Good evening, everyone.

I'm gonna call the July 14th, 2026 meeting of the Bellevue City Council to order.

Uh good evening, everyone, and welcome.

We appreciate you all being here and participating in the important work of our city.

Uh additionally, I want to note that Mayor Malacoutian is not with us the eve this evening, and I would appreciate a motion to excuse him.

Excuse Mayor Malacutian.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, the motion carries.

All right.

We will uh go on now to uh the roll call, please.

Mayor Malacutian Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Here.

Councilmember Bargova.

Here.

Councilmember Breyer.

Here.

Councilmember Newman House.

Here.

Councilmember Robinson.

Here.

And Councilmember Sumataria.

Great.

Councilmember Breyer, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

With pleasure.

Please stand if you're able.

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

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay.

We have three proclamations tonight, and we are going to start off with the Disability Pride Month proclamation, and we'll invite Melissa Del Rio to come to the table.

And Councilmember Robinson will read the proclamation.

Councilmember Robinson's not seeing really crate today, so forgive me if I struggle on this, but I think I can do it.

Sorry.

Signed into law on July 26, 1990 as Lark Civil Rights Legislation that prohibits discrimination based on disability.

And we honor the disability advocates and activists whose leadership made the ADA possible, establishing a clear national commitment to equal opportunity, accessibility, and inclusion for people with disabilities.

And we recognize the many contributions of people with disabilities in every aspect of community.

Oops, community life, and remain committed to ensuring Bellevue's programs, services, activities, and facilities are accessible and welcoming to all.

And people with disabilities continue to build vibrant communities and culture while too many still experience barriers to health, employment, housing, transportation, and social connection.

And the City of Bellevue partners with organizations, advocates, and community members to advance the promise of the ADA through inclusive planning, meaningful community engagement, and equitable access to public services.

And whereas Bellevue proudly recognizes the disability pride flag designed by Ann McGill as a symbol of resilience, visible visibility, inclusion, and unity within the disability community.

Now, therefore, I, Lynn Robinson, what was I say?

On behalf of Mayor Mo Malikutian, and on behalf of the City Council, I do hereby proclaim July 2026 as Disability Pride Month in Bellevue, Washington, and encourage all Bellevue residents to celebrate the achievements and contributions of people with disabilities, honor the ongoing work of disability advocates, and join us in building a community where everyone has the opportunity to participate belong and thrive.

And then Melissa Del Rio.

Okay, great.

Come on now.

Accessibility and accommodations provided under the ADA does not just create access for people with disabilities, but a step towards inclusion.

However, this is more than inclusion and having space at the table figuratively, but sometimes literally speaking.

The ADA is not only a law, but historically about justice for the disability community, so that not only can we live life, we can also have access to thrive and be who we were created to be.

And this stems from love.

Love is more than a feeling, it's an action.

When we implement accessibility into spaces physically and virtually, not only does it create bridges for people instead of barriers, but it's an act of love.

This shows people from the disability community like myself that we are loved and our lives matter.

As an autistic with multiple disabilities, I've personally benefited from the universal design aspects within playgrounds in Bellevue, like the downtown Bellevue Park with the bench swings for stimming and emotional regulation.

Universal design and accessibility are one of my special interests.

I've learned through my research and lived experiences, including my time visiting Highland Community Center, that Bellevue is one of the most accessible and universal design cities in Western Washington.

I love having places like Highland Community Center to visit in Bellevue for taking a break from navigating the neurotypicals world, including speaking breaks and working on my ongoing journey of self-acceptance with disabilities.

It's been an incredible blessing to have places of inclusion and accessibility in Bellevue.

I've even been impressed with the wheelchair charging stations in various locations in Bellevue, like the library.

And I've taken note of that for my friends who are power wheelchair users.

So with that being said, thank you to the City of Bellevue for this proclamation day.

I'm grateful to be here and accept this on behalf of the disability community in Bellevue and those who come from other cities specifically for the disability inclusion programs the city of Bellevue provides.

Thank you for showing the disability community that we matter.

Finally, no matter the city, there's always areas of growth.

This year on July 26th, I recommend the disability pride flag to be flown from City Hall in honor of the ADA anniversary.

Great, thank you.

And if you would uh hang out for a little bit after we get through the proclamations, we would love to do a picture with you.

Great.

Okay, and Meredith Pettit could come up to uh the desk, please, and Councilmember Breyer is going to read the park and recreation month uh proclamation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Whereas park and recreation programs are essential to Bellevue's Sorry, I heard an echo.

So I'll start over.

Whereas park and recreation programs are essential to Bellevue's quality of life, helping create a healthy, connected, and thriving community for people of all ages and backgrounds, and whereas park and recreation opportunities support physical, mental, and emotional well-being by encouraging active lifestyles, reducing stress, and improving overall health.

And whereas Bellevue Parks recreation programs, cultural resources, and community spaces provide opportunities for people of all abilities to connect, learn, play, and fully participate in community life.

And whereas parks and recreation contribute to Bellevue's economic vitality by enhancing property values, attracting and retaining businesses, supporting tourism, and creating safe, vibrant neighborhoods.

And whereas Bellevue's parks and trails and natural areas protect our environment by improving air and water quality, managing stormwater, supporting climate resilience, preserving open space, and providing important habitat for wildlife.

And whereas a city in a park, Bellevue celebrates the vital role parks and recreation play and strengthening neighborhoods, fostering community connections, inspiring stewardship, and enhancing our shared sense of place.

Now, therefore, I, Councilmember Noreen Breyer, on behalf of Mayor Mo Malikoutian and Bellevue, Washington and the City Council do hereby proclaim July 2026 as parks and recreation month in Bellevue, Washington, and encourage all residents to explore, enjoy, and support the many benefits of our parks, trails, natural areas, and recreation programs bring to our community every day.

Thank you.

Very good welcome.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh good evening.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

Thank you for this proclamation.

It's an honor to be here this evening.

And thank you for your continued support of Bellevue's Parks and Community Services Department.

July is Park and Recreation Month.

It's also one of our busiest and most rewarding times of the year.

In Park and Recreation, as thousands of residents and visitors, our closest 70,000 friends, for instance, come and visit us in our parks, our trails, our camps, our beaches, community centers, and all of the special events.

I want to also take this opportunity to mention that during Park and Recreation Month on Friday, July 17th, is also Park and Recreation Professionals Day.

And this is an opportunity to thank all the dedicated employees that serve our community every day in making sure that Bellevue truly is a city in a park.

So I want to encourage all of you, all the community members, city staff, city counselors, uh, to come out and celebrate with us, uh maybe try a new park, a new trail, uh recreation program, uh, or come to one of our many special events that we have throughout the community.

So, on behalf of the department, thank you for this honor and thank you for the record recognition.

Thank you.

If you would uh hang out for a bit, we'd love to get a picture with you.

Okay.

Um, then Judge O'Toole and Craig Fritz, um, if you would come up to the desk, please.

And Councilmember Newenhouse is going to read the pretrial probation and parole supervision week proclamation.

Great, thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Whereas probation services are an essential part of the justice system, enhancing public safety by supervising individuals charged with misdemeanors in Bellevue and providing an alternative to incarceration that enables clients to maintain meaningful connections with their families and communities.

And whereas probation services reduce recidivism by identifying client needs and risk factors and positively influence behavior through role modeling, collaborative problem solving, and targeted programming.

And whereas in 2025, the City of Bellevue's probation division supported thousands of clients through dedicated professionals who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual, offering services, programs, and referrals that promote accountability and personal growth.

And whereas probation professionals build strong worknerships with community organizations to address the underlying causes of criminal behavior and advance community and restorative justice by supporting individuals on their path to rehabilitation while promoting equitable outcomes.

And whereas by incorporating trauma informed practices, probation professionals prioritize empathy, accountability, and strong relationships to help clients achieve lasting positive change.

And whereas probation professionals serve as trusted partners in building a safer, a healthier, and more resilient community.

Now, therefore, I, Councilmember Newenhouse, on behalf of Mo Malikutian, Mayor of Bellevue Washington, and this city council do hereby proclaim July 19th through the 25th as pretrial probation and parole supervision week in Bellevue, Washington, and encourage all residents to recognize the important contributions of probation professionals and the vital role that they play in strengthening public safety, supporting rehabilitation, and serving our community.

All right.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm Judge Lisa O'Toole.

I'm from King County District Court, and I've had the honor of serving as one of Bellevue's judges for more than 10 years now.

And thank you to our Bellevue City Council for recognizing the important work that Bellevue Probation does during National Probation Week in particular.

It's nice to have them honored.

And I want to share with you some insights into Bellevue probation.

We judges at the Bellevue Courthouse thank our lucky stars every day that the City of Bellevue has decided to have its very own probation department.

Having Bellevue probation as part of the courthouse and as part of a city process is very unique.

We're very fortunate to have the probation department right in our courthouse, and it allows us to serve our community in so many ways.

The probation department is immediately available to serve their probationers to assist the court and to promote public safety.

Offering on-site support to people sentenced for a crime allows the probation department to serve these probationers in a way that's incredibly uncommon.

It's unusual to have a probationer leave the courtroom and be able to walk right into the probation department.

And probation offers a myriad of classes that are taught on site and for free to probationers.

That allows defendants to meet their court obligations and to do it without suffering any financial burden.

And the Bellevue probation, having them in the courthouse allows us to immediately ensure public safety as well, and to offer alternatives to incarceration.

If for reasons for public safety or as an alternative to incarceration, a person needs to be placed, for instance, on alcohol monitoring.

The Bellevue Probation Department can do it immediately before the person leaves the building.

The probation team strives to establish positive relationships and rapport with people, establishing trust and strong working relationships with the people they supervise.

They help people on their journey to sobriety, on their journey to stable housing, and on their journey to meaningful employment.

That is a powerful impact that can be truly transformative for people and really change their lives.

And this is the work that is Bellevue Probation's mission.

The Bellevue probation team helps change lives for the better, and it makes our community a better and safer place for all of us.

So thank you to Bellevue Probation.

I'm honored to work with our probation team and thank you to the City Council so much for recognizing the important work that Bellevue Probation performs and the important role they have in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Judge.

Good evening, Deputy Mayor, Council Members.

On behalf of the Bellevue Probation Services Division, thank you again for this proclamation, recognizing pretrial probation and parole supervision week.

Recognizing pretrial probation and parole supervision week.

So I am grateful for your continued support of our work and for recognizing the important role that community supervis supervision professionals play in promoting accountability, reducing recidivism, and strengthening public safety.

Collectively, this year, our staff brings nearly 250 years of experience to this profession.

And coincidental, yes, to what we just celebrated, but more than 250 years of combined experience.

Since our proclamation was issued last year, our division has received more than 1,600 referrals for programs and services, in addition to the hundreds of individuals that were already under our supervision and receiving our support.

Over the past year, we have continued our involvement with community court, helping connect people to resources that address barriers to stability and success.

Helping ensure that language is not a barrier to receiving the support that is needed.

Behind every case number is a person willing and working to overcome challenges, support a family, find stability, and/or make a different choice in their lives.

While much of the work happens outside the spotlight, its impact is felt throughout our community for years to come.

Finally, I am grateful to our staff, our community partners, the courts, and of course, this council for your collaboration and trust.

We are creating opportunities together for change, uh supporting safer communities and helping individuals move forward in positive and productive ways.

So thank you.

Let's get a picture.

Okay, we will now move on to approval of the agenda, please.

The agenda.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

The agenda is approved.

All right.

We will move on now to oral communications.

The city council.

Well, we'll start with the city clerk, please.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

This evening there are five pre-registered speakers for oral oral comms.

Before I start calling names, I will just mention that the council does appreciate members of the public engaging and contributing their perspective and supports everyone's rights to express themselves.

However, comments shared during oral communications are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or values of the council or the city.

So a few of the rules for tonight, the total time for oral communications is for a period of not more than 30 minutes, and all topics must relate to City of Bellevue government.

People speaking to items not on the agenda will be called.

I'm sorry.

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

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

Each speaker will be allowed to speak for up to three minutes, and only a total of three speakers will be allowed to speak to any one side of a particular topic.

Additionally, in compliance with Washington state campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities during elections, no speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure, or support or oppose a candidate for election, and that includes one's own campaign.

People beginning to speak on these topics will be asked to stop.

There is a public hearing on tonight's agenda, which is item number nine A.

If you signed up for oral communications and indicated you are speaking on the interim official control.

We have automatically moved you to the IOC public hearing list.

As a reminder, we cannot hear any comments during oral comms on the public hearing topic.

With that, our first speaker is Patrick Bannon.

Good evening, Deputy Mayor Hamilton, uh, council members.

My name is Patrick Bannon.

I'm president and CEO of the Bellevue Downtown Association.

And here tonight to speak about the business improvement area policies that are part of the study session item tonight.

And while I'm not here to take a specific position on the content of those policies, I want to share my appreciation for the advanced work the city has done to bring clarity for the city's role and overall process in evaluating proposals.

As a strategic initiative of the Bellevue Downtown Association on behalf of our members, we are working with property owners to explore the feasibility of a downtown Bellevue improvement area.

Our outreach to downtown property owners and other stakeholders is active and ongoing, and we're hearing a range of constructive feedback from strong support from some property owners, important questions from property owners, and concerns from property owners.

So the important part is that our outreach continues as we work through the process.

We're listening carefully, testing priorities, and continuing to refine what uh potential boundaries might look like and overall what a proposal could be.

Improvement areas, as we've seen in other communities, can be a powerful and proven way for property owners to invest collectively in the shared environment around their properties.

Downtown Bellevue is in an incredibly competitive position.

This would potentially be an opportunity for property owners to invest in ways that provide supplemental services beyond the city's baseline services, beyond what the BDA is doing on an ongoing basis, and beyond what any individual property owner would do alone.

Our work is intended to determine whether property owners see value in a shared, transparent and accountable approach to strengthening the everyday conditions that shape how people experience downtown and over time influence our vitality, our competitiveness, and long-term performance as we grow.

So there's still considerable work ahead, and no outcome has been predetermined.

