would see from this would be for certain commercial uses, such as resident or I'm sorry, restaurants, which historically have extremely high parking uh ratios, sometimes as high as 15 to 20 per thousand square feet.

So to reduce it to two spaces is going to be a large change for certain uses that kind of had those bigger amounts associated with them.

On top of all of that, there are certain uses that really we can't require minimum parking for.

These do include smaller residences and commercial spaces, uh, specialized housing, such as affordable and senior housing, um, as well as ground floor commercial uses and conversions, non-residential, non-residential to residential.

In these cases, when we have a project brought forward that falls within one of these categories, we will not be allowed to apply a minimum parking requirement.

That is to that is not to say that there can't be any parking for that use, though.

The developer could still put something forward, we're just not allowed to associate it with parking requirements.

With 6015, this, as Nick had kind of already mentioned, uh was miscellaneous uh requirements were kind of associated with this.

The largest one was that parking spaces themselves could not exceed a dimension of 8 by 20 uh square feet.

Um that does not apply to ADA stalls.

Those are obviously applied to by a federal standard.

Um, but it also included allowance for tandem parking spaces, um, which are more of like being used more recently, uh, but do include having agreements between two individuals that park one in front of the other.

Front parking space generally has free use, whereas the rear one has to have an agreement with that front individual.

Uh additionally, we cannot uh require that a parking space is either enclosed or unenclosed.

This would be like if you had a uh multifamily uh development and we might have requirements for uh garages, for example, to exist within the parking area that could not be required of such a developer.

Now, one item that we do want to uh address is that within 5184, there is an opt-out language in here, kind of off-ramp, as it were.

Um it's a fairly high bar that comes with this.

It is uh it would require that we supply uh the Department of Commerce uh with a um uh empirical safety study.

And the concerns with that are largely that it's an amorphous guideline that would be difficult to meet.

Uh, if commerce were not to um be willing to approve what we supply them, it may result in us having a tighter deadline uh than the one year that we currently are scheduled for.

Um that way, you know, we're we're hoping to really be able to allow for this to move forward so that it is more in line with our policies uh within our comprehensive plan.

Now, within our land use code, there are several portions that include um parking requirements.

The general one is within 2025.

Um, as mentioned by Nick, that is the section that largely hasn't changed in uh the last six decades.

Uh but there have there are additional uh land use that district-specific sections uh within the downtown Bell Red, East Main, and Wilburton.

So what we're hoping to do for the scope of this LUCA is to align with the new state mandates with the minimum parking, the parking service material stall dimensions and everything other uh included within 6015 as well.

Um also we wish to streamline the parking requirements into a single chapter so that it isn't scattered throughout the LUC and can be easily found and applied.

Tonight we would like you to also uh consider the following additional scope options.

Uh the first one is a little bit of a misnomer, it's not so much an additional option.

Um, but the expansion of parking reform near transit was included within the TOD bill, um, which is uh a third one, 1491, I believe.

Um and with that one, it did have an immediate requirement to include removing any parking requirements uh within half mile of any uh rapid ride or light rail station.

Uh so we did include that in here as an item that we would probably want to include uh together with 6015 and 5184.

But as on top of that, if you were so inclined, you could also consider uh removing parking in areas with high transit or frequent transit uh bus stops.

That would be such as two to four or more uh trips per hour for 12 or more uh hours a day.

You could also consider taking an additional step forward, uh expanding a parking reform uh to effectively eliminate minimum parking requirements.

Bremerton, Shoreline, as well as Port Townsland, have all already made this step.

So it wouldn't be a necessarily us making it first.

We would have other municipalities to look towards in terms of how their code has been established in.

But we can build this out a little bit further.

There are other uses such as the restaurant ones that we mentioned earlier that within areas such as the Soma Towers, if you were to have a restaurant that currently uses 15 spaces or so.

A new change of use might allow that to reset, go down to that two spaces per thousand square feet and free up some space that is currently being used either for new development within the space itself or even for uh just allowing for greater land use itself for spaces that aren't used then.

So for this, we are going to be using our uh process for requirements.

Uh we will be doing notices uh as well as holding a public hearing.

Um we are planning to uh have direct engagement with info sessions as well as meeting with residents with neighborhood associations and the development community.

Um we are uh we have already kind of begun our online presence uh with the city web page uh I believe being started as of Friday, correct?

Yeah.

Um and we are also uh developing an info sheet and FAQs.

And uh we have a blurb that has been uh established for the um newsletters as well.

The it's your city and news uh neighborhood news articles.

So here is kind of the draft schedule that we have proposed uh for this year, and that is going to be um following this initiation beginning in February.

Um we are going to begin our community uh outreach, uh, start talking with the community um and getting everything together to uh basically begin doing our drafts.

Uh as we're doing our internal discussions, we will begin going to um planning commission for kind of touching base uh within the summer, late summer is what we're hoping to do for that.

Uh and then after the draft has kind of had a look over by uh plan commission and the public, uh then we can kind of prepare for getting the final approval by early fall and get this back to you guys uh for final approval uh by no hopefully no later than December.

Again, that deadline of January 27th will come up very quickly.

So we want to make sure we get this done in uh orderly fashion.

So again, we want to kind of ask for your consideration.

I know that was a lot of info.

Uh so um just consider additional scoping options that we've discussed, and um if you can allow the planning commission to initiate the work on parking reform, Lukia.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Rebecca and Nick and Sean.

Welcome, and you did a great job.

Uh I like that you just clearly talk about the state requirements, but also also about additional opportunity that we have as a body.

Uh it's really not a compliance, although it is a compliance, but also is updating a code that, as you mentioned, is maybe for a city that uh we don't have that city anymore, and we have much better city.

Uh let's just uh start with uh Councilmember Bargavo.

Okay, thank you.

Uh great presentation, very interesting topic.

Um has lots of impacts on lots of people.

Uh whether you park or you take transit or whether you're a developer or business, it matters to everyone.

So I think it's really important.

Um, I started to think about this uh, you know, over the weekend when we started to talk about how you know what should be the scope and how we think about it.

I said like our minimum parking requirements a good thing or not.

And I'm not entirely convinced that a good thing, and that it sort of impacts the direction, at least at least my point of view on the scope for the study.

I mean, they do raise costs for development, housing costs.

I know there is also uh a question of you know not matching real demand.

We heard uh Jesse Clausen talk about uh sort of an industrial parcel where demand versus actual requirements are not matching up, and if we're stuck to those sort of approaches that are not flexible over time, then it creates those um hard and fast requirements that don't you know seem to work.

The other thing that I think that we have to think about is the impact they have on actual development potential.

Uh and I think that needs to be part of our considerations set as we think about you know what's the right outcome for minimum parking requirements, and you know, especially on small land constraint parcels, it has a huge impact, and we have to be really thoughtful and judicious about what our requirements are if we're going to go in and go and do this once and try to get it right for many years to come.

Um and ultimately, you know, um at some ways, uh philosophically uh they discourage the achievement of our um climate goals and transit utilization.

So those are sort of some of the pillars with which to think about not the scope but what we're trying to achieve here uh in its uh sort of larger picture.

I also put together like four or five key principles within which to work, and I'm just gonna lay them out for you.

Then I have a couple of thoughts uh for questions for you or suggestions really for scoping to answer the specific question we're here.

One, I would say build uh whatever we build out.

I think flexibility has to be a core tenet for that.

Uh because I think over time, whatever we build is gonna feel antiquated at some point to somebody, and we're gonna be sitting here doing the same conversation.

Second, I think a market-driven approach would be really really helpful, which is where I mean, I lean uh in terms of thinking about this.

People who build for utilization of retail, commercial, residential uses typically will follow what the market does, and that on its own creates agility and adaptability over time.

I think pricing the curve uh should be part of our thinking and making it correctly.

So demand-based pricing for you know, you know, spillover parking.

I think that's really important.

And then uh thinking about shared parking requirements uh across uses or adjacencies is another principle to think about.

And lastly, I would say anything that we do, we adjust and learn over time because that uh you know has to be part of the the mantra we take here.

So uh to going back to the things you laid out, I would be supportive of looking at removing uh it's already part of what we're asked being asked to do, half mile around transit.

I think the frequent transit question that you raised, I think reduction in parking is something we should do uh sort of an assessment on.

This is a scoping exercise.

We're not giving answers that are right and wrong, but we do think I do think we should consider reduction in those because of the same goals that later I laid out sort of in the the pillars for which minimum parking should should stand up to over time.

And then um the last thing I would say is um uh removing parking needs altogether uh and transitioning to a market-based approach are two ends of that spectrum.

And I would love for our scoping exercise to include the puts and takes by use for that, because uh some we have to normatively plan minimum requirements because the market's not gonna create that, and for others, there is a uh chat chance that we may be going too far by setting standards.

So by use and by as much stratification as seems reasonable would be the suggestions I have for for scoping.

That's it.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Robinson.

Thank you.

I really like what Councilmember Barga said.

I I agree with his um flexibility, market-driven, and shared parking ideas, so I appreciate that.

Um I'm all for obviously the staff minimum recommendations.

Um I'm curious though, if those recommendations are going to address the concerns that we heard from Jesse Clausen, because she brought up some really good points.

So is the minimum enough to address that or not?

That's my first question.

Um I have to say that there are some things the state is assuming that I just don't agree with.

I don't agree that four-bedroom low-income housing necessarily does not require parking.

And that troubles me because we've seen um some of our affordable housing families really struggle.

I also don't agree that senior housing doesn't require parking.

We're not talking about the seniors, we're talking about all the people who come and serve them who are dependent on cars for their businesses.

So that's troublesome to me.

And I almost wonder if we shouldn't push back a little bit.

Um, I know it's already a done deal, but maybe there could be a revision made if our our governmental intergovernmental staff were to think that was a good idea.

Last thing, could you put slide 15 up, please?

So is this one?

Yeah, additional scope options.

So yes to number one.

Yes to number three.

Number two, I really feel like that should be based on conversations with our transit agencies and doing a qualitative analysis because it you can be really close to transit, but it could be totally uphill.

Or it could be, you know, just we have to think of the reality of people being able to have a family and go get groceries using transit.

And I don't want to negate their ability to have a car when they need a car.

Um so I'd like to instead of just cross the board, I'd like to look at those two things.

Can we bring more transit options to the area?

And is it like topographically feasible for people?

And then uh thank you.

Uh Councilmember Robinson for those questions uh and comments.

For the first question around the public comment received on the change of use challenges.

Um, and the example that was provided is that um there's often times when a useful transition, it might have been a retail shop and they'd like to get a restaurant in there.

Retail parking has a lower demand ratio in our code than a restaurant parking, and so that oftentimes kind of uh bars the door for a restaurant to enter because there's not adequate parking supply because they have to basically go retail to retail to match the parking that's already provided in the project.

The baseline scope that staff is recommending does not address that concern.

Item three on this additional scope option would give us the ability to take a look at how we might clarify those change of uses and address those situations.

Um and then I also just want to note, and I think you know, Sean had mentioned this earlier, and I believe we've mentioned it to you all before as well, that developers are always gonna be able to provide parking, um, regardless of what we say as um the requirement.

So if we put zero as the requirement, which in our downtown has been the requirement for commercial uses and for residential uses since at least 2017.

Um I know in the downtown core, zero parking for residential has been the rule since even before 2017, and we are seeing the market is providing parking.

Um we know that there is still a market for it.

People drive um and people will want to have um the opportunity to park where they live or park in a place that they visit.

So a lot of that self-selecting will still continue to happen.

Excuse me, can I clarify?

Is that true with affordable housing though?

Do you think, especially when we do the 30 30 to 60% AMI?

Would you say that that's true there also?

I think that's something we can look into to see what the actual parking demand is in those types of units.

Okay.

Um, right now the flexibility is for those parking or for affordable housing to have reduced parking.

The logic is more on reducing the cost to deliver affordable housing.

I get that versus maybe that end user experience, which is what you're you're kind of getting at.

Yeah, okay.

Go on.

Uh yes.

Uh sorry, go ahead.

I think Jesse also asked personality.

Oh, uh, yeah, sorry.

Um the other aspect of the comment that was received earlier was encouragement, it sounded like for council to explore um additional scope option item two, um, which is to look at elimination of parking citywide.

Got it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Robinson.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Royer.

Thank you for the thorough presentation and congrats on your first presentation.

It can be often intimidating, but you nailed it.

Um, I'd like to start by saying I really believe good policy uh is rooted in excellent data.

It is derived from logically consistent principles, and lastly, it ought to be scalable.

Uh personally, I'm not a fan of the state mandates and how prescriptive they can be at times.

Uh, nevertheless, I do think we need to expand our scope, especially if we're seeing continued investments into our transit infrastructure, and if we're hurting our local businesses.

I've spoken to so many entrepreneurs who can't just seem to settle in Bellevue because the minimum parking mandates are not feasible.

Uh, and who knows, maybe it'll enable more dance halls like they did in the 60s.

Um, but uh it is important that we understand through the engagement and evaluation process what other cities are doing and how these impacts are prevailing.

So, yes to number one and to number three.

For number two, uh, I'm leaning yes, though I'd like to see a technical analysis for number two of the potentially expanded scope and and what are the impacts that uh adjacent cities are seeing.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for being so concise.

I appreciate it.

Uh Councilmember Newenhaus.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you, uh Rebecca, Nick and Sean.

Welcome.

Um great presentation.

Um I'm all for uh pushing shocker, uh pushing back against the state mandates.

Um 100% agree with uh Councilmember Robinson on that.

I had some uh uh questions uh regarding that or concerns regarding that as well.

Um in terms of what we're looking at here, um so no one, I guess number um well, number one having concerns about, but uh number two and number three uh yes to that.

Um Councilmember Bargava, I think's absolutely right in terms of I think going into this, letting the market really dictate and determine how much market uh how much parking is truly needed um in our city.

Um businesses know how much they need in terms of parking.

Um and I think if um uh some space doesn't have the amount of parking that they need, they don't need to sign a lease there and they can look for another space.

I also think that um giving property owners the ability to uh to pivot and have that fluck flexibility and the options there to create more or less as they need, as well as allowing those um those businesses to operate there is is critical as well.

I'm not sure it led to the downfall of the dance halls.

Uh but it has led to the downfall of some uh restaurants um that truly want to be in this city uh but can't for um one of uh litany different uh reasons about parking being being one of them and um you know I I appreciate some of the uh uh comments that we heard tonight and and uh you know I I admit I was unaware that if Bellevue still requires 16 stalls per every 1,000 square feet uh in a restaurant, um you know that just doesn't you know live up to um you know I think uh what what what today we need um as you rightly pointed out in your great presentation we haven't looked at this since what 1962.

However, I do appreciate the wonderful uh Lake Hills poster there of my community um leading the parade.

I'm not sure what that means, uh, but it's a great poster I haven't seen before.

So thank you for including that in the uh in the in the presentation.

Um removing the residential visitor stall requirement, I think is also long overdue.

I think that's kind of a uh a whole a holdover as well that we should uh take a look at.

I think we definitely need to take that citywide approach.

You know, let's modernize while we're doing this.

I I think for most times we we try and do that in terms of um looking at the entire code and how it's gonna affect the entire city.

So if we're gonna um uh we're gonna look at this and um you know lift up the hood and and uh look at uh updating this.

Let's let's do it the right way and um look at the entire city.

Um I know that there was also some uh concern or interest about visitor parking downtown.

Will that be a part of this work or is that gonna be a part of the downtown livability work?

The plan would be to address it as part of this work, part of this work?

Okay, terrific.

Okay.

And then um slide number seven, what did you mean by auto-oriented outcomes?

I was just curious um if you can give us an example of that.

Yeah, so um the council of the city has done a lot of work to update how we want people to get around the city, um, including adoption of the multimodal implementation plan, and then looking at all of our TOD areas and trying to transition those to more of the transit-oriented communities or more emphasis on walking, biking, other modes.

And so um having higher minimum parking requirements citywide, even um in the downtown, it's not 16 to 1,000 for restaurants in downtown, it's only 10 per thousand, which is still really high.

That is, thank you.