It will be up to property owners to decide where and whether there is sufficient support to advance a business improvement area in downtown Bellevue, and then bring a petition to the city and city council for evaluation and potentially moving forward.

I appreciate again the city's support for establishing a clear framework of policies and for this continuing conversation we're having with stakeholders, property owners, city staff, and the city council.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And the speaker is Betsy Hummer.

Built in 1990.

We raised our four children there.

Our house is in the Sunset Ranch neighborhood, which was platted in 1953.

Bellevue College was built on a hundred acres surrounding our home in 1969.

Since the 70s, Sunset Ranch has been on the map of the Bellevue College's master plan for some reason.

The college has been buying homes in Sunset Ranch for several decades.

The college owns 20 of the original 25 properties.

The college owns the properties on either side of my home.

When Lake Hills was annexed by the city of Bellevue in 1969, Sunset Ranch and Bellevue College were zoned residential R5.

I am happy that Bellevue College will finally be rezoned institutional, more befitting, it seems, than of its purpose, than residential.

Sunset Ranch and the adjacent neighborhood Fur Terrace will be rezoned from residential to institutional.

I understand that only properties owned by the college will be rezoned institutional, and the privately owned homes will be residential, grandfathered in, so to speak.

Parking lots, five-story laboratories, eight-story residential halls, assurance of a continuation of the arboretum at the college, expansion of their sustainability programs, meditation parks, wildlife certification designation, would be compatible with our quiet natural neighborhood.

As you make your directions to staff, please keep the neighbors of Sunset Ranch and Fur Terrace, your Bellevue residents and constituents in mind.

Are there any questions, comments, concerns?

I appreciate your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Stephen Frick.

Thank you.

Council members, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Stephen Frickie, and I live here in Bellevue.

Several years ago, I suffered a stroke that left me with significant vision loss, especially deficits on my right side, my lack of use or problems with my right leg and right hand.

Because of these disabilities, I use a class three pedal assist e-bike as one of my mobility devices.

It allows me to move safely and predictably and independently through our community.

It's just a coincidence that today you guys are selling disability month.

And so I greatly appreciate this opportunity.

But however, I want to bring up a point.

Bellevue's current eat bike web page and related code language do not reflect the requirements of the American with Disabilities Act, specifically the provisions governing other power-driven mobility devices.

As written, the city guidance treats Class 3 e-bikes strictly as recreational vehicles.

It applies blanket restrictions on trails, shared use paths, off-street facilities, without acknowledging that under federal law, these same devices may also function as mobile mobility aids for people with disabilities, such as myself.

Bellevue's webpage states that class three e-bikes are not allowed on shared use paths and maybe restricted on trails.

But it doesn't mention the ADA requires sites to evaluate mobile mobility devices used separately from recreational use.

Even though the federal ADA laws regulations allow me to do that.

Mine's not that.

Mine looks like a bicycle.

It has a battery, but it's capable of E3 regul or E3 capabilities.

Those motorbikes are throttle only, they're basically a motorcycle.

And I agree they probably do not belong on these situations.

So what I'm asking, other cities have addressed this.

Seattle particularly in their on their website, they explicitly distinguish recreational e-bike rules from ADA mobility devices rules.

Make clear that my my bike, my class three bike, fulfills the restrictions.

I I understand I'm out of time.

I'll leave the rest of my paper with the clerk, and uh obviously it's a very personal thing for me.

Thank you.

And I could not be very good.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Julie Cop.

I'm Julie Cobb.

I live at 3015, 164th place, Northeast.

I was told to condense this to points.

As you can see, I cannot condense it to points.

This is regarding neighborhoods, actually, all around Bellfield.

Just to need to talk right now.

In particular to Sherwood Forest and the Ardmart area.

Um I unfortunately bought a house in 67.

And it's on a dead end street, deeded for 10 houses, no parking, perfectly fine.

Developer decided to build behind us on two and a half acres.

Should have gone off a bell red road.

That wouldn't allow.

And they've sold because of the development.

The house at the end of the block tore down, but someone bought it, they tore it down, they built a mega mansion.

Okay, now a week ago they tear down another house, and I go, another mega mansion.

That's fine, it's one house per lot.

Um, they're cutting the tall fur trees, which you want to keep.

No, they clear cut it, they had a permit.

I called, she said, yes, it's permitted for four townhouses, and it's clear-cut.

I'm going, wait, this is deeded for a house.

It's been approved by Riley Pittman.

It's been approved by another name.

Jordan something.

And so now I have a house next to me that also sold, and I found out they're making that into eight cottages on a lot that's needed for one.

Well, they did it even more complicated.

They are re-ordering orienting the houses, though they face 164th Avenue.

What does the deed stand for?

It says one lot per house.

They changed the meaning of the deed.

They changed.

I am so frustrated because now I'm gonna live next to eight houses on a residential.

I don't understand it.

And it relates to the state uh law that is working on um mid and high rise or high density housing.

This is not uh to put I'm fair, it's not the word, but this is there's no visibility.

There was no information, there was no sign posted, nothing.

All of a sudden cut down townhouses on a dead end residential street.

I understand, but I can give you my notes to read too.

I'm really unhappy.

Our next speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

Hi, my name is Alex Zimmerman, and I disabled men for a long time.

Today you have something about disability.

I explained to you like this Nazi Gestapa, fascist bandita did with men who have disability for many years.

Yep.

I start with Mayor Robinson for last three years, and I disabled men, so you're all criminal, you're bandita.

You're more dangerous than Nazi, and I explained to you why.

Yeah, German Nazi.

I explained to you why.

Mayor Robinson give me for three years trespass.

He cut my statement for election.

She forgot some disabled man.

She's a criminal, a bandita, supposed to be being jail in civilized country, hundred percentage guarantee.

Her no, because you are Nazi, all of it.

Identical and more dangerous than Gitler Nazi.

I explained to you why.

Number two, Belleville prosecute me seven times.

Police arrest me, put me in jail.

You know what has mean?

Seven times.

All seven cases dismiss.

It's very interesting.

And for last three years, I have three cases, misdemeanor, but is going court for two years.

Whereas you see misdemeanor cases go in court for two years.

Right now, yes, three cases each for two years.

When you go to a library in Bellevue every Tuesday, you know what is mean.

Each case, five-minute misdemeanor case.

My cases, two years each.

How is this possible?

Yeah.

Bellevue Police Department.

This is a Gestapo, you know what is mean.

Give me a Tory traffic ticket.

Tory traffic ticket.

I'm all in court, hearing in every ticket.

Is this Dory judge in Bellevue?

What is involved in my misdemeanor case is in a voluntary treat traffic ticket?

Never give me discount.

I low income senior citizen.

Disabled senior citizen.

In Seattle, I pay only 10%.

I talk to them dozen times, never working.

They punish me because I'm a Jew, because I'm disabled, because I lower income, and because I have different opinion.

You are more dangerous than Nazi.

Yeah, I explained to you why.

Gitler don't have constitution for 250 years in freedom of speech.

You acting like a Nazi, like a bandita, like a Gestapa.

Is this exactly dangerous?

Because you much more dangerous what's happened right now.

So right now I speak to everybody who listened to me because you make from Bell of your plantation, you know what is mean?

Yes, for Amazonian Makrosov.

So you could they can make a money from you.

You know what this means.

You are a classic Nazi pig.

Viva Trump, viva new American revolution, stand up slaven, happy cow.

We need stopping this Nazi pig.

Thank you very much.

That is the end of our pre-registered list of speakers this evening.

I will ask at this point if there's anyone else in council chambers or online who would like to speak.

If you are online, please use the raised hand function.

And there is one person online, Joe Kunzler.

Mr.

Kunzler, can you hear me?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Your time starts now.

Yeah, let's start with um Alex Zimmerman is a Nazi fascist bastard.

And then uh let's also add on here for extra blood support that I find is racist comments in the voters' pamphlet aim immoral and disgusting.

Mr.

Kungler, please keep it about Bellevue City business.

I am sir, and you want Alex Zimmerman shove a stick down your throat and with that.

That's it, you're done.

Thank you.

We're moving on.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

That was just wonderful.

Um then, and if we could uh get a motion to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

The consent calendar is approved.

And from there, we will move on to a public hearing.

Deputy City Manager, if you would.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Uh, tonight the council has before it the old Bellevue IOC for potential renewal and amendment following a public hearing.

Staff will share an overview of proposed amendments to the interim official control or IOC for the downtown Old Bellevue Land Use District, which aims to reinforce historic and cultural qualities along Main Street.

After a short staff presentation, we'll hand it back to the council to hold the public hearing.

From development services, we have Nick Whipple, Code and Policy Director, and Matthew Minard, Senior Planner.

Staff's request to council this evening is to open the public hearing and following the hearing, consider adopting the proposed ordinance.

With that, I will hand it over to Nick.

Thank you, Deputy City Manager.

Good evening, uh Deputy Mayor Hamilton, members of the council.

Um, we are here tonight, as uh noted to um ask you all to hold a public hearing on the old Bellevue interim official control uh renewal and amendment.

So for our action this evening, the request is to hold the public hearing on ordinance number 6929.

Following that public hearing, um consider adopting ordinance number 6929.

For our agenda, we'll touch briefly on some of the background behind this IOC.

Um, this is also a renewal and an amendment to a prior IOC.

So we'll focus a bit on what is the objective of this IOC.

And then Matthew will walk us through the components of the IOC before you this evening and then our process to get permanent regulations in place.

So, first with the background, wanted to just highlight for the council and the public that Old Bellevue has always been about trying to find that balance.

So Old Bellevue is a um a section within our downtown, which is a regional growth center.

It has distinct zoning that applies within the old Bellevue area, and that zoning is trying to get at that balance of um needing to meet some of our housing production and job growth that we're planning for in our downtown, but also preserve some of that historic character and charm that defines Old Bellevue.

So the council uh, in order to um help uh along to some of the objectives of keeping that charm um and character of old Bellevue, um, felt that an IOC would be important um to help get at some of the objectives there.

So in February, um, the council did adopt an interim official control that would apply in the old Bellevue area on Main Street.

Um, that interim official control requires facade preservation for qualifying buildings and buildings that um uh were going to demolish the facade through the process defined in the interim official control.

Um, there would be some design standards that would apply to the first two floor levels.

Um the council did hold a public hearing on this interim official control.

You also received a lot of comments on the interim official control, and uh these were kind of the two areas that I think received the most comments.

Um the requirement to preserve a facade, and then the second was around the design standards, noting um some from the public felt that those might be a little too subjective and hard for them to ascertain what is going to be expected of them if they were to come in for a redevelopment on Main Street.

That IOC is set to expire next month.

Um, a public hearing is required to extend the IOC through February of 2027.

So now we'll shift to the objective of this old Bellevue IOC that's before you.

This is an amended IOC.

So it still has the same purpose, which is to quickly implement design controls on Main Street between 100th and Bellevue Way.

So that's highlighted in the image there on the right, um, where you see the IOC area on Main Street.

This IOC is intended to establish more clear and objective standards that will help ensure that compatibility with the design and scale of Old Bellevue, including getting at some of that finer grain storefronts and welcoming entrances that really mark um Main Street today.

This also allows additional time for public outreach.

We have begun a process to address this with permanent code updates.

Council initiated that process back in May.

We're still very early in the process.

So we have not done a lot of the outreach specific to old Bellevue yet.

So this allows more time for us to do that outreach, but put some temporary controls in place while that process is continuing to proceed through a separate work stream.

So now Matthew will walk through the specifics of the IOC before you.

Thanks, Nick.

So as Nick mentioned, this does renew and amend the previous IOC.

There are some substantial amendments to this IOC based on those comments or received at the last public hearing for this process.

So this is a new ordinance, but a continuation of the previous policy direction we received from council.

It does replace the facade preservation requirements with a stronger amenity incentive option as well as some documentation requirements if a facade were to be removed from Main Street in Old Bellevue.

That stronger amenity incentive option is upping the points in the amenity incentive program in the downtown code from 40 points per thousand dollars spent on a facade preservation to 100 points per thousand dollars on facade preservation.

So a pretty substantial increase in that incentive.

We do hope that by adding this number and this greater incentive to the IOC, we can get some information as well for our downtown Livability 2.0 permanent uh regulations to try to find what that exact right number should be to incentivize that uh facade preservation through that amenity incentive program.

Uh we heard many comments in the original IOC adoption that the IOC was not clear, it was not objective, it was very subjective, and it was confusing anyone that was going to submit an application through that process on what exactly they had to do.

So we have removed those subjective standards and replaced them with uh very objective, very clear standards on what would be required to maintain that historic design pattern and rhythm that we see on Old Maine with these smaller facades in a sort of shorter rhythmic section of Main Street with more doors, windows, and then uh separate buildings often in a sort of short space.

So we already require transparency, weather protection, and active ground floor uses through the existing downtown code.

This IOC would not change those in any way.

Those would still be required.

What this IOC would require is additional Main Street facing entrances, one per every 30 feet of Main Street facade, and then vertical facade elements.

So something like a column or a pilaster space, no more than 30 feet for both of the doors and the pilasters to get at that historic rhythm of the smaller facades and the smaller business spaces.

So we have tried to make it uh very objective, very clear what those numbers and expectations would be for an applicant.

And you have seen through some of that public comment that I do think at least on the clarity front, we have hit the mark, we've had several comments that say it is much more clear than the last IOC.

There it goes, I don't know.

Sorry, there's a bit of a delay there.

Um, as I mentioned, if it is renewed and amended, this would expire in February of 2027.

We've talked a little bit about downtown livability 2.0, that is the permanent regulations that we're working on updating for downtown currently.

Uh that targeted adoption is at the end of quarter one, beginning of quarter two of 2027.

So there may be a small gap if everything goes to plan between the expiration of this IOC and the permanent regulations.

So as we move through that permanent regulation process, we may need to come back to you to talk about renewing this IOC further, depending on when that date ends up being for adopting that Luca.

It's too early in the process for us to know that right now.

We are hopeful that we would have a planning commission recommendation at the very least before this expires.

But we will keep you updated through the process and come back to you with this IOC again if need be if it were to be adopted.

Um our city attorney's office would be uh slightly upset with me if I did not mention this IOC is not permanent.