So, even in places like our downtown, we're seeing these these um parking requirements might reinforce more people to drive and to get to these locations when they're in areas that are more suitable for walking.

And so that's really what we're trying to get out um with this change is that this could create um policy outcomes that align with what the council has decided is right um in that 2044 vision for Bellevue.

Okay.

And then my last request is that um, and a perfect example of it, the amount of feedback and even media coverage that we got when we went into the uh curb pricing.

I I think a lot of residents will be when they know that curb price is gonna lead to charging for parking.

That got a lot of lot of coverage.

So I think when residents find out about this type of work, I think there's going to be strong interest.

So just really want to encourage you to do a lot of extensive outreach.

I know you've got some of the direct engagement tactics that you have on here, but please reach out to every neighborhood association.

Let's not be passive.

Let's really make sure that they understand this conversation is happening, and if they have concerns, we want to want to hear it because I really want to make sure they're part of this conversation.

And I know you do a great job, but this is just one of them that I just think that uh once people find out more about, they're gonna want to be engaged and really want to lend their voice to this conversation and um and and be a part of that policy decision that uh um that we're gonna be talking about here over the next over the next year or so.

But with that great work, thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Newhouse.

Council Mr.

Some of the Video.

Um great work, by the way.

I think I love the whole concept that I don't have to pay for my parking in my rent each month.

I think it's really amazing for any kind of restaurant to hear that, because we know that if the cost going to the developer is passed through out to the tenants, either it's commercial or residential, so lower cost for everything as the affordability for start business or raising a family.

Um I would say that you know, I think that that's gonna be really create a better margin for street level brick and mortar, and then I think it's level C activation, the that type of tenants to be having the street activation, it's gonna be more inviting that people don't park but they walk, they see each other, see phases.

Hopefully, we can don't have any Seattle freeze in here in Bellevue because of that.

I think it's gonna be amazing.

Um, so can I have some questions on slide number 15?

Um, so number three that by saying clarifying treatment for change of use or tenant transition, is that gonna be is that directly gonna be expert diet department process when somebody is applying for like you know, a TI improvement?

Uh, if the council directs this as an additional scope option, um, what this would do is just help us clarify what that change of use parking demand is going to be, which could have the effect of helping streamline some of the land use review, because right now um oftentimes one of the first comments is what's the amount of parking that the building has, how much is assigned to each tenant, and how much is available for you?

And so if we can standardize that process a bit more, that would have kind of an ancillary effect of helping to streamline the process.

Um yeah, I think it could serve that purpose.

Thank you.

That's that's really um great news.

And then my second question was actually um I have the same worry about the affordable housing, and then my other words about the child care area have no minimum parking because I think that safety should be the first priority, especially in the affordable housing and also child care zone.

Um, as a working mom, you know what the pickup time is the golden hour.

That five minutes makes a huge difference.

The line, how your mood is, how you start a day.

Sometimes it could be really dangerous when um more aggressive parents need to get to work in that meeting, right?

So is it possible for us to revisit that and then maybe add some clarification, like you know, based on the safety of child care affordable housing?

Because I think one example I would say that if um one of my friends who live in Polaris and they they park their car because there's a child care center right next to it, if the tenant have to walk a long time with a young kid in the dark trying to get there because no parking, and that I think would not be ideal.

Um can we revisit that and think about what can we do to protect our residents in that situation?

Yeah, so the two um use types that you cited, affordable housing and child care are the ones that the state does preempt us on.

Um we can't require parking for those uses.

Um thing to keep in mind or um just for information, right now we do not have a parking requirement for child care centers.

It's categorized as unspecified use.

And so what we do is we actually ask applicants to tell us what's the parking demand that you have, because they are, as you noted, pretty unique.

Drop off is kind of the heavy time for parking.

Um, but it's also you know, 10 minutes if you're lucky less to get in and out of the market.

Yes, if you're lucky, it's gonna be a good day.

And so, yeah, the parking demand for that is is quite different.

And so I don't expect we'll see a big shift um from how people are operating because that's kind of the current scheme that we have now for child care use.

Um, and then the affordable housing piece, as we noted, we are preempted.

Um, I did uh Councilmember Robinson reach out to our intergovernmental relations um team just to note that that was uh a comment that might be raised.

So uh maybe more to come from them if there's any word in Olympia on revisiting, but for now we are preempted.

Okay, I'm with uh Councilmember Robinson on that too.

And one last question is on the engagement part for the direct engagement.

Is there any possibility that we can also engage the small business, especially restaurant owners in the communities to get some feedback on how they actually see it?

Because I think depend the audience and then the market they are trying to search, it could be completely different needs.

So if it's like very vibrant cafe, maybe they want they don't need a parking, or it's something very classic or something take a long to find dining, which we love to have in Bellevue.

It could be very different, right?

So is it possible for us to include them as an engagement process as well?

Yeah, we will certainly try and reach all those different stakeholders, including small business owners.

Especially the restaurants.

And yes, thank you.

Appreciate any support you can have in helping us get an audience.

We will thank you.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, appreciate the presentation.

I think this is very important work.

Uh Sean, welcome.

You rocked it tonight, so thank you for that.

Um, I think the proposed scope looks good.

I'm especially interested to see what uh they come back with for design and operational standards.

Um, I think the discussion up here has been really solid tonight, so I'm pretty much in alignment with all of my colleagues.

Uh, Councilmember Bargava mentioned a few of the things that I have on my list, so I'll just go through it quickly.

But definitely interested in finding out if parking requirements could be completely eliminated in some areas under some certain circumstances.

Interested also too in having the planning commission explore removal of parking requirements within the one half mile of light rail or rapid ride and reducing parking in other areas that are well served by transit.

Um also I just as they're going through the work.

So I have some concerns around safety for folks.

So I'm hoping that the review process could consider the safe safety of walkers, bikers, rollers, and be mindful of potential safety implications as parking minimums are reduced, and consider the context such as access to transit sidewalks and bike facilities.

Um think the engagement plan looks solid.

I agree with uh councilmember New Enhouse.

Uh you know, this is gonna be an issue of of real interest to folks as we go through it.

So I'm just curious what the best way is for community members to receive regular updates uh on the parking reform Luca.

Yeah, great question.

Uh so we do have a web page as Sean noted.

We stood that web page up last week, and then we have a newsletter um that we've been sharing now.

Um, and so there was a newsletter that was sent out last week that included a link to the project page, which has Sean's contact information.

Um, we also are encouraging people to subscribe to that newsletter.

We have um it just started.

I think we're in our second month of it, and we have around 4300 subscribers, I think, when we checked this week.

So I'm hoping to kind of build that subscription list so that people can be more engaged on our code work that's happening.

Um so that's one way.

Um, and the web page has a way to subscribe.

And then any comments that are received by Sean, he'll make sure people are aware of the hearing and um kind of the process for requirements that gets them in on getting the notifications there.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Seems like a great start, ready to move forward.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh, great job, uh great conversation.

We are hearing a lot about uh kind of removing all of the minimum, and I think the goal is to reduce the cost of uh development and support housing.

I hope that we also address the community anxiety that if we remove all of these parkings, then it's going to push to the neighborhood, as both Councilmember New and House and Deputy Mayor uh mentioned.

We need to engage with the neighborhood, and hopefully we have creating some tools to address those issues that uh will come if we remove all of the parking requirements.

The other thing is I would uh hopefully we all going to track if all of these changes happen.

Are they actually helping with the housing development with the affordable housing?

Uh and not doing those unintended consequences that is going to pressure the surrounding neighborhood with all of those cars are going to park there.

And hopefully, when we do all of this study, we do have a baseline of what are the parkings behaviors, all where are the parking is full, where are underuse and how the various uh how they varies across the city.

Uh so it seems we have all agreement, and if you go back to this, just nod your head.

I think everyone wants the additional scope option.

They are some additional recommendation about number two, like the uphill, the low heel, how people are going technical assessment.

Yeah, so just add some of those, and maybe the transit is going to be more there or not.

So we need more study, but it seems nodding head, everyone agrees with the whole additional scope options, everyone.

Great.

So then uh we need a motion.

Do I have a motion?

I move to direct staff to initiate work on the parking reform LUCA and direct the planning commission to review and process the LUCA.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

All opposed any opposed.

There is no one motion passed, and it's perfect time.

Thank you so much again.

Uh it is time to take a break.

Uh, we will come back by seven session, multi-family tax exemption program update.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

Multifamily tax exemption program.

Uh, more easily said is the MFTE program, which you'll hear a lot tonight.

Um something that we have been working on here for um almost nine months, probably.

Uh the last presentation to council was in um early October, I believe.

And at that point, uh staff brought you some concepts for making some adjustments to the MFTE program to pair with the land use changes in Wilburton and also to improve the effectiveness and scope of this tool that um is used for both affordable housing and to provide some incentives for development.

The um work continued after that session, and I want to thank the stakeholders who worked very diligently with our staff to evaluate those the scope of the potential updates and what you have in front of you today that staff will review is a package of uh changes to the MFTE program that um has been generally accepted and also comes with the commitment, as you heard earlier, for staff to continue work with our stakeholders through the land use code changes that will come this year related to the HOMA work and belt red.

So we have Bianca Siegel, our director of Office of Housing, and Robin Zhao, our affordable housing program manager here to review the recommended package of changes and are seeking your direction uh to consider the proposed updates.

So I'll hand it over to Bianca.

Thank you, City Manager.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council.

We're really glad to be back before you with the MFTE update.

Um, Robin is gonna lead us through the presentation this evening.

Um, just want to highlight this is a really important tool in our toolbox for supporting housing development and particularly development that includes affordable housing units in it as well.

It is not the only tool, um, but it is uh it is one that has been effective for the city uh in the past and promises to be even more effective moving forward, and we'll take you through those proposed changes and happy to hear your feedback.

Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, and council members.

Um, as Bianca mentioned, we've been really working hard with stakeholders over the past few months to come up with this updated set of recommendations that you'll hear tonight.

Um, and we also will summarize the key strike draft elements uh for your direction.

So we will start with an overview, uh just a reminder of what the MFT program does, uh dive into our updated recommendations, uh, and then talk a bit about what we're hearing from stakeholders along with some updated analysis.

And then again, we'll end with the strike draft and next steps.

So, starting with uh overview of our MFTE program, you might remember this little graphic from the previous study session.

Uh this diagram just shows the three high-level considerations that go into our evaluation of uh changes to the MFTE program.

Uh, of course, we're thinking about how the changes advance our affordable housing goals.

Uh, MFTE is also a very strong development tool.

So also thinking about how uh it affects development feasibility and helps stimulate development.

Uh, and then of course, there's the program cost aspect.

Uh, we know that there can be a tax impact from MFTE and potentially raising uh taxes on other property owners, uh, as well as uh leading to foregone revenue for the city.

So uh Bellevue currently offers the 12-year MFTE program.

Again, that's a 12-year property tax exemption on the value of qualifying residential improvements for new multifamily properties uh in exchange.

We generally require that 20% of units are reserved at 80% of area median income for those 12 years.

As reminder, area median income is calculated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It's the point at which half of households earn more and half earn less in a given geographic area.

And the 12-year program can be used across the city in all area zone for multifamily use.

Again, over the past year, we've been working on the suite of updates to align with recent land use code amendments and add more options for the MFTE program.

So back in May, we started some outreach, conducted individual interviews as well as presentations.

We worked with an external consultant, Burke, to help us really assess program changes, and that also led to this series of stakeholder stakeholder technical workshops where we really refine that analysis and then since our last study session have been continuing those discussions to come up with the package that you'll see here today.

So diving into that package, I'll start with just an overview here of all the things that we're going to talk about.

A lot of these remain the same from the recommendations that we brought forth back in October.

So that includes the Wilburton supercharger, the Wilburton eight-year programs.

We're introducing this new 20-year home ownership program and expanding MFTE to conversion projects.

And then also we talked about some code language updates to align with the land use code.

Since we've been talking with stakeholders over the past few months, we also have a few new recommendations that you'll see here.

And then just some additional administrative changes to make the process work better.

Want to note that there are two items that we are not recommending at this time, and that includes the citywide supercharger and the 12-year extension, and we'll revisit those two items a bit later in the presentation.

But I'll start by diving into our recommendations, starting with the Wilburton supercharger, which we continue to recommend.

Again, what this allows for is for a property to double count their mandatory units towards the MFTE requirements without the 15% reduction in AMI that we would otherwise require for those double counted units.

So specifically in Wilburton, for example, a developer would restrict 10% of their units at 80% AMI to meet the baseline mandatory requirements.

Then if they wanted to use MFTE on top of that, under the existing rules, they would add an additional 10% of units at 65% AMI for 12 years.

Now with the supercharger, those additional 10% of units can remain at 80% AMI.

And in either case, after the end of those 12 years, those extra MFTE specific units revert to market rate.

As a reminder, there's a few different compliance options for on-site mandatory housing.

Of course, uh 10% at 80% AMI is one option.

Developers can also choose to restrict 7% at 60% AMI or 5% at 50% AMI.

So the supercharger really pairs well with that 80% AMI option that you see on the left-hand side.

What we're introducing here are new eight-year programs where in exchange for slightly higher number of units affordable at 60 and 50% AMI for the life of the project than a property could receive this eight-year tax exemption.

And that is another option that developers will have in addition to the supercharger, but is really meant to help incentivize some of these other mandatory performance options.

Okay, uh the 20-year home ownership program.

This would provide a 20-year tax exemption in exchange for permanently affordable home ownership units.

This specific program is really geared towards our nonprofit home builders, such as Habitat for Humanity.

We'll be explicitly allowing for conversion projects to use MFTE in addition to new construction, so just expanding the types of projects that can benefit from MFTE.

And we'll also be making some changes again to the code language to make sure that affordable units created under MFTE are subject to the same requirements and operate under the same definitions as the land use code.

So those were all recommendations that we've brought forth before, and now get into some of the new recommendations, starting with this eight-year program option that'll be paired with future inclusionary zoning.

So this is really in response to some requests that we've heard from stakeholders for the Wilburton 12 year supercharger to be applied automatically across the city wherever there's a new future inclusionary zoning requirement.

So we're not recommending that at this time, but we are very supported, supportive of an expanded eight-year program as it does meet those lower AMI needs and provides affordable units for the entire life of the project.

So it's very similar to the eight-year program that we've designed in Wilburton.

You'll notice that the set asides here are a bit higher, and the reason for that is that in Wilburton, the eight-year option is calibrated to be competitive or an alternative to the supercharger.

Since the 12-year supercharger won't be available automatically in these new areas, we've calibrated it a bit differently.

Currently for under MFTE, we we don't require reserved parking spots for MFTE tenants, but we do uh what we do is if a renter, if an MFTE renter does choose uh to uh rent a parking spot, they are entitled to a 30% discount.

Right now, there's an exemption for downtown projects, and we are recommending uh that we expand this exemption to all projects within half a mile of frequent transit.

Um, this would be an extra incentive to use MFTE, lowers the ongoing costs of using it, so uh helping incentivize MFTE in those TOD areas.

Um we recognize that you know the parking discount may incentivize MFTE renters to uh drive cars where other transit options are available.

So this is also consistent with those efforts to uh increase transit usage.

Okay, uh lastly, again, uh this is more of an administrative change.

Uh, we'll be adjusting the timing of our uh application process just so that it's more aligned uh with the land use timing.

So just making sure that instead of having two separate sets of documents and timelines, that it's kind of one consolidated process.

Uh overall, you know, we believe that this uh this package of recommendations uh represents uh a balance uh between some of the different things we've been hearing from stakeholders.

Um I'll dive into some of the key themes that we've been hearing through our engagement process between market rate and affordable housing developers alike.

Uh one it is a challenging uh multifamily development environment, regardless of MFTE interest rates remain elevated and construction costs are up there as well.

Um, those are things we don't have control over, but MFTE is one uh tool that the city has to kind of help projects pencil.

Uh so we have heard a desire specifically to again link MFTE with any potential future uh mandatory inclusionary zoning so that it can be kind of another cost offset in addition to some of the incentives provided uh under the land use code.

Um this uh may help encourage housing development in these areas.