It is a temporary measure.

It is not intended to adversely affect council's ability to adopt a LUCA that differs from the IOC.

And I will say council should not be surprised if the LUCA does differ from this IOC.

The Luca gives us much more time to do outreach to hear what property owners in the community are saying, what they desire, what works for development uh on Main Street, and it gives us more time to really fine-tune that amenity incentive and some of the design standards as well.

So there could be differences between this and uh the permanent code as well.

And with that, Deputy Mayor, I'll hand it back to you.

Again, we are asking that you all hold the public hearing this evening on the IOC and consider adopting the ordinance.

Take a motion for the hearing, please.

I move that we hold the hearing 6929.

Seconds.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Let's get on that hearing.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

This evening we have three speakers signed up to speak at the public hearing.

Our first speaker is David Bonnethan.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor and Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is David Bonathan, and I live in Maidenbauer, one block from Old Bellevue.

I also serve on the MBNA board.

Old Bellevue is not just another district on a zoning map.

It's the heartbeat of our city.

It's where Bellevue's story began, where its families walk to dinner, where its neighbors know each other, and is home to some of the most beloved restaurants and small businesses in Bellevue.

Old Bellevue has character, scale, and authenticity.

Qualities increasingly rare in modern cities.

This ordinance, this ordinance reinforces the historical and cultural qualities that make Old Bellevue unique.

It ensures new development respects the small scale, pedestrian oriented frontage that defines Main Street.

It protects the intimate street rhythm, the human level design, and the architectural charm.

Renewing the interim official control for another six months is not a delay.

It's a necessary safeguard.

It gives Bellevue time to refine standard design standards, document historic properties, and encourage voluntary facade preservation before irreversible development decisions are made.

These amendments are not obstacles to growth.

They are the framework for responsible growth.

Despite its importance, Old Bellevue remains under supported and underpromoted relative to the value it brings.

The district has enormous upside, cultural, economic, and civic.

It is surrounded by family neighborhoods and professional residents who actively use and care for this area every day.

Old Bellevue is not a theoretical planning zone.

It is a vibrant living neighborhood.

Cities across the country protected districts like Old Bellevue.

Bleaker Street in New York, Fillmore Street in San Francisco, and Northwest 23rd Avenue in Portland.

These corridors thrive because their cities preserve small-scale storefronts, walkability, historic facades, and human level architecture.

Bellevue has the same opportunity.

With thoughtful standards, compatible development, Main Street can stand proudly among these iconic pedestrian districts.

The kind that strengthens a city rather than erasing its identity.

Old Bellevue is one of the few places where Bellevue still feels like Bellevue, where you can walk with your family, talk with friends, experience a scale that welcomes rather than overwhelming them.

Cities across the country regret losing districts like this.

Bellevue has a chance to protect ours.

I urge the council to adopt Ordinance 6929, renew the interim council control, and continue shaping a downtown Old Bellevue district that honors its past while guiding its future.

Thank you for your time and your stewardship of Bellevue's most iconic and historic neighborhood.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Scott Lampy.

Good evening, Deputy Mayor Hamilton and Council Members.

My name is Scott Lampe, and I'm here on behalf of the Maidenbauer Bay Neighbors Association.

As its president, I am speaking in support of the extension for six months of the interim official control for Old Bellevue.

Maidenbauer Bay Neighbors Association was founded in 2007 to maintain the future of Maidenbauer Bay and its environs, which closely borders Old Bellevue.

The MBNA has always strived to balance the need of the city and to ensure the continued livability of the area surrounding Maidenbauer Bay.

Most recently we have been involved with planning for the exciting second phase of Maidenbauer Bay Park.

Briefly, the MBNA recognizes Old Bellevue as a unique asset for the city.

Preserving its unique character is extremely important given the more intense development in other areas of downtown.

We believe that small retail spaces are a necessary element for maintaining the area's character and should not allow any quote big box stores.

In addition, maintaining the visual character is an essential element for this small area.

Overall, extending the IOC will provide the needed time for full development of the next phase of the downtown livability update, which will simultaneously embrace our city's future while also respecting the past.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight on this important topic for our wonderful city.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

Hi, my name is Alex Zimmerman.

I live in this city for 40 years, and I'm looking and looking how Bellevue right now dead, dying for last year.

For seven years, what is Mr.

Robinson mayor in support from you.

You freaking are real bandita, you know what this means.

You care about people.

Look what this happened right now.

Every week we have a new building.

Mr.

Zimmerman, we're having a public hearing in the IOC.

We'd like to hear your comment about that.

Anything else is just not appropriate at this time.

It's okay.

Yeah, understand.

I understand about downtown situation right now.

You want to survive something, but this is like a five penny for from dollar.

That's exactly what I want talking about you.

You cannot talking about five one penny, you know what this means.

But 99 cent totally destroyed city.

It's all package.

You cannot be separate.

Because it's 150,000 idiots who live here.

You know what this means don't understand this.

They are the biller.

What is you doing is very dangerous.

Yes, I understand you want to survive downtown.

And I agree with this.

It's supposed to be.

But this not changed situation.

You're talking about something that is cost nothing, you know what this means.

And all city right now is a dead city.

Bellevue right now, dead city.

What is you did for last 10 years, another seven years under Mare Rebens Robinson with your support is a nightmare.

I live in many big cities in my life.

In Europe, you know what is meaning.

Here I know everybody, you know, for a year I live here.

What is you do did with Bellevue?

Nobody did in America.

You understand?

You destroy city fundamentally.

Yeah, you've been talking about this, but it's only part of the city.

Very small part.

Look what has happened around.

Every week a new new building building.

You build city what is absolutely not reasonable for living.

And only Slav can do in this.

It's exactly because 120,000 people who live in Bellevue right now is a slave.

I think he c they care about downtown.

No.

I never see her.

Here, somebody from them come in talking.

Guys, you suck blood and money from us.

They scared.

They slept.

You understand?

140,000.

When I come in Bellevue 40 years ago, 140,000 white people right now is only 30,000 white people.

And we see who come in token here for many years, only white people.

120,000.

Old Bellevue, Mr.

Zimmerman, please.

Yes, exactly.

That's your second warning, sir.

It's okay, no problem.

You can stop on me, no big deal.

Problem right now, what is we have with downtown, you know what is meant.

You cannot make downtown look beautiful when old city dead.

How is it possible?

You have a body like a man body, for example.

Head very working, very nice looking.

You know what is mean?

Old head in old body is dead.

It's exactly what is you did.

Viva Trump, we have a new American revolution, stand up slaving happy cow.

We need to bring people who live in Bellevue.

Here.

Good night, Mr.

Zimmerman.

Thank you very much.

That concludes our list of pre-registered speakers.

If there is anyone else in Council Chambers or online that would like to speak, please raise your hand.

If you're online, please please use the raise hand function.

And we do have one person online, Heidi.

Can you hear me?

I sure can.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Your time starts now.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Council members.

Um, my name is Heidi Dean.

I am a 26-year resident of Newport Hills, where we have our own neighborhood um center.

And um, I wanted to say I appreciated the comments uh about um the pride for the uh old Bellevue neighborhood uh made uh made by Maidenbauer uh neighborhood association residents, Mr.

Bonathan and uh Mr.

Lampy.

Um I can also appreciate the sense of pride that Councilmember Robinson has in her neighborhood and wanting to preserve and protect that because that is exactly how I felt I feel and how many of my neighbors felt and feel about Newport Hills in our neighborhood center.

Um I what I grapple with is the fact that we as a neighborhood center with historic, we actually do have history here.

We were the first neighborhood um upon which um that was a planned community.

Um one of the uh residents up here who works for King County Housing Authority and worked with Councilmember Robinson's husband at KCHA has brought forward the fact that many of the planned communities on the east side were based upon Newport Hills and our our neighborhood center and our shopping um district.

We did not get the same kind of consideration during our neighborhood area planning um or during HOMA.

Uh I'm I'm hearing all of this outreach that's going to be done to all of the businesses down in Old Bellevue.

And while I can appreciate that, it makes me wonder why that wasn't done for us, for our businesses, and why preservation of what makes Newport Hills walkable and livable and special wasn't shown to us.

Why is it only do we have to have a council member living in our neighborhood and advocating for that?

Why are other neighborhoods not given that same consideration?

So again, I don't necessarily want to poo-poo what uh your you might do for Old Bellevue, but I would say that given some of the conversations I've seen in the I Miss Old Bellevue Facebook group, there isn't a lot left of what made Old Bellevue and Old Maine, Old Bellevue.

There really isn't.

And so just the fact that it they've this one neighborhood is being shown unfair consideration while others have been um essentially will be given spot rezones and up zones because of commercial property owners that don't take care of their properties, like Rainier Northwest development groups.

Ms Dean, your time is up.

Thank you.

No one else.

Is there anyone else in the council chambers that would like to speak this evening?

Okay, I'd uh entertain a motion to close the hearing.

We close the hearing.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, the hearing is closed.

I would uh please okay.

You're here for questions or okay.

Um then let's maybe start with a motion.

We can go from there.

Um that we pass ordinance 6929.

Sorry, let me get the motion language.

Um I move to approve ordinance 6929 relating to an interim of official control on part 20.25a of the land use code that reinforces historical and cultural qualities in the downtown Old Bellevue land use district along Main Street between 100th Avenue and Bellevue Way, and requires that new development is compatible with adjacent development, unique design features and established small scale and pedestrian-oriented street frontage in Old Bellevue, renewing the interim official control for an additional six-month time period, amending the interim official control to impose specified design standards, updated requirements to document historical property, and encourage voluntary preservation of facades.

Second, all those in favor.

Oh no, I'm sorry, we're going to now have some comments.

Uh Councilmember Robinson, would you like to start us off, please?

Uh, yeah, thank you.

Um I think the same reason that we wanted to have this in the first place is a good reason to extend it.

It gives the city the opportunity to discuss preserving the historic character and charm of Old Bellevue, which will be done during the downtown livability.

So this is a temporary ordinance.

Um, you know, the reason that people are interested in discussing Old Bellevue is it's one of the favorite parts of Bellevue when we do city polls about neighborhoods.

We do city polls about neighborhoods.

Old Bellevue is very uh strongly supported.

It's a thriving economic section of Bellevue, and it really is the original central business district of the city of Bellevue.

It does have historic character.

It is at scale, it's walkable.

The the street is narrower, the the heights are lower, it's on the wedding uh the edge of the wedding cake.

And um I've talked to and heard from so many people who live there, who own property there, who have businesses there, who are very supportive of trying to retain the character of the section, whatever that definition is, and that's something that can be discussed during downtown livability.

So I support the um ordinance 6929.

Thank you.

Councilmember New Inhouse.

I'm good.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Okay.

Uh Councilmember Sumadouria.

I'm good too, Deputy Mayor.

Councilmember Breyer.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, on page eight or slide eight of the presentation, um, I had a question.

So there's a couple of moving parts here that I sort of just wanted to logically delineate.

Um, an IOC is introduced as an urgent tool to address a gap.

Um, and meanwhile, we're also working on updating the code permanently through downtown livability 2.0, but as I understand it, the targeted adoption is beyond the expiration date.

Um, so therefore, we're addressing a gap that is a little bit longer than six months.

Um, and I just wanted to ask from a regulatory perspective, just wanted to make sure we're in good standing, uh, seeing as though we've addressed a gap, we have a permanent solution to it, and that this IOC exists with an extension.

Um I just wanted to uh make sure that that bridge with like the permanent solution in our site is okay from a regulatory perspective.

Would you put a slide Everyone?

Uh we were trying to move back to it, but I think we lost control if uh Deputy City Clerk could help us.

Um it's the process slide uh that's being referenced.

Um happy to begin a response or I can wait as well.

Sure.

So um uh as Councilmember Breyer's noting, the IOC, if the council um does renew um this amended IOC, um, the new expiration will be February 17th of 2027.

Um, that will um provide a bridge as we continue to work on the permanent regulations.

Um, as Matthew noted, we anticipate to be able to get ideally through the planning commission process and have a recommendation before you at around the time that this IOC is going to expire.

So in the event that the IOC expires and we don't have that permanent code in place as of yet, um, it will revert back to the existing code.

And as Matthew noted, the existing code does have provisions that get at some of the transparency requirements, weather protection, and active ground floor uses, but it will miss some of the uh provisions that the IOC is adding to the list, that being the doors every 30 feet and uh some of the columns uh that we would also want to see.

And so uh in the event that uh we don't have the permanent code, it'll just revert back to the existing code.

We'll also um you know have more information on what's the interest in redevelopment on Main Street, so we can bring that forward to you all for consideration, um, or if you want to address the gap by bridging us with one more extended IOC, um, which is perfectly okay to do since you've initiated the permanent work to happen through a separate work stream, um you can continue to renew that IOC without issue.

Okay, but that will be a decision I think you'll want to um wrestle with when we get to Q1 of next year.

Okay, great.

So I just wanted to reiterate having that permanent work being done in a separate work stream provides a safety for another renewal.

Yes.

Okay.

Exactly.

Thank you.

That are those are all my questions, Deputy Mayor.

Great, thank you.

Uh Councilmember Bahurgerbun.

Yeah, thanks, Deputy Mayor.

And and thanks for the presentation and bringing this forward.

Um like Councilmember Robinson said, historic preservation and not preserving the historic and pedestrian-oriented character, but also fostering the opportunity for for development and water increase in affordable housing, uh, two uh things that we're gonna trade off here, and this is really uh, you know, an important piece.

It requires thoughtful deliberation.

So I appreciate the work that the staff is going to put into this.

Uh, in reviewing the proposal, I just had one question.

I noticed the requirement for a door or a vertical element every 30 feet along the frontage.

And I was curious um where the 35 feet came from.

And I understand this is not a new number.

It's intended to align with our existing right-of-way pedestrian standards that we have, which already require a you know points of interest every 30 linear feet.

So the idea is to maintain consistency with the pedestrian experience and use objective standards that would reinforce that rhythm that we have used in the past.

I would love to understand if there is any other thinking on, you know, why the 30 feet and the impact of that on possible projects that come in during this interim period while we develop more permanent standards and two related questions.

If there's a change in grade of any kind, how will this be addressed in that 30-foot distance?

Um how do we make sure that these are not overly restrictive in any way for someone who comes in in the interim period while we wait for downtown livability 2.0.

Sure.

Um so as you mentioned, the 30 feet is in the code already with the points of interest.

This is more specific and does add that extra column or door every 30 feet.

Um it really comes from a few things, looking at other historic districts and other form-based codes around the West Coast and the country.

Um, that's sort of you're generally in that range of 30 to 50 feet, is what we're looking at.

And if you look at the historic structures, downtown, um, they are sort of that 30 to 40, 45 foot width.

Um, so it's really maintaining that same width that we've seen from the historic structures.

In looking at if it's too restrictive or not, um, or if there's going to be negative impacts to specific uses, or if that's too gonna prevent development in some way, it's something we'll look at through DTL 2.0.

Having this on the books allows us to begin that discussion with uh developers and property owners as well as members of the public, whether they like that standard, or whether that's going to hamper development or hamper specific uses.

Um there may be other ways to I want to say skin the cap, but that's not a great expression.

Um there may be other ways to approach that in a regulatory sense to get at these smaller storefronts that is not that prescriptive around doors and vertical elements.

So that's something we'll look at in DTL 2.0.

Um we've heard a lot already from our outreach about the large spaces in downtown not being ideal for small businesses to rent out, so it may be more of a looking at um requiring certain size spaces or incentivizing uh smaller spaces for the amenity incentive program and more affordable commercial spaces for the amending incentive program.

So there's a lot of approaches we can take in the permanent regulations that will be more uh a broader look at making sure that we're not hampering development negatively as we get to that point.

We don't think that in this six-month period we're really gonna have that negative impact um on development that we would with a permanent regulation.

Okay.

No, I appreciate that.

And I also just the last thing I'll say is uh as you go through this process of defining the more permanent regulations, standards that we will have.

This is a baseline, but we aren't tied to this.

The idea uh that that you are gonna go through a serious level of engagement with uh stakeholders, developers, landowners, architects, urban design professionals, and so on, to define these in a way that will maintain this, you know, with permanent regulations in perpetuity.

We should consider this malleable, but a place in time.

So I appreciate that.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Okay, great.

Uh, thank you.

Um, yeah, and I appreciate the presentation tonight too.

I appreciate most of the comments uh from the community members that were here and appreciate the additional engagement work you've done.

Um I think what we're considering here tonight is much improved from the original IOC.

A stronger incentive to preserve facades in old Bellevue is the better approach, and I'm glad that's what we're considering.

And the clear and objective design standards that are part of the new IOC help ensure that redevelopment, when it occurs, can do so more efficiently, transparently and fairly.

And while I still have many of the same concerns that I had heard from community members, and that I expressed myself when this first came to us in February, many of those concerns are addressed in this update.

Really appreciate the work that uh Matt and Nick have done to make substantive community-driven changes to this IOC.

And while I'm not thrilled with this particular use of the IOC, considering the changes that have been made and the timeline for the completion of downtown livability 2.0 work plan, I am inclined to support it.

And with that, we do have a motion on the table and a second, and so I will call for the vote.

Um, so all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, the motion carries.

Thank you.

All right.

I think we should do the study session.

Deputy City Manager, please.

All right.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Our first study session tonight is a discussion of a Bellevue College land use code amendment.

This amendment or LUCA proposes the establishment of a new institutional land use district to better align the college's zoning with the city's comprehensive plan and future land use map.

This action would support Bellevue College's ability to expand academic facilities, student housing, and other campus infrastructure while ensuring compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods.

Staff are here today to outline the proposal, describe the associated legislative rezone, and provide an overview of the planned public engagement process.

To walk council through this item, we have Nick Whipple, Code and Policy Advisor once again from Development Services, joined by Charlie Engel, Senior Planner.

Staff are asking council tonight to consider directing staff to initiate the work on this land use code amendment and proposed legislative rezone and to introduce and establish the new institutional land use district.

And now I'll hand it back to Nick.

Great.

Thank you, and good evening again.

So as noted, we are here tonight now to talk about the Bellevue College Land Use Code Amendment or LUCA as we like to refer to it, as well as a legislative rezone.

So looking to rezone some of the college properties.

This is in response to a change in the comprehensive plan that was adopted by the council in October of 2024.

And so this is really to implement policy that has been established through that plan update.

So, as mentioned this evening, we are seeking direction from council to consider initiating work on the Bellevue College LUCA and rezone and direct planning commission to review and process this LUCA.

This would begin our outreach process as well.

We have a lot of work ahead of us to engage with community, nearby residents and businesses, and the college on what is the future zoning going to look like for this area.

It's a novel zone for the city as well, so excited to get into that.

So for our agenda, we'll talk about some of the background again, why we are here tonight.

The proposed scope, which is very high level, as we are just about to begin our process with community.

Then Charlie will talk about what we have in store for our engagement, the project timeline, and then turn it back to you all for discussion.

So with that, I'll turn it to Charlie.

Thanks, Nick.

Good evening.

So to dive into a little bit of the history to start, in 1966, Bellevue Community College first opened and was established.

In this first year, they served around 500 students.

Just a few years later, in 1969, they relocated to their permanent campus and started to grow and serve more students around 2200 that year.

2009 was a major milestone when Bellevue College transitioned to a four-year institution, established officially as Bellevue College, and started offering applied bachelor's degrees.

Since then, the college has continued to grow and serves around 20,000 students and employs around 1,100 faculty and staff members each year.

Looking closer at the campus in Bellevue College today, it offers a broad range of academic professional and technical education programs with many areas of study, such as health care, business, workforce training, arts, and more.

The campus also provides specialized instructional research and cultural facilities, such as laboratories, greenhouses, and art spaces, and also has some unique community and educational aspects such as the KBCS radio station and the Arboretum, which provides a unique educational opportunity both for students and for anyone visiting the campus.

Zooming out a little bit, Bellevue College is known as a regional leader in sustainability and environmental stewardship through many items, but some including the implementation of their climate action plan and their commitment to sustainability, as well as developing campus facilities that meet LEED sustainability standards.

The college also serves as an economic driver for Bellevue, mostly through preparing students for the workforce, but also through student and visitor spending and other types of community programming.

As I mentioned in the history, Bellevue College is a significant regional employer with their around 1,100 staff and faculty that they employ annually.

Looking ahead, the college has reported that they are facing some significant challenges.

Some of those include uncertainties in funding, changes in enrollment patterns, rising affordability pressures, as well as aging infrastructure.

And although these challenges are real, the college has stated that they hope to continue to expand their role as a comprehensive higher educational institution and to accommodate that, looking ahead at the opportunities and the possible future institutional needs, such as new facilities, laboratory spaces, arts and cultural spaces, more student housing, and transportation and utility investments.

So on this slide, we have a map of the campus.

You can see I-90 there at the bottom representing the South.

In the comprehensive plan, future land use map, this area and surrounding some surrounding residential area was designated as institutional.

However, the current zoning is for residential, the SR4 land use district, which has limited the college's ability to expand their campus infrastructure since the residential district is not compatible with the educational use and institutional use.

In addition to this LUCA, the Bellevue College is also a campus master plan that sets the vision and goals for guiding future development on the campus.

The strategic plan, the facilities master plan, and the climate action plan are all the college's plans that help guide development on campus, and throughout this project, coordinating with them and ourselves.

The other regional transportation agencies, community organizations, and stakeholders will be crucial for guiding development.

And then on this map, I'll also note that the blue parcels are outlining the ones that are currently owned by the college based on the data that we have available today.

For the LUCA scope, as I explained, the existing residential land use district isn't compatible for growing.

So the LUCA proposes to establish a new institutional land use district that aligns with that future land use map.

This will allow them to expand their academic facilities and add more student housing.

As part of the LUCA, new development standards will be included to support campus development, but also making sure to address the compatibility with the surrounding areas.

That could look like different building height limits.

We've heard that maybe five to six stories is what's most comfortable, but looking to get feedback from the community during engagement and outreach on that, as well as transition area standards to get at that compatibility with surrounding areas, making sure that development is transitioned appropriately, also looking at where density is appropriate on campus, whether that's the center of campus, for example, and other elements like landscaping requirements and vegetation management plans.

As Nick mentioned, this project also includes a legislative rezones for parcels that are currently owned by the college, so all of those blue highlighted boxes on the last slide.

That is brought to council for review with the PC recommendation along with the LUCA.

And there is no noticing requirement for a legislative rezone, but since there will be many people interested in this project, it's suggested to do a 1,000-foot buffer of noticing requirements around the college.

So anyone within a thousand feet of a college-owned parcel would receive that notice.

That's roughly around three blocks, and would likely include neighborhoods such as Fur Terrace, Eastgate, Sunset, Sunset Ranch, and the Lake Hills Community and Neighborhood Associations.

For comparison, privately initiated rezones, the process requires a 500-foot notice.

So while legislative rezons don't have that requirement, it seems appropriate to do a 1,000-foot buffer noticing requirement for those parcels.

Shifting towards the engagement overview, we have a unique opportunity to partner directly with the college for both Luca engagement and then also making sure that the Luca supports the campus master plan vision that's set forth in that update.

This also looks like being able to host events on campus and really engage surrounding residents, land, and business owners directly.

And through that, some of the approaches are outlined here under phase one and phase two.

In phase one, which is focused on listening and fundamentals.

This includes process for noticing requirements, such as publishing in the weekly permit bulletin, the look and the rezone, and also having a web presence.

The project web page has been launched and includes background information, staff contact information, details on the project and opportunities to engage.

Another community engagement tactic is the mailer and survey.

So looking at that same 1,000 foot buffer, sending a mailer to those occupants that notify them of the project, direct them to the website, and then also offer a survey to kind of gauge the community priorities and any concerns for this update.

Along with that, targeted stakeholder outreach, which would include working with neighborhood leaders to make sure that even if you're not in the 1,000 foot buffer, but your neighborhood is impacted, you're still getting that information along with surrounding business and landowners as well.

Outside of just the college radius to have a more broad impact using our city newsletter updates to make sure that anyone who is interested in this update has the opportunity to engage and be involved as well.

At the end of phase one, staff will prepare an engagement summary report highlighting the key themes based on the feedback received that will be used directly to move into phase two where the draft comes into play.

Again, following through with the process for requirements and keeping the web page updated as the project progresses.

And then following up with the stakeholders once a draft is released to start that iterative process of reviewing the draft, taking in feedback, adjusting the draft, that kind of thing.

And throughout all of this, making sure that any project updates are communicated through our city newsletters.

For the project timeline tonight, we're here to ask for direction to initiate the work, looking and hopefully planning to do more outreach over the summer with a planning commission check-in scheduled for the fall.

After that, looking at releasing the draft and doing phase two of outreach, getting into the PC process at the end of the year, and aiming for council review and council action in Q2 of 2027.

And the last thing I'll note on the slide is our link to the project web page at the bottom there, bellviewwa.gov slash bellview dash college-luca.

And with that, I'll turn it back to you guys for discussion.

Great.

All right.

So let's uh go around and uh ask some questions and make comments.

Council members who me to wear you in.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, thank you for the presentation.

I actually went to Bobby College myself, so I'm excited for to grow.

Um I just have a few clarifying questions.

Um I thought that so for um so if there's a private home that's in the rezoning area, I understand that um they have the freedom to keep as it is, right?

And then, but how would the owners to be informed of any type of um change surrounding them?

Right.

So that would be in the 1,000-foot radius uh noticing requirement that would be for the rezone itself, and then also at the beginning of the project when we plan to send out the mailer that lets people know that this project has begun, um, but also specifically later on in the process when the rezone that notice would go out as well.

Would the mailers to be in multiple languages?

This survey is in multiple language.

Okay.

I'm just wondering because I'm I understand that you know the homes around Bobby College tend to be residents maybe from English is not their first language, or international students, what have you, right?

So I think it's important if the even if the international students are renting the space that they should be able to communicate with their landlord.

Another question I want to ask is while while we're doing that, this is just a suggestion.

I think it's important for us to understand infrastructure, infrastructure capacity when there's any kind of change in the zoning.

Just because it's really it's that area is very highly, I think, congested sometimes already for any kind of increase in the capacity.

I felt like our neighbors would have a lot of burden when they don't come home after a long day at work.

So I think doing the assessment, getting understand the needs of the both students, also the residents, probably the teachers as well, it'll be really helpful to plan ahead.

Let's see.

Okay, my last question, it just you don't have to answer, but we can you can share me with the steps in the future.

But when we building the new buildings in the future for Bellevue College, like things like you know, height restriction, setback or like um hide um step step downs, any type of information about the new buildings, would that be able to share with the neighbors before they are finalized with the through the Pelling Clemisient through the final code of Luca?

Yes, I think that's built into the engagement approach to um in phase two, release the draft, and then do that stakeholder follow-up with those who engage in phase one, and then also host the public information sessions to solicit that feedback on the draft and answer any questions that the public may have.

Okay, thank you.

And I one last comment was um I actually had the privilege to attend the Eastgate block party this Saturday.

I I felt the the residents really loved it because now they can understand where we're going.

So I highly recommend we ask to go out to the neighbors where they are to provide the information to them because it's another barrier for them to come to the website if it's really hard to navigate for them.

And then since it's such a beneficial project, I mean school education is so important for a city, um, having the information very clearly to the neighbors so they can also understand the excitement and opportunity, that would be really beneficial for everyone.

Thank you.

Uh Council Member Markaban.

Yeah, thanks, everybody.

I also thank you, Nick and Jared and the team for not just the work now to bring this forward, but also all the work that has happened over the last couple of years, the comprehensive plan.

This is a follow-up to the comprehensive plan, so it seems like a logical thing uh as a next step.

I do uh really appreciate the uh expanded engagement, community engagement that you've laid out.

I think going to a thousand feet, targeted stakeholder engagement, and sort of following up on uh Councilman Some of the Veda's points on uh making sure that happens at where our residents are uh in the best possible way.

I think uh I would really plus one that double down on that.

Um I would also say that uh careful consideration needs to be given uh when we think about compatibility, where uh so to speak, I don't know if this term is still right, but grandfathering in uh residential uh parcels into a institutional zoning.