Uh and we've continued to hear uh interest in uh these two specific items, the citywide supercharger as well as the 12 year extension for existing MFTE projects.

So specifically in response to that request to kind of link MFTE to potential mandatory affordability requirements, we are committed to going forward evaluating MFTE alongside these land use code amendments.

So development services already does their own analysis when it comes to kind of finding this balance of incentives and requirements.

So what we're going to do is kind of layer in our analysis for MFTE on top of that.

And if we find that changes are warranted, then we'll go ahead and present those changes at the same time the LUCA is presented to the council along with the strike through draft of that change.

And if we find that changes are not recommended, then the agenda materials will include that analysis and our recommendation there.

So the goal really is to have these kind of two areas of incentives move in tandem rather than kind of one after another, which was the case for Wilburton.

And this analysis is already in progress for HOMA and for Bell Red.

Again, we believe that this package of recommendations really strikes a balance of stakeholder priorities.

And then we're already to come back to you all in by 2029 specifically to adopt some recent changes from the last legislative session, but that'll also be an opportunity for us to look at the changes that we make as part of this update, see how it's going, and see if any uh changes should be made there.

Now I'll dive into those two specific items that we are not recommending at this time, but that stakeholders have been focused on, and that's the citywide supercharger and the 12-year extension.

So starting with the 12-year citywide 12-year supercharger, again, what that would do is just extend uh the same Wilburton supercharger program automatically wherever mandatory affordability is expanded.

So we've continued to look at this change, uh, evaluate its impact in terms of affordable housing, development feasibility, and the fiscal impacts.

And our recommendation is consistent uh with what we uh mentioned at the previous study session, which is that we do not recommend adopting a citywide 12-year supercharger at this time.

Uh, in terms of our affordable housing production goals, uh a citywide supercharger would uh really concentrate production uh of the 80% AMI units uh for reference, that's about 88,000 for uh one person, about 100,000 for a household of two.

Um 80% AMI units are really important in terms of our overall uh affordable housing supply, uh, but we do know that 80% AMI is about currently market rate, especially for the uh smaller unit types.

Um, and we we already know we have a really robust pipeline of 80% AMI units.

Uh, meanwhile, uh we also know that MFTE households earn on average 56% of AMI.

So there is a need for those deeper affordability levels.

Uh, in terms of housing production more generally, MFTE is a really powerful tool and a citywide supercharger could definitely uh increase the value of that incentive.

Uh as Bianca mentioned, it is one tool uh among many factors and and levers affecting development.

Uh it's a tool that we use to encourage development, but is also meant to provide that affordable housing.

Uh, we find that the existing uh MFTE program continues to do well in balancing those two goals.

But we also recognize that the Wilburton Supercharger is this further unique incentive to really spur development in this new brand new neighborhood.

Also, the supercharger concept only applies alongside mandatory affordability, which is currently limited to Wilburton.

So as new neighborhoods look at mandatory affordability, that might look different from what's in Wilburton or come with different additional changes alongside that requirement.

So we want to make sure we're kind of looking at this at a case by case basis and really make sure that the program changes match up with some of the other land use changes.

So when considering the citywide supercharger, again, going back to our key policy considerations, it wouldn't necessarily meet those lower AMI targets where the need is greatest.

So definitely worth examining in different contexts as these LUCAs come across in different neighborhoods are looking at mandatory inclusionary zoning.

And then we also know that there are program costs that come with uh MFTE.

We know that the citywide supercharger provides somewhat of a limited benefit to MFTE renters compared to the existing program, and we'll uh increase those uh public costs over time.

Um for those reasons uh we are not recommending uh expanding the Wilburton supercharger citywide at this time.

We've also heard uh uh some desire for a 12-year extension to be adopted now that would allow for property to receive up to 24 years of the MFTE uh tax exemption.

Uh I'll note that uh our first uh expiration isn't until December of 2031.

Uh so we do have a bit of time on this item.

Um, our recommendation here uh is uh continues to be to uh not adopt the 12-year extension at this time.

Uh and looking at our policy considerations uh in terms of our affordable housing goals, uh, the extension could definitely be a powerful uh affordable housing preservation tool, but it really depends on how that extension program is designed, which is something that we feel is better done once we're closer to that first expiration and have some more concrete data on hand.

Uh it's not creating new housing units, so not directly uh contributing to new housing production, uh, and it does come with some pretty significant uh public costs uh, which we'll turn to now.

Uh so we have worked uh with uh finance and asset management to project the fiscal impacts of MFTE over time.

So this graph here is showing uh how MFTE is expected to increase the property taxes for the median Bellevue homeowner over time.

Uh this projection you'll see goes all the way out to 2050.

Um a lot can happen between now and then.

So this is using our best assumptions right now based on uh King County assessor data and as well as our own uh historical trends.

Um this uh will certainly change over time.

Uh so this is something that we're going to continue to revisit as we get more information.

Uh so the orange line here is kind of our uh base case uh for the future, assuming that MFTE participation uh continues uh in line with what we've seen over the recent years.

This takes into account the pipeline of projects that we uh know about today.

Uh so you can see, for example, uh this year in 2026, we expect an annual tax shift of about 25 dollars.

And by 2050, we'll see that this will grow to 255.

Uh now on this slide, we're layering in the citywide supercharger, which is shown in blue.

Uh, with the citywide supercharger, we expect participation in the MFTE program to increase, resulting in additional uh shifted taxes.

Uh so by 2050, we estimate uh a 20% uh greater tax shift compared to uh the baseline in orange.

Of course, there's also the foregone tax component, uh, and we're estimating about 2 million in uh lost annual property tax revenue for the city uh in 2050 as a result.

Uh and lastly, here's uh the 12-year extension.

Again, the orange line is our base case.

Uh now with properties doubling the length of that extension uh of that exemption, we see a pretty significant increase uh in shifted taxes, up 70% by 2050 uh compared to our baseline, uh, and about 3.4 million in foregone taxes.

Um these fiscal impacts, you know, there's something that uh we want to be considering now, uh, even though we might not see the direct impact uh over the next five years over time.

Uh this effect definitely uh grows and is part of the reason why we kind of want to be measured uh in introducing these new program elements.

Uh okay.

Uh lastly, we'll touch on the key strike draft uh elements and next steps.

Uh so to quickly summarize our recommendations tonight, uh we have the Wilburton uh 12-year supercharger and new eight-year programs.

Uh we have the new 20-year homeownership program and an expansion of MFTE for conversion projects.

Uh we have uh that new uh eight-year program that'll be paired automatically with future inclusionary zoning.

Uh and uh we have the new TOD parking exemption.

Uh and lastly, we have uh these process improvements to uh better align MFTE with the land use code.

Uh and then on the right hand side, uh, what we're not recommending at this time again uh is that automatic citywide supercharger and the 12-year extension.

Uh this is just another way to organize those recommendations, kind of looking at it by uh geographic area.

Uh so starting on the left hand, citywide, we'll have the existing 12-year program that's not changing.

Uh we'll have the new 20-year homeownership program, and uh now we'll be able uh to have conversion projects use MFTE.

Uh and then moving on to Wilburton, we have these new Wilburton specific programs, including uh the Wilburton Supercharger and those new that new eight-year program.

Uh and then now on the right-hand side, looking at any potential future inclusionary zones uh to start, they will have the existing 12-year program, so they'll be able to use that.

Uh, and they'll have this uh new eight-year program that we've designed for areas outside of Wilburton.

Um, so just to end on our uh policy considerations again.

You know, we believe that this update uh contributes to our affordable housing goals.

We have uh these new eight-year programs that are really trying to incentivize some of the lower AMI levels.

Uh, we're introducing uh uh a 20-year home ownership program uh to incentivize uh not only rental housing but home ownership.

Um and then we're also making changes uh that improve development feasibility, uh of course, the the new Wilburton supercharger as well as uh expanding the types of projects that can use MFTE.

Uh we're reducing certain parking requirements and uh just improving overall program administration.

Um we've been uh mindful of the cost of the program, so really trying to limit some of the adverse fiscal impacts that we might see down the line and making sure we're really balancing the benefits between uh both renters and developers.