So as we do that, it's important that we give due consideration, which you have outlined in your presentation, and I appreciate that.

But I would that would be the second thing I would reiterate in this process.

Uh number three, um I do think um the engagement process now is great, phase one and phase two, but Bellevue College will continue to evolve and grow.

It is a meaningful institution, and we should figure out how there will be continued engagement with our um you know the residents within that zone, but also sort of the area around, so that it's not a one-off zone change plan update, and we move on from there, but we lay the groundwork for continued engagement because this impacts uh will continue to impact the the lives of the residents within the community that are impacted most uh immediately by this change.

So those are the three things I'm generally supportive, but I would just reiterate those.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for all the work.

Councilmember Breyer.

Thank you, Abby Mayor.

Uh, could you go back to the slide that shows uh the properties that the college owns I think?

This one, okay, cool.

Um it's it's by no mistake that Bellevue is was voted one of the most educated cities in the US by some magazine that is slipping my mind currently.

Um nevertheless, I saw this map and it reminds me of the movie Up with the the grandpa holding the balloon and his house is being surrounded.

Uh, you know, obviously Boston, or not Boston College, Bellevue College is not the enemy like they are in up.

But um what it sorry, it just looks like that.

Um I I think the uh the um engagement and outreach is is critical here.

I mean, um what I was curious about is we had mentioned that uh Bellevue College in the previous slides, I think it was um has a long-term growth plan.

I'm curious about what it is because I think one of the core contentions mentioned was in there's there's interest in changing the enrollment patterns.

And I think naturally this is going to continue to involve my alma mater, Boston College was established in 1863.

I think just recently they purchased land in in Newton, Massachusetts, so that's centuries later.

So you know, this is going to continue to evolve, which is which is great.

But um having an established channel of communication, I think beyond the Luca and prior to it is going to be effective uh in making sure that we're having smooth transition areas.

Um but two, I think I I it'd be good for us to get some cross-functional collaboration with the institution as well to ensure that um uh sort of there's there's clear roadmaps ahead of what uh the growth plans look like for beyond what was just shared in the the presentation as well.

I think that could be good.

I mean, clarity is never uh um a bad thing.

Um and then just want to emphasize again, speaking to the residents, make sure folks are uh uh informed about what's going on.

I appreciate the thousand uh was it meters or feet?

Uh I don't know why I suggest a meters, sorry.

World Cup.

Um my brain is European right now.

Anyway, um so I think the thousand feet is a great idea.

It's it's quite generous as well.

So I I appreciate that you've done that.

Um and I've rambled long enough, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you.

Thanks for the presentation tonight.

Um did Bellevue College initiate this, or are we initiating this as a city?

Uh so this was uh initiated in part through the comprehensive plan periodic update process when the new designation was established.

So it's just a continuation of that kind of discussion.

Okay.

And but there's been discussions with Bellevue College, correct?

Uh we've had discussions with Bellevue College.

We've also um had discussions with um Betsy and others uh as well in advance of tonight's meeting.

Okay.

And I'm assuming Bellevue College is in favor of this institutional uh correct?

Yeah, okay, okay.

So it's it's curious to me, we're l we're listening, uh listing off the challenges um here.

Well um tell me why we're doing that.

Is is the implication that if we move to the institutional landmark um designation that it's gonna help with those challenges, so I would say not directly those challenges were reported to us from the college directly as some of uh the pressures that they're facing today.

And rather than focus on the challenges, they want to continue to grow and be um serve the community as a higher education institution and look at those future institutional needs that would be supported by the LUCA by expanding, being able to expand student housing and other campus infrastructure facilities.

But if enrollment is declining or stagnant, which it seems you're making that argument under the challenges, how is expanding the college going to help that?

Yeah, so the so in part um just to back up um the opportunities and challenges were presented as context for the council as well.

Um as we were you know having conversations with Bellevue College, we felt it would also be useful for the public and for you all to understand sort of what they're sort of contending or wrestling with.

Um those same issues were present during the comp plan update process as well.

I think it's a challenge they've had um for a while.

Uh this isn't intended to solve those challenges necessarily.

Um we are looking at trying to address and support their growth and expansion and needs as an institution, as a four-year institution.

Right now they're in the SR4 suburban residential four dwelling units per acre district, which is clearly um creating some conflicts in terms of even laying down uh maintenance buildings.

Sorry, maybe this is part of the presentation, but I think the average individual look at this would say, here's the argument is is to move it into this dign designation because it's gonna help with these challenges that we currently have.

It'd be great if we had some additional data because I love Bellevue College and I want to see them continue uh to thrive in in this city.

I um as a council member, I'm also interested in what uh their core um uh strategy is to address these issues, and I think they go beyond uh this this this new designation.

So maybe that's a future update we can have in terms of overall um uh some of the challenges that Bellevue College is is trying to address right now.

Uh because I would love for us to be part of that solution.

And maybe we can collaborate on some facilities or whatever their needs might be in order to help address enrollment or improve facilities or technology needs or whatever that might be.

But I want to know and and the thousand-foot buffer and all that, that's that's that's fantastic.

But what are the neighborhoods really going to be able to I guess be able to massage or have an impact on after the designation has been concluded?

What is what does that look like?

Will they have still have a voice in terms of what might be built beside them?

Um what the plans will be for that could be impacting those neighborhoods.

Uh we had the example of a parking lot or maybe a five-story building.

What is how what's the protocol for their voice and and to work with the college once this has been completed?

So I think since the institutional land use district is new for the land use code, there's that opportunity to kind of build it from the ground up as far as permitted uses, building heights, um, and all those kind of transition area standards, all those different development standards that we typically see as part of the land use code.

Um so in building that and having this detailed community engagement process, we're looking for their um input along the way.

So part of the survey gets at that, looking at what might be most comfortable for building heights and where actually on the campus the community sees um density and intensity being most appropriate and getting those really early on insights so that we can build a foundational and supportive code.

Okay, okay.

Well, um, as my colleague to my right here mentioned, um, you know, this is an opportunity to bring the college along with those neighborhood associations and and and neighbors in that direct area.

It would be great if there was a vehicle for lack of a better, I guess, phrase or or term for it, like a good neighbor agreement established now that could bring those those neighbors together so they understand that when they have a concern or an issue, they know the proper communication channels, they know what um uh what levers to pull in order to make sure that their voice is heard for anything that might happen, you know, once we get past this um uh initial review and designation of institutional here.

I think that I think that'd be great.

Versus just a one-time outreach, give us your thoughts and opinions, and then um, and then uh there's you know there's a separation there between the two.

I'd hate to see that happen.

I would love for them, because I think that you know the neighbors want to be part of that that solution too, and they want to be see them be successful.

So that would be something that that I would have an interest in that um that there's some kind of vehicle or committee or something established post um the designation.

Thanks so much, appreciate it.

Councilmember Robinson.

Thank you.

So you know, to Councilmember Newenhouse brought up some really interesting questions as to how this can help solve some of the challenges that Bellevue College is having.

I've actually talked to the president of Bellevue College and his staff members, and my understanding is that having the ability to build a new building or dorms, even, but to put in if there's uh my brother uh runs a lab at UC Davis for long-term flight travel.

And in order for him to create that, they had to build a building and they had to build a laboratory.

But in doing that, they they attracted hundreds of students who wanted to learn this.

So being able to uh put in new facilities to meet the needs of uh the students in the in the community, I think is really helpful, and I think this is a big part of that.

You know, it's in our um council vision statement for the city at Bellevue that we have education and research facilities.

And if you look at our values, you'll see that we write to advance opportunities for every individual to flourish, and that higher education providers inspire innovation and train culturally diverse workforce to support tomorrow's technologies.

And so this seems very much in keeping with those values and those goals for our city.

Um to council member Breyer's point, and and I think everybody mentioned this as well.

I think there's I hear and I have an interest in having a sense uh a thoughtful buffer zone, you know, between the single family homes and whatever is built, and I think that's going to take some community input, but you know, we can't, I don't think dictate what somebody does in a property within the what's allowed, but we can certainly ask to have uh a buffer zone between single family neighborhoods, and so I hope that we can find a way to do that.

Um I remember when we first rezone the Bellevue College area.

We talked about the single family homes, and at that time, it was there was concern that the value of the single family home would go down when people wanted to sell it if the college continued to expand.

But I believe those single family homes are actually zoned to be able to build something bigger than a single family home.

Am I right?

Or actually, what you're saying in this new legislation is that they can convert to this new zone if they want to, if they sell, is that right?

Yes, so the process that we're setting up.

Um, so right now the single family homes actually aren't able to do middle housing if they don't have private covenants that restrict um them from doing that.

And uh we will be batching all of the Bellevue College property holdings and rezoning those to institutional, which will open up more opportunities.

Um we are not including the single family homes that aren't owned by the college right now.

Right.

Um, as we've heard from uh folks that they would prefer to keep the single family or the suburban residential for districts so they can continue without issue uh redeveloping or adding on to their existing home.

But I think I read that they can convert to that if they sell and they want to.

So if they sell it to Bellevue College, it could so it makes that property more valuable than just leaving it as single family that can never be changed from that.

So that's helpful.

Okay, that answers my question.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh appreciate the presentation.

I think this is uh really very exciting work.

Um, we are fortunate to have the largest open access college and third largest higher education institution in Washington, right here in Bellevue.

And Bellevue College, as mentioned, offers more bachelor's degrees than any other community or technical college in the state, and it advances more students to a four-year universities than all the others.

Bellevue College also provides a lower cost pathway to its bachelor's degrees and transfers and helps more local students remain here while reducing educational debt.

Bellevue College is a workforce and economic development engine right here in our city.

Community members get valuable education, our businesses can connect with well-trained eager workers, and the community benefits from a more robust economy.

I've watched Bellevue College grow since I attended in the late 80s, and I'm excited to see how it grows into the future.

As Bellevue College has grown, so is the city and the neighborhoods near the college.

Like my colleagues have said, I think it's vitally important that as we move forward with establishing a new institutional land use designation for Bellevue College, that we do it in partnership with neighboring resident property owners and business owners.

This process will produce a big win for the entire community as long as we listen to everyone involved, consider all perspectives and compromise.

I like the engagement process that you've laid out.

I'm optimistic that an outstanding educational institution and a highly engaged community can work together to create something really amazing.

Also appreciate the comments that have been made regarding ongoing engagement.

I'm ready to move this forward and excited to see you back here in the first half of next year to see what you all come up with.

And with that, I would appreciate a motion.

I move to direct staff to initiate work on a LUCA and associated legislative rezone to establish a new institutional land use district for Bellevue College.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, the motion carries.

Thank you.

Uh, with that, we will take a break until eight o'clock.

Good, 805.

We're good with eight.

Back here at eight.

Thank you.

We are back in ready, and deputy city manager, if you'd introduce our next study session item, please.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Our next study session is an information-only presentation on business improvement area or BIA policy.

Tonight's staff will present the administrative business improvement area policy, which outlines a comprehensive framework for how potential future BIAs in Bellevue may be formed, governed, and administered.

This policy is being brought forward in response to ongoing community interest and council direction to explore tools that strengthen district management and placemaking across the city.

From the community development department, we're joined by Jesse Canado, Chief Economic Development Officer, Edward Butterfield, Partnerships Manager, and Amy Pennington, Economic Development Coordinator.

And from the city manager's office, we have Anthony Gill, Grand Connection Corridor Manager.

Again, this presentation is for information only and it is a first introduction of this topic.

Now, without further ado, I'll hand it over to Jesse.

Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy City Manager.

Good evening, Deputy Mayor and Council.

Tonight's presentation, as uh the Deputy City Manager mentioned, continues work the council set in motion in 2024, directing staff to work with businesses and organizations to identify the appropriate structures and tools for district management in seven areas.

We'll touch each of them lightly tonight as part of the context.

Staff believes that the draft administrative policies establish a clear, predictable set of steps so all community members can understand how to engage with the potential formation process, whether they are pro BIA or concerned about BIAs.

For clarity, we are not starting the formation process tonight.

Tonight we are sharing guidelines and administrative steps for future applicants.

Again, we want to make sure that all applicants and the community has clear, predictable steps.

We welcome the council's feedback to help us calibrate the administrative oversight, the financial stewardship, and the expected community engagement as part of that process for future applicants.

Our agenda will cover some of the background on how we got here tonight.

Staff will go through an overview of the policy and objectives.

We'll touch a couple of the key elements in there to make sure we highlight items important for council, and we'll give a brief update on the conversations about a possible downtown BIA.

In preparing tonight's drafts, we've reviewed BIA management best practices in other cities in the U.S.

And several council members have joined study tours with the Downtown Association over the year to help explore BIAs in places like San Diego, Denver, and New York.

This work advances ED Plan Strategy 2.3.1 by providing guidelines for one additional tool for supporting local retailers, restaurants, and many small businesses across Bellevue.

BIAs are a neighborhood-based tool that gives property owners, which includes residents and businesses, more support for enhancing their areas.

BIAs complement our existing services like our small business walks, our technical assistance, our small business development center advisor, startup 425 accelerator, and other services by creating a tool that helps encourage customer traffic and foot traffic in the applicant neighborhood.

As the city works to provide a consistent and equitable level of service across all areas.

Merchant associations, business improvement areas, and other district management structures can strengthen neighborhood level organization capacity and help foster unique identities.

Bellevue's districts vary widely.

There are four of them on the screen, which is why transparent and predictable steps are needed for applicants and the community.

For the four that are on the screen, just want to highlight a little bit of each of them.

The Bell Red Arts District Community Alliance, centered around the uh the Bell Red Station.

The city was very forward in helping convene the stakeholders initially, supporting uh sponsoring initial events, and being a studying hand during transitions.

The Spring District, next door.

Uh, we have worked with the Spring District Association, most uh famously, Linda Hofner, to help bring community events, celebrations, and outdoor activity to their incredible outdoor spaces, including things like Fiesta Latina last fall, and recently the three World Cup watch parties that brought hundreds of Belleviewers into their open spaces.

That neighborhood is designed for outdoor celebration, and that is a focus for them.