So for our our next steps uh following uh code adoption based on council direction tonight.

Uh we'll uh continue to stay close to the upcoming uh LUCAs and evaluate MFTE hand in hand.

And again, we'll be back by 2029 at the latest uh to assess these changes and recommend uh any further improvements.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, uh Bianca Robin.

Thank you so much and the whole team for amazing work.

Thank you, the consultant as well.

The amount of work listening, collaboration you guys have done is completely shown in the work in your presentation.

Also, all of the material that is online.

Uh before I open it up to my council colleagues, I also want to thank our partners, stakeholders, uh East Site Housing Roundtable, uh EHR and PLOSH, HDC, and other partners who helped inform this work and get us to uh this point.

Uh Councilmember Breyer.

Is it because I'm concise all the time?

That's exactly thank you folks for the thorough presentation.

Um I wanted to say, you know, it is absolutely imperative that we see the most amount of supply created the quickest.

Um I do believe that the policies we pass have to enable housing production the same day it is passed now.

I understand that that's an incredibly ambitious statement, but it is something that I think we have to comport ourselves towards, especially in the midst of a housing crisis.

Um I want to quickly bring light to the work conducted to minimize the gap between the processes and propping up one consolidated process.

I think this is great.

These efficiency gains will help everyone across the entire vertical of housing.

Um removing the discount for MFTE renters near transit centers, I think makes sense because it lowers the ongoing cost of development, but also enables the the walkability and human centered design.

I understand that was a huge trade-off for some of our stakeholders, but I do think it is logically consistent with some of our other uh policies.

Um and then on slide 30, I wanted to call out I appreciate the fiscal responsibility and limiting adverse fiscal impacts so that we build affordable housing without really heavily burdening our middle class residents, families, teachers, renters, and so on.

So I uh that is the only feedback that I have.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

You are going to be number one if you continue like this concise.

Uh Councilmember Robinson.

Um thank you.

Um really appreciate the work.

Sorry.

Really appreciate the work that you staff have done on this.

This is very complex topic, and we have a lot of new council members who are totally up to speed tonight because of all the work that you've done.

So thank you.

Appreciate the stakeholders' input as well.

Um, and that you were able to work with them.

Um let's see the new TOD parking exemption within half a mile of frequent transit.

Can we pair that with a qualitative analysis for the same reason that we talked about in the other study session?

Just because I don't think that works with every topographical area that we have.

So kind of looking at can we increase bus service in those areas?

Can we work with our partners, our transit partners, and is it actually feasible for people to be walking there, or is it really hilly?

So some areas are much more conducive to that than others.

So I wonder if we can pair that a little bit.

Um I really like this eight-year program.

I think it's great.

I'd like to trigger it automatically.

So if we if we intend to vote in mandatory inclusionary housing in another area that this just triggers it, so that we can speed it up.

Um I love the 20-year home ownership program.

I think that's great.

Um yes, to the covenant contract with the MFTE.

Um, you know, what's really interesting is you show loss and property tax projection using the recommended MFTE for the city.

And it kind of pairs with the rental assistance that we're giving through human services.

So it would be really interesting to track that and see if the more affordable housing we put in, the less we have to put out in rental assistance.

And that is it.

Thank you.

Are you looking for response for some of your questions?

Not really.

Not really, just recommendation.

I think well, the only question I had really was um pairing the analysis with the um TOD parking exemption within half a mile, and just asking if that's possible.

Yeah, the um just to clarify the uh TOD parking exemption is just on the discounted parking rate.

It doesn't change the parking requirements at all.

But um, we can we can take a look at that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Samadovirio.

I think you can like my statement.

So I really thank you so much for this statement.

And then one thing to call out.

I just really I appreciate our added flexibility, but I'm really looking forward to the future opportunity, the change, and then because of the data.

Um, and then something to call out that 15 minutes presentation usually takes many, many hours a month of your work.

So I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Wow.

Uh Councilman New Enough.

No pressure.

Um thank you so much for the presentation.

Um, as my colleagues have expressed already, very you know, carefully, thoughtfully, data-driven approach.

Really really appreciate that.

I really appreciate how open both you uh Bianca and Robin have been to all the feedback that that you've received.

Um I we're we're we're so blessed to have organizations like Eastide Housing Roundtable and the plush community, etc.

I mean, uh the the way that they can um come together and bring that unified voice that really reflects you know a lot of ranges of perspectives.

Um, but really focused on the same goal um of creating more affordable housing, more market rate housing in general, but you know, a partnership that really kind of goes beyond you know their view of ideology, but really focuses on what pencils and creates more inventory.

So I I just so appreciate that.

And um I think we're uh blessed as a community to have organizations like that that are giving us such valuable uh feedback.

Um I have the same concern as um uh councilmember Robinson.

So I would would like to see that analysis a little bit more too, if you could follow up with me on that as well, uh, regarding that 3% discount um with that half mile uh within that uh half mile frequent uh transit.

Um the um let's see.

If the council, I think um, and it goes to uh prior comment about um getting this great feedback from um the actual uh folks who are actually going to be building it.

Um, you know, let's really continue to uh focus on clarity and going forward, I think.

Um and I believe this was in the letter too, um, was that MFT updates need to come forward concurrently with rezones so that incentives and requirements are aligned from the start.

I think the the more clarity that developers have right at the get-go at that moment that they make those investment decisions, um, the better off we all are.

Um I want to get to um uh love the staff recommendations.

The the not recommended at this time, just want to dive into that just for a quick second.

So um, as you showed here on slide number nine, so no citywide supercharger nor the 12-year extension.

So not at this time.

When is a good time?

Was it 2029 that you mentioned?

Um, do you can you give me some some thought?

And if it is 2029, why 2029?

Will we not have enough data in a year or two but um to look at and see is this working?

Is it the way we're working that we want it to work?

Do we need to make some adjustments?

What's what's your thought on that?

Yeah, I would say for the 12-year extension, it's helpful to have more time to be closer to that first set of expirations, just because then we can kind of gauge how the market's doing and and make sure that our work is.

That's 2031, so 2029.

I think uh by 2029, we're going to have to come back with some uh uh new changes to MFTE as required by by the state.

So that'll be another opportunity.

Again, we're going to be kind of continuously assessing how the program's doing, um, but that'll be I think a good time uh to see what data we have on hand and uh and and look towards uh 2031.

Um for the citywide supercharger, um that is going to happen uh or the the analysis that we're going to do on that is going to happen happen sooner rather than later.

Um again in line with uh the upcoming Lucas.

So we're going to compare that analysis and make recommendations at the same time those come forward.

Okay.

And then one last question on slide, I think it was slide seven.

Um I could be wrong though.

About the 56%.

56% of let's see, of the MFTE, was that right?

What was the 50% 56% number coming from?

That's the um average AMI.

Yeah, the average AMI.

Thank you.

How are how are we getting to that number?

Uh that is uh data that Arch help uh helps us collect annually.

Uh there's a required annual report from properties where they collect uh all that information.

From applications that our Arch receives and how often do they look at that data?

Yeah, it's uh current tenants current in place, yeah.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Borgaba.

Okay.

Uh I also want to start by just saying kudos to you.

I mean, this is remarkable work.

Very complex.

The more you look at what you put together, the more intricate it gets, and uh the more nuanced the the analysis.

So uh really great job for you and to the entire team, as well as you know, great input from the stakeholders.

Uh, it's been said before, but it just has to be underlined because it is a labor of love to get this to where we are right now.

So thank you.

Uh I'll be quick on the first few things.

I fully support the supercharger for Wilburton.

I also uh continue to be supportive for the 20-year uh homeownership and the MFT conversion projects, which I think is a really good thing.

I'm also I was debating, I was also unsupportive of the 30% uh discount, uh, although I know it can feel hard thing to residents who are actually taking advantage of the discount right now in the short term, but I think um if you think about it more long term, it does incentivize transit use and puts the right framework in place for that.

And so it's a hard call, not easy, but I think uh generally supportive of that.

Uh and also of the the change you've made for the MFT land use contract process, um, uh, given especially the director's flexibility that you built into that.

So those are great.

Um three things that I have some questions on.

The first is the eight-year citywide program.

Um I know we're going to 60% and even 50% AMI here.

And um, and I said this in my briefing as well.

Uh if I understand this correctly, these are equal to in terms of the returns for the other programs at 80% AMI.

Would that be how you framed it and calibrated this?

Yeah, I would say it's designed to be complementary.

Um obviously every developer is going to have a different kind of approach.

Um we've tried to make it equal.

I think you know, the idea with the eight-year program was to incentivize the 50 and 60 percent uh AMI options under uh the mandatory requirements so that it's not just the 80% AMI gets the supercharger, but that there's kind of something equal uh as an incentive for for the other kind of compliance uh requirements.

Yeah, so I only have two points on that.

One is, and I've said this to you before, so it's not new to you, but I it would be great to consider a higher degree of incentive, maybe a lower percentage of units for the deeper AMI, so that there's a chance for that to be built in performance-based housing, which I think is going to be very difficult to achieve otherwise.

And the second thing is have you got feedback from the development community on the feasibility of the 50 and 60 percent as laid out and is it resonating?

Yeah, yeah, I I think with again um what I've heard from developers is you know, some like 80% AMI, they don't want to go below that when using MFTE.

Um, others are kind of more focused on you know what the burden is of using MFT with a lower set aside of units, you know, it's less ongoing work uh in terms of kind of doing the paperwork and screening residents and and all of that.

So I think um what I've heard from developers it's that it's welcome to have this kind of set of options that they can use and um you know, as market conditions change, um as they look at different projects, they can kind of uh have a menu of options to look at and and consider what works best for them then.

Okay, that's fair.

I still feel like uh sweetening the pot on the other side for the deeper AMI might be something to consider.

Um definitely feel like that'll create a more higher chance of us getting something.

Uh very quickly on this one again.

Do you we have good analogs where mixed income with 50%, 40% have been delivered successfully in other cities at scale.

Have you looked at that?

I haven't looked into that locally, but that's a good question, and we can dig into that.

Okay, I'm just curious if you have good examples where someone developers have come in and built these mixed income.

I'm calling them mixed income, just a wider spread of AMI uh is all like maybe that's a better way to frame it.

So and then uh to the other two things that you're not recommending very quickly.

Um on the MFT extension, I do appreciate that you're saying you'll come back.

Um when, you know, in 2031, when you look at this, I do believe that there is value.

I'm supportive of the extension, and I'm not fully convinced with the analysis that you presented in the package and today as well, that the cost shift is I mean, I'm this is a judgment call, really.

I mean, I'm this is a judgment call, really.

But um, I feel like if you have affordable units in play today, where people are actually in those units, for us to then come back in a few years and say now these are no longer affordable, it will create a larger challenge for us and affordability for the city, and something that I'm I feel like we should really consider that.

And so you'll have more data by 2031.

I'm really encouraged by the openness to the idea of an extension.

Um, but I I feel like there has to be more analysis here that gives us convincing rationale that that removing currently affordable units is the right answer for Bellevue in an environment where creating affordable units is so challenging already.

So that's something that I want to sort of state.

Um and then on the supercharger as well, uh, I feel like there are um opportunities, and I think you acknowledge that, and especially in places like Bell Red, where the urban characteristics are very similar to Vilburton, where I don't think the land economics play out very differently.

And so when we do uh those, I think we should put all of the options, including the supercharger on the table, and see if we can get uh the right solution there because uh if anything that I've really felt good about is Wilburton uh is the process of getting the wide stakeholder alignment and the resonance on the policy framework that we put together, and so we should try to leverage that for uh you know expansion to other parts of the city.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh Deputy Mayor.

Oh boy.

I may be a relegated to going last for uh the foreseeable future, but I will try to get through this as quickly as I can.

Uh thank you for the presentation.

Thank you for all the great work you have done here, uh, the leadership you have demonstrated in bringing a wide range of stakeholders together, and the final recommendation that has been produced is noteworthy.

Of course, all of you under the leadership of our city manager are critical to the success of everything we do in Bellevue, and that is all the more apparent with this MFTE update work you have presented to us tonight.

I also want to express my deep gratitude for the work that our critically important partner, the Eastside Housing Roundtable, EHR, has done to help make this update a valuable tool for nonprofit and market rate housing developers.

Considering that they are the ones that build our housing, their input is invaluable.

I also appreciate all of the effort that my council colleagues have put into supporting and informing the MFTE update.

We are all we all clearly recognize that our community is suffering from the lack of available housing and the high cost of the housing they are able to find.

And I also think we all share a sense of urgency to act.

We need to produce housing options that serve our entire community, and we have produced far less than is needed.

Of course, there's a lot more work to do.

This update is a critical boost for housing projects that need help getting started earlier in this development cycle.

Uh, like EHR and my colleagues, I support the staff's recommendations that are listed on slide nine and here on slide 34.

Um just a quick question, if we could look at slide 30 for a second.

We have a lot of talk about tax shift, and I just want to be sure that I'm clear that what we're really looking at here is that less than a dollar a month on average is going to be the tax shift from MFTE.

Is that right?

Um 960 per year between now and 2050.

That's uh the annual uh increase per household per that's like the average rate of increase.

$9.60 a year.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So well, I think the tax shift is something uh that we owe it to all of our community members to take a look at.

I think it's important that we keep it in uh proper context.

The supercharger in Wilburton and likely anywhere in the city, we have mandatory affordability makes a lot of sense to me.

I'm looking forward to future discussions about the possible effectiveness of a supercharger in other neighborhoods.

Also looking forward to further discussions on the potential benefits of a 12-year extension.

Um thank you for you also provided some additional information regarding the three bedroom units, and I think that the current 15% uh requirement is sufficient.

Um the strike through draft in the packet captures all the good work that staff or stakeholders and this council want to accomplish with this update.

I support moving forward with directing staff to finalize the MFTE code update.

Again, thanks to everyone who's participated in this tremendous amount of work ready to move forward.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I think all of my council colleagues mention all of the good stuff.

I just have a two kind of question comment.

One is we talk a lot about feasibility, and that that's great.

But the real success would be the outcomes.

Do we have any rough modeling or estimate that based on each option?

How many units are we forecasting to be produced?

Yeah, that's kind of we have a we do have a forecast.

It's presented as part of this tax shift analysis.

Um but we can also parse that out for you.

That would be awesome.

I think that gives us a lot of uh idea what each option, how many units is going to produce, and then because we have a goal as this council, and how far are we if again is going to be a forecast, and I know it's a rough estimate.

The other question comment is would be kind of early metrics that you guys recommend to track that we can as a council revisit in a cadence, then adjust each program if we are seeing that the intended goal that is producing affordable housing, that outcome is not coming to fruition.

Yeah, I think there's a few metrics that we want you you all to be aware of.

Um we've tried to get at is the rent savings at each property uh from using MFTE, and that's a bit harder to keep track of because we have to get all of that data from from each property.

Um that, but that's something that Arch helps us with.

Um, so getting that every year could really help paint the picture of you know how much rent savings are we getting versus how much property taxes are we exempted.

Um and then kind of more broadly, I would say uh definitely want to keep track of the participation rate for MFTE, and especially now that we have all these new options.

Um as council member Bargava was saying, we want to be mindful of what is being used, what's not being used, if we want to encourage uh one specific program, uh, what changes can we make to uh to uh make those uh a bit more attractive.

Great.

If you can again we can have a very comprehensive metrics that can help us to revisit each topic after introducing those some of these options to see the efficacy of them uh would be great because we wanted to be iterative and see if we can change, modify, update, or stop something that maybe is not working.

Thank you so much.

And uh we need a motion.

I move to direct staff to finalize the MFTE code update for final action at a future meeting.

Second.

It has been moved and seconded.

Any discussion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

City manager, we have a land use reports.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is a quasi-judicial item on a site-specific rezone.

And given that this is a different type of process for the council, I'm gonna turn it over to our city clerk Charmaine Erdondo to provide the background to walk the council through the process, and then um Charmaine will be joined in the presentation of the details here by our city attorney Trisna Tanis.

Um Land Use Director Tony Pratt, and the senior planner Wayland Barton from development services.

So with that, I will hand it over to Charmaine.