In Old Bellevue, we've worked with the old Bellevue, the longstanding Old Bellevue Merchants Association to update their business practices, uh, review think about their long term strategies, and help support uh financially their first staffed position in history, so that they've you've been able to see things like uh jingle Bellevue last Christmas.

So that they've you've been able to see things like uh jingle Bellevue last Christmas, you've seen the recent market that closed down Main Street and brought vendors uh into old Bellevue.

All of that is a variety of of how old Bellevue has matured over the last few years.

Um that's just a sampling of how three of our districts are different.

They're all have a unique identity as they as they move forward.

And of course, we have the long-standing BDA and uh and our larger downtown area, which is also going through its own transformation.

Uh the council should be incredibly proud of the work that each of these organizations does on a daily basis.

That I will hand it over to Edward.

Great.

Thank you, Jesse.

Um, for our next slide, what it'll cover is what is a BIA from a high level.

A BIA is a funding tool authorized under Washington law, RCW 3587A that allows businesses and property owners within a defined district to collectively fund enhanced services beyond what the city typically provides.

Those services can include, as the slide shows, activation, maintenance, marketing, and events, among many other things.

BIAs are a proven model across Washington.

Many of our peer cities, such as Tacoma, Spokane and Everett have successfully used them for years.

Well, Bellevue is currently the largest city in the state without this tool.

As Bellevue continues to grow into a global city, a BIA provides a locally controlled way for business and property owners to invest in the long-term success of their district without impacting the city's general fund.

Um as we hit the next slide.

And the first one is really as was mentioned by Jesse is this policy's policy is to establish a clear and consistent framework for creating and administering business improvement areas in Bellevue.

We really wanted to define the process from the formation to the modification renewal, will clearly outline rules, responsibilities, and governments with governance within the city.

And then finally, the policy also establishes financial oversight and reporting expectations to ensure that the assessment funds are managed responsibly and transparently.

Next slide, please.

So as we do this, the policy, as you saw in your packets, is organized around seven core components that guide the entire life cycle of business improvement area.

This again goes from formation and assessment methodology to governance, financial management, and future modifications.

Today we're just going to highlight a couple of those components to illustrate how the policy is intended to function.

Together, these components provide a predictable process while allowing flexibility to respond to the new new unique needs of individual districts that we may have in the future.

And I'll now turn it over to Amy to walk through each of these policy components in more detail.

Good evening, Council.

Yes, as Edward said, BIAs are a community-driven tool.

So our policy outlines the process that proponents would go through to form and establish a BIA.

During the pre-petition process, proponents would work with their stakeholders to create their petition, and it would include their proposed boundaries, the special assessment rates, and the services that they propose providing.

And as part of this pre-petition process, the city would provide a city-provided services memo that would outline the current services that the city is doing in the designated area.

Part of this is to ensure that a BIA is looking to enhance services, not replace what the city's already providing.

Once it's complete, the proponent would submit the proposal to the city for formal review.

And this is a process where city staff would validate that everything's included that's necessary in the petition, and we'd verify that any questions that need to be answered are answered.

At that point, once the city approves it, it's valid.

And then once that happens, it goes to council evaluation and approval.

And that's the point when all of you be able to vote up or down on approving a BIA.

I want to talk a little bit more about the assessment methodology portion of this because it's very important.

And special assessment methodology and rates are set by the ratepayers, not by the city.

It's part of the negotiation and them deciding for themselves what is best.

As they negotiate the methodologies and the rates, they would present those to us in their pre-petition, and staff would verify that we can validate that the form that they used is repeatable.

And then the next point that would happen is the council would have that vote on the petition.

Our policy sets standards for fair assessment methodologies.

And the slide shows you a few of the ways that BIAs around the country choose to do those methodologies.

Commonly use our assessment values of properties as well as linear frontage, but there are several ways that this could be proposed.

So a few of the key players in this process are first and foremost the city council.

Through the RCW language, the city council is the legislative authority over BIAs, and you all have the authority to establish a BIA, and there are several checks and balances that will go through throughout the process if a BIA is implemented where you continue to have oversight.

When a petition is proposed, the council is the ultimate decision maker.

If the council decides to move forward, the BIA is established through an ordinance.

One of the things that the ordinance also establishes is an advisory board.

And this is made up of a diversity of the ratepayers in the business improvement area.

The ratepayers would be the ratepayers would bring forward applicants for board members, and the final approval would be through the city manager's office.

Or sorry.

Through the city manager.

And the advisory board would be able to recommend a contract.

Sorry, recommend an operator to manage a contract that would be providing the programs and services in a five-year contract.

So the overall message that I want to get across here is these are the players that provide a lot of checks and balances throughout this throughout the life cycle of the BIA to make sure that these are accountable, the funding is accountable to the community.

The advisory board and the operator would work together to present their annual work plan to the council once a year.

And then once the council approves the work plan, the operator would run the programs and services throughout the remainder of the year, and then they would come back to council with their annual report as well as their work plan for the following year.

Our policy also goes through several other categories that are talked about in the life cycle of a BIA.

There could be boundary changes that come up, there could be rate changes, there could be the decision to renew a BIA for an additional term.

And we have laid out guidance for how the BIA and the city staff could address any of these changes.

I want to hand it over to Anthony to talk about downtown.

Yeah, thank you.

So transitioning a little bit, I want to share a bit of information about the status of the organization which is currently furthest along in its exploration of the business improvement area.

As you heard from Patrick this evening, a possible BIA has been a topic of conversation for downtown for many years.

And of course, as many of you know, because many of you were there, uh recent BDA study tours uh have also explored different models for BIAs and places like the meat packing district and Bryant Park in New York City and downtown Denver and Cherry Creek North in Denver.

Each of these trips provided unique lessons that the BDA is exploring as part of their process.

So BDA is analyzing BIA options with its stakeholder group and consultant.

Uh the stakeholder group includes major property owners, uh major partners like Maidenbauer Center and tenants like Symmetra and Amazon.

It's still too early to know details about uh possible budgets, boundaries, or service levels, but BDA is reviewing options with their stakeholder group, and we're watching that work very closely.

Uh, in part that's because the potential BIA would involve, as Amy mentioned, close work with the city on reviewing petitions, working through council, managing contracts, and of course, appointing a ratepayer advisory board.

Thus far, city staff has provided BDA with information on downtown property owners, and we have produced a memo that outlines the existing services that the city provides so that it can plan accordingly to make sure that it is providing additive programming and services.

So, as Amy mentioned, with this policy in place, this process is now driven by will be driven by potential ratepayers who must determine really the parameters for a potential petition.

Right now, BDA has expressed to us that the earliest we could expect a petition would be sometime in the fall.

Although again, it's driven by their process.

So we are it is now moved to the property owners for uh for their consideration.

And with that, I will turn it back to Jesse.

All right.

And so to kind of bring us towards a close, in addition to the downtown association and the three districts that we touched at the front end of the of the conversation, staff are also working with the consultant on common bridges and stakeholders in crossroads and factoria to explore the possibility for organizing business organizations in those areas, which may have a more local and small business orientation based on the existing identity of those neighborhoods.

You see on uh on the screen a working title for the Welberton Health Innovation District.

Uh stakeholders there, including Overlake, are interested in supporting work to elevate the health and life sciences industry cluster that is in that neighborhood that is unique in uh along the 405 corridor.

So we are in early conversations with those stakeholders to explore the opportunities to expand uh awareness of the companies and the institutions like Overlake Hospital, Seattle Children's, Kaiser, and others that are there to help create a globally recognized health and life sciences cluster along the 116th corridor.

So that kind of rounds out the seven major business areas, business districts in Bellevue.

There are a variety of neighborhood shopping centers and small businesses across the city, and we do provide support for those as well.

But the seven we've touched tonight are the uh the largest and densest clusters of small businesses and street facing businesses in the city.

This does not mean that all seven of these areas will become a business improvement area.

Each neighborhood will take its own path based on the stakeholders, based on the industries that they are supporting and the small business types that they are supporting.

Uh, the form of district management really does depend on the stakeholders.

Uh, tonight's presentation just provides uh some insight into one structure for one more tool.

Uh now we will welcome we welcome the council's questions and feedback on oversight, financial stewardship, uh engagement thresholds, and other areas will work to incorporate that feedback so all stakeholders have a clear, predictable, written process for the future.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Uh questions and comments.

We'll start with uh Councilmember Newenhaus.

Thank you.

Thanks for the great presentation.

Uh tonight, um, in learning a bit more about uh uh BIA and and uh also in looking at other cities that uh decided to go down a similar path.

My my my biggest question to start with is um I'm I'm not seeing a clear argument for it right right now, and at least in downtown.

Um, but I could be missing something.

So this is uh your opportunity to uh uh show some additional insights.

When I look at what the BIA have been constructing in other cities usually to address public safety, um, a downtown that might not be very active, unlike unlike Bellevue.

Um it might have uh an issue with graffiti um with with litter um and and generally not be a place where you want to visit.

And I think about you know what we have going on in downtown Bellevue right now, um a thriving downtown, a very safe downtown, um, thanks to um you know outstanding men and women of our police department.

We've got a very clean downtown because the stakeholders and the the property owners here take a lot of pride in being downtown.

Uh we also have the key Bellevue beautiful program that uh in fact just a street downtown was just adopted just recently, and they continue to clean it up.

So I I guess I'm not hearing the real urgency or the real um underlying need to do this, especially when you started the conversation too, um uh Jesse talking about these other districts, wonderful districts, but we didn't need to create a BIA in order to create Bell Red or Old Maine and the and these other ones.

So I'm not seeing the argument right now why we need to take this step in downtown.

Now I love the fact because I was gonna ask you about Factoria and Crossroads, um, which I would elevate to be even higher on the list right now, given um where we're where they are right now.

I I think you know, look at uh Factoria, for example, is dealing with some of these issues and and and could use that help, or maybe even other areas they might not think of, much smaller.

And I really like the fact that you put in the the Wilburton example there, that that helped that that is really interesting.

What look forward to learning more there, but maybe even like uh you know, smaller neighborhoods, you know, be it uh Newport Hills or Lake Hills or other areas that still haven't quite honed in on that right approach in terms of their kind of you know micro business area.

Um so that's my first question is can you can you explain a little bit more to me on why why downtown?

Because it sounds like that's where we want to start first.

That's a very insightful question, Councilmember Dionhouse.

I'll start by saying and then look to my team members to expand.

Uh the clean and safe is often a uh foundational element of business improvement in areas.

It is not the only one.

There are a variety of reasons that uh property owners may choose to create to uh opt into this self-assessment.

Um so the the downtown value proposition is part of the conversation that I think Patrick and his stakeholders are going through right now.

I'll look to Anthony if there's any insight you you can share there as well.

Yeah, uh you know, from from some of the conversations that I've had with Patrick and team uh at BDA, I think uh, you know, I think they've they're wrestling with kind of the same question of what is uh how what are the services that we really need to be able to provide uh in a downtown that's doing very well, right?

Uh a lot of the message that they've been talking about is kind of maintaining that, being able to say, hey, we are we are uh continuing down this path of providing a high quality level of service.

Um so the clean and safe, while I think it's it's probably one component that they would be looking at, uh I think they'd be probably more emphasizing the the uh activation, some of the data and research, uh the work to support small businesses and and help locate businesses downtown as well.

I I do not mean this with any ill intent whatsoever.

But I do not understand why we're having this presentation when that hasn't been more thoroughly um researched.

And uh there's a more clear argument for it.

We're using a lot of staff time to develop this, um, which I'm not saying is a waste of staff time, but you uh but the the answer you just gave me for me personally is just not sufficient.

Um I know there's no action tonight, but we're not really not hearing a clear argument for why we should be creating this uh this this this district.

Um I understand you know where we're we're in the early stages of this, but I'd like to hear a really clear answer in terms of these are the types of programs we're looking at.

This is the type of activation, or this is the problem that we're trying to solve.

Um, and and I'm just really really not hearing that.

So I I when we come back, because this is by no means the end of this conversation, but uh when you come back, that's that's what I'll be looking for.

It's just a really clear argument for what we're trying to do, the problem we're trying to solve, and how it's going to benefit this this district.

Um because this presentation just we just go right away into here's how we're gonna form it, here's how it's gonna work, and we I for me, we just haven't established that yet.

So now, if we do move forward, there are some other things that I just wanted to uh to point out in terms of the the overall framework as well that I'll be looking at.

So, first the advisory board structure.

Um, you know, as written, I think the city would impose a target assessment.

If I'm understanding, and please correct me, uh Justine others if I'm wrong, um, the assessment and then hand pick the board that oversees how's the how these private dollars are spent.

Um my understanding is that not all and every BIA is different.

Um, and and and that's fine, but the governance I think should come from those ratepayers themselves, or at least have a significant input in into that.

If they're paying, they should they should they should have some some say.

So um so um, you know, no problem with the city confirming um right, uh, or having uh veto power, but I think those ratepayers should have uh have a voice.

So that's number one.

Second, um the draft allows advocacy so long as it benefits the area as a whole.

Uh for me, a little too subjective.

Um I I worry that um any type of of lobbying effort or advocacy ever could get really messy.

And I think it's is contrary to what we're trying to achieve with that that BIA.

I think the the uh the intent of this should stay focused on um clearly why it was formed.

So uh whatever that might be, be it the public safety activation, um, cleaning, whatever, but uh, you know, no no no advocacy.

Um third, the assessment methodology.

I think that needs some stronger guardrails if we can, because the assessed value formulas create that volatility has nothing to do with that that service that might be delivered.

Um so law ran or raw land formulas can disproportionately kind of burden uh those density parcels, right?

Um so I think we need to have some some um some I don't know, square footage-based metrics or some kind of proportionality um as as we move forward.

And then uh finally, when a single entity uh represents more than a quarter of a district, uh the petition threshold shouldn't just be encouraged.

Um I think we should be a little bit more specific in terms of what that looks like.

So um maybe a mandatory 65% like supermajority for a true consensus before uh before before moving forward.

That would be some of my some of my feedback.

Yeah, please do.

So taking your notes around the proportionality and uh the advocacy restriction, both of which are kind of outlined in the RCW, but we'll work with the city attorney's office to see how we can firm those up a little bit.

With regards to the board, the board structure and the assessment, I'm gonna kick us off and then uh ask Amy to fill in some of the details with uh both of those, the final structure is set by the ratepayers themselves.

So that will be part of the conversation and the petition process and the evaluation that happens with the council.

Uh, we agree with you, council member, that the ratepayers should be well represented in the structure.

So I will ask Amy to fill in some of the details while I look for the slide on assessments.

Yeah.

Um yes, so the ratepayer advisory board actually has to it has to represent a diversity of ratepayers.

So every type of ratepayer that is in the BIA would have proportionate seats essentially on the board, and then um the board applications and nominations would come from among the ratepayers, um, and then there'd be final approval from the city manager.

So um the as much involvement as they they can have is is our goal because it is it is money that is um being allocated from them to provide services that they've identified they'd like.

Yeah, okay, perfect.

Thank you for that.

And then Amy, can you touch the the variety of assessments and how that will also come back to us?

Yeah, so we our our recommendation is to not provide too much restriction in this because every every district is so different of how they're who they're potentially having in their BIA.

So owners are sometimes the proponent or the ratepayers, sometimes they're tenants.

Um it could be a wide variety of arrangements, and so leaving that open from our end and letting the stakeholders actually negotiate amongst themselves of what they think is distributed fairly based on um the makeup of that of that zone.

Old Bellevue would look a lot different than downtown or Bell Red.

So if we don't want to put, we want to put fairness in our policy, but not dictate what fairness looks like because it we want them to be able to negotiate that among their district.

Um we'll look into if there is anything that we need to add, but or that we'd receive if you'd like to add.

Okay.

Okay.

And then um just also just love to get some additional um as we move forward in this process where these other uh neighborhoods or potential other projects might lie, and um and and what our approach might be uh there.

I know, you know, maybe it might be getting ahead of myself on this, but still, um uh, you know, if this is something that we want to pursue, um, you know, there are other, as you pointed out, some other areas of the city that we could uh adapt as well.

Um so just like a basic understanding in terms of what that hierarchy looks like and how we would approach that a little bit, not fully fleshed out like this first one that we're talking about here with downtown, but that'd be something that I'll I'll ask additional questions on in the future.

But with that, thank you so much.

Um very very interesting as we uh as we continue down this path.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sumadouria.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um I I mean I have the honor to chat beyond some of these trips.

So I saw like how I think I see how exciting how much we can bring with this project.

And also at the same time, sometimes some of the program kind of wasn't that exciting to me.

I'm just trying to be honest, because I think different working groups provide different benefits to um to I think the ratepayer, depending what kind of framework we can create them from the beginning.

So I would say say the more thorough, detailed framework we can provide that has actually benefit all different sizes of business, it would be really helpful.

Um I just have a few questions.

I'm trying to get ahead of myself.

I'm actually thinking about like, oh, if a business having a hardship, how flexible we have, like you know, changing it, because 10 years is a long time.

Right.

And I think the the life cycle of a small business sometimes sadly could not even last, maybe a quarter of that, right?

So I I want to see, like, I think I would in the next session, I would love to see like what is the flexibility look like.

If you know a business doesn't matter what size, if their um economic output is changing dramatically, doesn't matter what's the reason, like what how can we adapt to that?

And if we are we have somebody who is not able to pay for it, how can we have the hardship?

Because I think there's a there's a language in the document too.

And I think I would love to see like what is that defines it, and then what how can we subsidize it?

How do how can we support with assessment?

Um, can we go back to I I think number slide 10 is where we are looking at?

I guess like I would love to learn about how are we gonna be differentiated the fee they're gonna be paid uh between like an owner versus a tenant?

Yeah, so yeah, so that that depends on how the people who are proposing the BIA decide amongst themselves what makes sense for them.

So um there are some BIAs that have all property owners are assessed, and that's kind of their baseline, and that's what they do.

Um, in in Edmonds, for example, they have tenant.

Um they have a BIA that's paid for partially by their tenants, and so um it's like square foot of businesses, and then they have some businesses that are more like appointment-based businesses, and they charge per number of appointments essentially.

So that's how they determine that they could do their assessments.

There's a lot of flexibility of what makes sense.

Residential assessments could be a percentage of um corporate assessments as to not put uh undue burden on residential, but all of that we really would recommend that um the proponents along with consultants who specialize in creating these proposals, work for what makes sense within a certain community.

Yeah, and I thank you.

I would say because there's so many different variables and a different type of um rate payers.

I would say I would love to see.

I think that's like the homework for you is show me like can you show us what is the cost versus benefit for different groups, right?

Because I think without us, the public to know what's the benefit for every level, it's really hard for us to make a decision.

What it look like for the business community, other residents.

Um, and I'm clearly very different from like tax uh other texts because this is a special assessment.

So I think seeing what make sure that's not there's no repeating services, like you said, we're not removing services, but what is the added benefit to it that's actually just viable and also accessible for everyone that's gonna get a benefit will be really important.

Um I have a question about the 60% voting um passing, right?

So, what happens if like I'm just this is just for clarifying because 60% to me is like a C minus.

So it's like barely passing, but how can we address that?

Like when there's 40% that's not agreeing with, like, how can we what do we do in that situation?

That's a really good question around engagement council member.

Uh Edward, could you address that one a little bit?

Yeah, so in the policy, we built out some requirements for engagement because we do want to have a district discussion with everyone in the district, right?

And part of that discussion is also through a pre-petition, the city would be actively working with the proponents, and that would be part of ours is understanding what are those concerns and then working together with the district uh stakeholders, which also sometimes includes not just the ratepayers, but largest district could be neighbors and others, and then ensuring that we're having that dialogue together.

So as the petition is being formed and ultimately gets to you, we're we're working on those issues ahead of it.

Um and we do recognize as we worked with other municipalities in our region and actually met with them.

There will be cases where you will um have there will be individuals that will not be for the assessment, and that will be a natural outcome that you rarely would ever get to 100%.

And so I think part of it is that that dialogue and continuing that in our community engagement, which Bellevue, of course, we lean into community engagement, as you know.

Um so we would hope through the pre-petition stage that that would be part of our first step.

And actually, maybe even as you're hearing right now, the downtown association or BDA is actually in a pre-petition stage.

So you're hearing some of those early things before you've actually received anything, and then this is gonna give us an opportunity to work with Patrick and them to go back and work with these stakeholders directly.

So I think in some ways we're actually mirroring what your question, we're actually seeing this in real time right now.

Um important part is that we have that stage and we have a petition that we feel solid about before you receive it as a council.

Is there any um city that's similar to our size that has had very successful, like something we can benchmark on, like, or like what about what kind of any report they have shared publicly that we can kind of benchmark see to learn from?

Yeah, a lot of cities, both in Washington and across the country uh do use these kinds of tools.

I'll look to Edward Anthony.

I think you've both engaged with and the measures there.

So maybe Edward, you could share a little bit, and then Anthony if there's an additional example.

Yeah, Anthony will say Spokane, because that's his favorite city from Spokane.

Yeah.

So yes, we did get some reports, and that was actually our idea of the annual report with through that investigation of best practices, and we would be happy to share those with you.

And they would go through, and as part of the work plan, which which is what we are adding as an additional layer of transparency in our in our policy, is we would have metrics built out.

And so we would want the operator to set out those metrics and then at the end of the year report back to council how they achieve those different metrics, whatever they are.

If it's it's visitors or other things.

And generally what we find is BIEs are expanding regionally.

Seattle right now has 11 potential BIAs, or they have 11 BIEs, but they're looking at adding three to four additional ones.

And so we're seeing more and more communities using this as a tool, not just in Seattle, but many of our regional communities is a tool to help build those districts above, again, as mentioned, clean and safe is very important.

And we have many that use them for historic districts like Snohomish and that are smaller communities and using them for for a lot of those preservation in those other areas.

So we'd be happy to provide some of those examples and best practices in our region regional and national for you.

And then would the annual report be shared publicly amongst the ratepayers at the public?

Yes, we would be included with your packet.

And is any documents we share with you become public?

But we would also encourage our operator in this case to publish that because we that's also an important part.

Is operator also through the structure Amy walkthrough, they report to the advisory board.

So it is in their interest to ensure that they are responding to their and they would be developing the report, but that actually report would be reviewed by the advisory board become before it comes to the council.

So that is also another checkpoint where we would be having that dialogue with ratepayers going back to your point that we that they are satisfied customers.

Ultimately, they're paying for something and they want to make sure they're receiving the services.

Thank you.

And uh this last question, yeah.

Um, what is the general stakeholders feeling about this project?

Just out of curiosity.

For the downtown BIA in particular, uh, so that's an ongoing conversation.

Uh the BDA has formed a steering committee uh made of several many stakeholders across downtown.

Um and Anthony, can you share a little bit about some of the insight we have there?

Yeah, I think it I think uh there's a lot of interest in particularly those that work around activation and like I said, maintaining the clean and safe.

I think uh especially with light rail opening uh with the the FIFA events, we saw some of the benefits and the stakeholders saw some of the benefits of having basically active ambassadors across downtown uh dur on FIFA game days.

Obviously, that's not something that can be sustained without you know some additional uh tool in the future.

Um so those are the types of things that we've heard, they those are the types of activities that we've heard the most interest in.

Um and then I think a good desire to see additional events and activities, not so much the big events, BDA, for example, does a great job with the big events, um, but more of those day-to-day small scale your food truck rallies, your you know, your the thing that you pop out of the office uh, you know, to check out as you're you know walking down the street to check out, you know, grab coffee or whatever, you run into you know a fun little event on the street.

Um it's it's kind of the surprise and delight type things that we're hearing a lot about.

Yeah, I wouldn't say no to another 12.5 million dollars, by the way.

If we can create that kind of engagement, we welcome that at any given time.

But um, I guess in closing, I think it's really um I I feel it's very unique opportunity when the stakeholders, especially the ones that disagreeing with it and have different opinions.

I think we really need to listen deeper and making honey into the differences in the opinion to find a pathway to meet in the middle to create something that works for everyone.

Um that's all my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Breyer.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um you don't have to go to the slide, but slide five mentions Salsay Motion uh doing their little dance.

My sisters did their summer camp, we learned Merengue Bachata, I volunteered with them, so love them.

Um, you know, and one thing that comes to mind.

So I'm gonna go very granular, then I'll zoom out a little bit.

And these are just initial impressions, and I'm operating on ignorance here.

You all are, or limited information, rather, you all are uh experts, so please feel free to correct me and perhaps uh refine my my thoughts here.

But um ideally having these um mechanisms in place to raise funds for cleanliness for safety and for activation, I think makes sense.

Uh downtown Bellevue is notorious for being safe and for being clean.

So uh okay, if we're looking at a net new enhancement, perhaps I I'm unclear about the value there, and again, maybe that's just my ignorance.

But for the third contention, activation, this is where I'm a little bit concerned, and because I'm operating on some assumptions, so perhaps those assumptions are not true, but I don't want us to get into a place where we are chasing or trying to inject culture and activation in a way that is not sustainable.

FIFA obviously is not sustainable, it's not happening 24-7, right?

But uh in college, we'd go to Quincy Market in Boston.

Why?

Because it's a permanent structure and there's constantly vendors there.

It's a permanent structure, for example, right?

What permanent structures do we have in downtown?

Like the only thing that comes to mind is Old Maine, for example.

Whether or not we've got an activation fund, I'm there every Friday night at Molly Moon's getting a chocolate cone, right?

A kids cone with a chocolate scoop, melted chocolate.

If you've not tried it, please go ahead.

Um the point is that I I it sort of seems like there's a logical disorder here where we are trying to activate to generate foot traffic as opposed to using data to see where the most foot traffic is to then then inject those activation spaces there, right?

Like I think what comes to mind, for example, um, if I want to, I don't know why this is a stupid example, but I want to be, I want to be famous.

I want my name and article.

So I'm gonna hire a marketing agency, and I'm gonna put them on a retainer, I pay them a lot of money because I raise these funds, and I'm gonna be in an article once a month, and I get my name in the Seattle Times, the the New York Times, whatever, what have you.

After those 10 months, who cares anymore about who I am and what I am?

Because it's not organic, right?

And so I want us to make sure, and perhaps you already are you all very brilliant, but I want us to make sure we're thinking about this very systemically.

So we do this in a way where the money is not spent on, okay, let's have this micro event.

Okay, now we need to market it on Instagram.

Now we need to have a flyer, go to where the foot traffic is.

And what natural infrastructure already exists in that place.

Of course, it's convenient for me to say, I promise I'm not saying it because I live by it, but crossroads, like every day I'm going there, whether it's 11 a.m., 4 p.m., whenever I can go in between meetings to take my dog to the dock park there, it's just bustling.

There's there's Taiwanese grandmas practicing Tai Chi, there's kids playing basketball, there's someone playing music really obnoxiously, but like that's just a part of having that type of vibrancy, right?

And there's there's young kids running around, you know.

Again, old Maine is another area.

I would really like to see a clear argument to why it should be in the downtown.

To be clear, I love downtown as well.

Um but I I think another thing is we we have to do some pre-work and see what generates that foot traffic as well, right?

It's it's my intuition tells me, at the fear of sounding arrogant, that it's it's the urban planning that allows and intentionally builds third spaces, just like was it Ron Scherr that did in 1969 or was it 79 that he developed crossroads, right?

Um it was built to be a third space.

So that I think that's low-hanging fruit that we can activate more sustainably, right?

And again, I live by crossroads, so I get whatever I get it, it's a bias there.

Um so I just want to make sure we're being systemic there.

Uh and then let me review my notes.

Um another question that I have is uh okay, so that was a granular part, taking a taking a step back.

Oh, how does this impact housing development?

Um I'm curious about if this will uh stop housing development, if if those folks are expected to, I'm saying a head nod, okay.

Go ahead.

Oh, absolutely.

Uh that that is a great question on the housing.

Uh, I'll also want to go back and discuss something for the other thing.

I realize I just threw a competit question at you.

My apologies, please.

But with the housing, um, as uh has been a common theme.