Thank you, City Manager and Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

We're happy to be here this evening.

So we are here to officially present the administrative record and recommendation of the hearing examiner on a site-specific reason.

This is on for um initial consideration.

This is a quasi-judicial process.

And tonight's session is specifically dealing with an application for a site-specific reason for a piece of property at 999 118th Avenue Southeast.

Um I'll go over a bit of the agenda that we'll talk about this evening.

So we'll go over a quasi-judicial process here briefly.

Um we will talk about ex-party communications and any disclosures that the council may have.

We'll discuss the council's role in this case and the decision criteria that you must base your decision upon.

We will turn it to development services to go over a brief staff report that was delivered to the hearing examiner, and then ultimately we'll end with the hearing examiner's recommendation.

So with that, I'll start by discussing a little bit of the quasi-judicial process.

This is a very different process than what is typically in front of the council.

So usually the council is sitting in a legislative or policy making role.

However, in this case, in quasi judicial matters, the council acts similarly to a judge or jury in the and in that role, you're applying the existing laws and policies, and in this case to a specific piece of property rather than the community at large.

So additionally, you must make your decision based upon established criteria rather than on policy preferences.

And the appearance of fairness doctrine does apply, which is a doctrine legal standard that applies to quasijudicial land use decisions, and the city attorney will go over a little bit more of that in detail here in a second.

Finally, on this slide, just a reminder that back in 2022, the council did remove themselves from most quasi judicial processes where there was availability to do so.

However, state law does still require that for process threes, which are the site-specific reasons, that city council is the final decision maker, which is why this is in front of you this evening.

Really briefly, won't spend too much time here, but site-specific reasons do you have a very specific process that is set out in the code?

So there is a notice of application and a minimum comment period is enacted.

There is a public meeting, the development services holds.

The development services director does make a recommendation to the city's hearing examiner.

That examiner does hold a public hearing and then ultimately makes a recommendation to the city council.

So at this point, I'll turn it to the city attorney to go through some of the ex-party communications.

Thank you, Charmaine.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor, Council members.

As Charmaine mentioned earlier, the ignorance of fairness rules apply.

Because council is sitting in a quasi-judicial capacity or acting like a judge.

This means that the proceedings must be fair and unbiased.

And in order to comply with these rules, council cannot engage in communications that are outside of this proceedings.

So communication with one side or the other of the subject proposal.

These communications are often called ex-party communications.

If a council member has had ex-party communication, the way to mitigate this is to disclose that communication on the record and then allow the parties on both sides to be able to rebut the substance of that communication.

To help meet this obligation, city staff has completed a search of city emails for you all, and nothing has been found about this proposal.

But because communication could happen outside of city emails.

This I wanted to pause here and ask on the record if any of you have had ex-party communication.

If so, please disclose the communication at this time.

Hearing and seeing none, I'll move on.

So next slide.

Council's role here is to consider and take action on this rezone application.

Tonight is the first part where you are in taking information about the subject proposal.

The second part would be to take that final action, which will occur at a future meeting.

There are really specific requirements for the process that you have to follow.

First, council cannot accept any new information.

So no new evidence, nothing and no solicitation of anything that is outside of the record.

And second, council must consider the complete record in front of the hearing examiner as well as the hearing examiner recommendation.

And then lastly, as mentioned earlier, unlike most of the items that come in front of you, this application and the decision that you're making is based on the decision criteria that is in the code.

It is not a policy decision, but instead a defined set of criteria.

This criteria is, as I said, in the land use code.

And in order for you to approve or approve the application with modifications, these five criteria must be met.

We'll spend a little bit more time on this at your next meeting, but wanted to be able to put this up so you can see the kinds of things that the facts should be weighed against in terms of your decision making.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Tony and Wayland to uh go through the staff report.

Good evening, Mayor and Deputy Mayor and Council.

My name is Tony Pratt, and I'm the land use director in development services, and I'm here tonight with Weyland.

And we are going to be talking about SRM's rezone.

They are going to be rezoning 4.55 acres on 118th Avenue Southeast from office limited business to neighborhood mixed use.

So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Whalen.

Thank you, Tony.

And good evening, uh Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of council.

Sony mentioned uh my name is Wayland, senior planner with the city's development services department uh and the project coordinator for the SRM rezone, permit number 22-118369LQ.

I'm gonna run through a presentation uh that was conducted uh in front of the hearing examiner back uh on November 3rd of last year.

Uh, to start with the project request, it is a rezone of an existing four and a half acre site.

Uh, you can see there on the graphic, located off 118th Avenue Southeast.

And this request is to go from the existing OLB Office Limited Business Zoning to Neighborhood Mixed Use NMU zoning.

For some more uh context uh behind the site, uh 405 there to the east, Mercer SLU Southwest and to the north.

Uh, there's adjacent commercial as well as the Wilberton Park and Ride, just there above Southeast Eighth.

As we zoom into the site, we see that it currently consists of a 135 unit apartment complex referred to as the Nuovo Apartments, and that's that western building on that upper graphic, uh, and a partially built hotel on the eastern side, uh, both of those labeled there on the top graphic.

Uh surrounding uses uh are primarily office light industry, and as mentioned, Mercer SLU 405 also bounds the site.

To provide some zoning context on that upper graphic, we see uh the subject site.

Existing zoning is at OLB office limited business surrounding uses, mostly uh comprised of general office and commercial uses.

The proposed zoning is NMU, neighborhood mixed use, uh, which is mostly comprised of uh a mixed use commercial uses uh and more residential density.

The comprehensive plan designation is consistent uh with the mid-rise mixed use, as you see in that lower graphic, uh which supports residential density.

Um, one thing to note that this uh site-specific rezone is uh not triggering any comp plan amendment.

Uh, this is consistent with the existing future land use map, which again is at lower graphic.

To touch upon the rezone process a little bit more, it is a process three quasi judicial city council decision.

Uh a little bit of the history with this uh application.

Uh, first land use director did recommend approval to the hearing examiner.

Uh, that uh was proceeded by an open house meeting uh uh which was conducted initially November 7th of 2022, uh, and subsequently again on February 5th, 2025.

There was no uh attendance from the public or comments submitted for either of those public meeting uh open houses.

The rezone notice was published on October 8th of 2025.

And again, no comments received from the public uh regarding that notice that was issued back in October.

Uh secondly, was the hearing examiner uh public hearing, uh which uh was a recommendation of approval to city council as and as mentioned as at the beginning that that public hearing for the hearing examiner occurred November 3rd, uh just last year, 2025.

Uh that concludes staff's presentation.

I'll hand it back over to uh Charmaine.

Thank you.

Thank you.

City Clerk's office does oversee the hearing examiner function for the city.

So I am going to be presenting the recommendation to you this evening on behalf of the hearing examiner.

So the assigned examiner in this case has entered findings of acting conclusions of law and is recommending approval of this rezone application.

And of note, I want to mention that the hearing examiner concluded that the record did include far more than a preponderance of evidence establishing that this rezone application did satisfy all of the applicable established criteria.

Um and then in our final slide here, uh just a reminder that this is initial consideration this evening.

The first touch on this item.

The first touch on this item, the second touch will be at your next meeting on January 27th.

The administrative record and hearing examiner recommendation has now officially been delivered to you.

You have time over the next two weeks to continue reviewing the administrative record so that you are prepared to take action at your January 27th meeting.

So uh the city attorney and I are both here tonight.

If you have any process related questions that we can respond to, development services staff are certainly here to answer any specific questions, but I do want to remind you that as we've mentioned tonight, your questions should be limited to just clarifying questions on information that is contained within the administrative record.

So, with that, Mayor, I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for presentation, thank you for presentation.

Uh as we have heard, this is coming back to us in two weeks, January 27th for final action.

So if you have any question about the process, we have limitations or question about clarifying question about everything.

Please let me know.

Raise your hand.

There is no question.

So we will see this matter back on our agenda on January 27th for final action.

Thank you again.

We have a written reports that I recommend everyone should go and read for information.

Uh again, thank you for joining us.

Given the holiday next week, we are canceling our January 20th meeting.

And our next meeting will be on January 27th, and we are adjourned.

Thank you so much.