How who and how they're included in the special assessment structure is part of the conversation for each individual district.

And you stated that I'm sorry for the redundant question, yeah.

No, it's it's a good question to re-emphasize uh that that is part of the the negotiation.

Um of course we know that the the city's priority and the council's priority is to help make sure the housing is being delivered.

So we would not want this tool to be set at a rate that would deter new housing construction.

So that would be part of the evaluation process and part of the council's decision making process as well, and whether it's a thumbs up or a thumbs down on the formation.

Okay.

Makes sense.

Um you have you want to add anything there, Amy?

Oh, just that um we we've heard in different parts of the city that um, like from developers that there are there's actually a desire sometimes to be part of a BIA because of the services that are provided there, and it attracts residents to want to live in those spaces because they're vibrant neighborhoods.

So I think that that answer is it's it's it can be a great benefit for some neighborhoods to have BIAs and it actually increases residential and then to speak to the the data question.

We are very aligned with you.

Um and so uh the council has a high priority for for data informed decision making and investments.

And so just as a note, we uh as part of the ED plan implementation, which all of this is part of, uh we have subscribed to Placer, Placer AI, which helps us understand uh foot traffic, uh times of day, dwell times.

So as we're putting grant funds, sponsorships out into the world, we're able to track how many people came to the the uh World Cup Watch Party, uh how many folks came to a particular event in a specific space so that we can start to look at times of day, types of events, locations within the city that either uh receive that investment really well or that don't seem to work for the community.

So we'll be able to start tracking that over time as we go into the future, and we'll be looking at at how we can deploy that data.

If I can uh interject here, so it I guess what I'm can okay, hold on, sorry.

I guess what I'm worried about is that we use data from events that are pretty okay, like the BDA Art Festival.

I love that place.

I love going, but like that happens over particular set of time once in the summer, right?

And of course there's gonna be foot traffic there.

I don't think we should optimize there at that same time.

Like there should be something, so um uh and I'm forgetting the name of the street, but there's that uh open AI office city center plaza.

There's a cube steel structure.

Uh thank you.

Compass plaza.

Um don't laugh.

Compass plaza.

Um so there's that plaza in there, and I lost my train of thought.

Dang it.

Oh, yes, so Compass, there's so many open AI employees, Perceptron AI is there.

I know we're building that AI corridor in that area.

There's folks that are walking around, but like what exists there that could activate.

I I guess I I'm concerned that the data should be like when there's nothing going on, where are people walking?

I really want to emphasize that incorporating the walkability and foot traffic that already exists outside of that.

So sorry, I that is a long way to say that.

No, we we understand the philosophy, council member and that is part of the work.

Okay, got it.

I really appreciate your patience and I appreciate my colleagues' patience with me.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Great.

Uh councilmember Robinson.

Okay, so I'm I'll give some comments and then I have some questions.

So I'm I'm very interested in pursuing this.

I think that we've seen a really good example of what the BDA has already done to activate downtown.

And there's something called desire paths, which is when a community walks through the grass and they always go the same place, it kind of makes an informal path.

And to me, putting a BIA in our downtown or any of these neighborhoods that you're contemplating kind of formalizes the activities that people already love to do because it's just a little bit of a crapshoot when you have uh when you don't have a uh reliable funding source to do these, and so the BDA has done an excellent job with the ice skating house with July 4th, our outdoor concerts, our night markets, the things that they have done to activate downtown that make it a more uh pleasurable place for people to live.

Um it would be great to have a reliable funding source to continue that.

And the thing that I am interested in is the fact that it does involve, I think, condominium owners uh as payers into this, and so um having a little more oversight on like noise limits and um having input from the community on what kind of activations they want to see, and also um like our parks are always activated, especially downtown park, but there isn't always great oversight, so sometimes the noise is like really loud, or it goes really long into the night and there's nobody there to police it.

So I think that this could be part of the benefit of having a BIA.

Um, so my questions are um we talk about lobbying, not wanting lobbying and not wanting to be paying uh uh for or lobbying or to police lobbying, and I'm just wondering, should we just prohibit it outright?

Um while we're still creating equitable access for community um feedback.

It's a great question, council member.

Um, the RCW uh that enables BIAs in Washington State does provide a prohibition on advocacy and lobbying that is not related to um general interests of the of the ratepayers, but Amy, is there some additional detail you have there?

Um yeah, we we really just we elevated that language that was in the RCW um to make sure that it was clear, however, we can work with our city attorneys to enhance that uh per the recommendation of the council to to be more restrictive.

Yeah, we can explore that further and get useful.

Yep.

Um, in terms of board selection, uh I I don't know about my fellow my colleagues, but I would love to have a council representative on on the board.

I know we've done that in other instances.

So um that's something to think about.

And also, I assume you'll have residential representation.

If residents are a ratepayer, then we would look to for how they can be represented.

Okay.

Um, and then how can we ensure assessment methodology is fair for different types of densities of developments?

Oh, that's a very technical question that I think you know, our the BDA's consultants at Puma are the ones who are advising them on the technical rates, which have again have to be negotiated among the the property owners or the ratepayers.

I mean I'll say property, the ratepayers.

So I think that is uh it's a great question.

It's something that we can definitely um keep an eye on as we as we engage with the with Patrick and his stakeholders on their process.

Yeah, I think that's something that the community would want some information on.

And then uh should we make the 65% petition threshold mandatory versus encouraged?

That is a policy level direction that we're looking for from the council, if if is that is that possible.

Maybe you could give us some feedback on that.

Yeah, we can take a look at it.

And just one thing to clarify with the 60% support, it's um it's of the assessed value.

So it's um it's so just to make sure that's clear.

So it's 60% of the assessed value has to approve it.

So if there's certain property owner, it's like it's by property value.

If there's certain property owners that have 20% of the property value, so they're paying 20% of the assessment, then that would be 20%.

And so it adds up to 60% of the assessed that for the assessment, but I'm talking about if somebody wanted to petition.

That doesn't that require 65%?

I think the current threshold is is 60%.

Oh, of the petition even?

So to yes, to receive the petition, they have to validate or the clerk helps us validate that 60% of the uh is represented in the positive before we can consider it.

Okay, so just get it get some recommendation back on that too, would be helpful.

But I'm I'm really intrigued by this, and I'd I'd be interested in having staff pursue it and get back to us with answers to the questions that we're we're getting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Bargava.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor and Jesse, Amy, Anthony, and Edward as well.

Great presentation.

A lot of my questions were in part of some of my colleagues.

So um I do want to say uh so that'll simplify my uh commentary here.

But I think overall, this is a really interesting concept.

I do support the notion of BIAs and what they can do for our city.

But the real question for me is how can we ensure that BIAs and frameworks like this, while they support the vitality in a district, we are also protecting the interests and the businesses and the property owners who are actually gonna fund it.

And that's the key balance that I think is the heart of how we can make this successful in a durable way.

I also think there are three really important parameters that I would stress that we think about.

One is, and everyone's talked about this in ways, is the right representation.

Folks need to have great great representation in how we are going to create the framework for this to be successful.

The second for me is equity.

And my questions are gonna follow this thread as well.

I think that's really important because it's very easy for someone to pay into something or and not receive the services, or someone to not have a voice in the governing structures of this process, and that can come in many different formats.

So that's a really important principle for me.

And the third is accountability.

We take other people's money.

What are we gonna do to spend it?

What are we going to do to make sure that the spending is aligned with the intent, not just the folks who are gonna govern this, but actually the whole district.

So those are really really important principles, and I'm just gonna reiterate them through this process, and I'm gonna uh say that today.

Going to my questions, um, I do agree with some of my peers who have represent who've talked about the assessment methodology, so I won't labor that, but I think it's really important for me to understand how the city will evaluate whether an assessment formula is fair and proportional.

I think this came up in the voices of different questions, but if you have a point of view, I would love to hear.

And should the framework provide guidance on avoiding unintended impacts?

What will that be and what how could that look like?

You don't have to answer the second question today, but the first one I would be interested in your thoughts.

Yes, thank you, council member.

Um with regards to fair and proportional, that is, as Amy mentioned earlier.

That's why we leave we we recommend leaving the assessments uh very flexible and open so that the ratepayers can discuss what is fair and proportional as they define the value proposition and the specific services that they're going to be that are they hoping to be delivered through the BIA formation.

That will be different for each neighborhood, and that would be different for different ratepayers within downtown.

So that is part of the art of forming a BIA, not the science, is we have to well, we will be working with Patrick and the stakeholders as they navigate specific services and how that is reflected in who is paying and how much.

Appreciate that.

And that's why I think keeping those principles of accountability and equity in mind as you do that would be really, really important for this.

Uh, second question for me is we also talked about the governance structure.

We've heard we also all heard stakeholder input on this, uh, and there is uh questions folks have uh already around this.

Um how do other cities balance oversight and stakeholder representation?

Do we have an idea of how that is done typically?

Oh, that is also a question that would require several case studies, because again, each each board is unique.

I'll look to Edward.

Do you have any insight you you can share here?

Yeah, we did.

We um, as part of this, of course, reached out to our fellow municipalities.

And the municipality has the most is Seattle.

They actually have over 11 VIAs there.

And this is an ongoing item that we looked into.

And the first thing is why we added in the language that we as a city would require a diversity of rate pair classifications.

So that was actually direct feedback.

So that essentially allows us as the city of Bellevue that we would have the direct ability to essentially make sure a small business owner, a large property owner, and in between a resident of a condo building at all represented there.

So that was feedback.

Um so essentially curating the board to make sure it has equity and it's representing all those.

The other thing we received is that the city liaison, whoever that may be, was a key item that we learned from Seattle specifically, because it is important for us to be involved in those monthly activities as a city.

And they had felt like some of their connections to that as advisory boards had had drifted maybe a little bit.

So we that was a corrective part of what we added.

And I think the third component is the annual report and the annual work plan.

And this was actually a moment where Seattle where our peer said that such a great idea, we actually should do it.

And they and the annual work plan is our ability to come back, and especially the city council's legislative authority to really review those details.

And we do like to get in the details in Bellevue.

And so we we put that in there because we recognize that that is what makes us a great um, you know, city is that we we pay attention there.

And so those measures were directly related to our interviews and our time spent together of hitting those issues of of equity and um accountability.

And and we definitely recognize that as we create BIAs or we create the first one, we're gonna learn a lot as a city.

And it will be, and we hope that you know one day we do, these are great.

Is Council Member Robinson mentioned?

We see as we visit many cities, these are amazing ways that communities fund great activations.

So we will probably learn a lot too.

So I would add that in.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I love the idea of forward-looking plans that can be reviewed with stakeholders, with the community and the council.

I think that's a really good way to make sure that transparency stays.

Um, you know, 60% of assessed value to council member Robinson's question worries me in in the way we would think about it because of the smaller voices.

Assessed value can sit with a handful of folks, and that's the representation I worry about.

And so that I think is a really good point, and we should think hard about that in partnership.

And I shout out to the BDA for the great work um that they're partnering with us on.

Um and then uh I don't like the term general interest, it's too vaguely defined, Amy, and I think we would I would really want to better understand that so that the framework is very clear.

Is it the general interest?

For advocacy.

Oh, for advocacy.

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Sorry, to be more specific.

Yes.

Yeah, we of course we'll get back to that.

In the context of that question.

And the last thing I would say is uh it'd be great for us to establish what success parameters and metrics would look like prior to us establishing these, and whether it's economic development, whether it's um participation, whether it's how we would measure those three parameters of of equity and representation and accountability and things like that.

So having a clear measurable set, a measurable set of metrics, I think would be really important for us to engage with so that we can demonstrate not just to ourselves but to our stakeholders in our community that the investment of their money is going to good use, and this is the lift we're getting.

So appreciate it.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Okay, great, thank you.

Um yeah, thanks for the presentation.

I think this is really interesting.

Um I do think it'd be important to have a clarification regarding advisory board membership.

So section 3.5 in the uh current plan policy says that the city manager will appoint.

And so I think what I'm hearing tonight is that the city manager makes the final approval on that.

So I think some clarity around that would be really helpful.

Um, just a few questions and comments.

I appreciate uh the conversation so far.

Um, but just to kind of get an idea in general about the BIA.

So I mean, is it accurate to say that the city currently sets and maintains very high standard for placemaking, public space activation, maintenance, marketing, and special events, and that a well-run BIA would be a way for even more to be done in a designated area.

So, in other words, to take all of these efforts to the next level uh when there's general agreement to do so, is that we're talking about here?

Deputy Mary, yes, I would say that uh one of Bellview's core values is exceptional public service, and uh Bellevue provides I know I will underline an exceptional, an extraordinary level of service in its uh public safety and its public spaces significantly higher than other municipalities, which is part of what makes Bellevue an attractive place to live, work, learn, and visit.

Um, and as we work to provide a similar level of service as you know, not exactly equal, but you know, slightly higher.

As Spring District and Bell Red and Crossroads and other areas continue to develop, we will need to look to our partners, uh, to our our stakeholders, our property owners to help take us to the next level in all of those neighborhoods.

So that is that is why the BIAs can be a powerful tool for going to that even higher level.

Um is there anything unique about our draft policy?

I mean, I understand we've talked about it conforming to the law and so forth, but is it materially different than other BIAs from other cities across the state?

And if so, in what ways?

Edward, could you speak to what's unique here?

Yeah, I think as we looked at other uh peer cities, we did learn a lot of best practices.

What we generally saw with most of them looking from Edmonds all the way to the eastern Washington, is they focused a lot on the formation stage.

And we wanted to make sure we balanced out that once we established the BIA, that the city had clear steps for managing it, and it goes from managing it to renewal to those ongoing reporting and metrics.

And that's so you will see this is probably much more extensive than our peer cities in the in the level of details that we put into this policy.

One thing I'll add real quick there is uh especially I think an important piece here is that the city would hold a contract with the BIA operator.

Uh so as part of that process, this team here would be would be managing that contract effectively with that operator on a regular basis.

That is a step where that I think often gets kind of left behind uh in in some BIA processes, and is something that we really want to uh pay particular attention to.

And that speaks back to the comments we've heard from the council tonight about ensuring accountability and high quality delivery of service.

We want to uh have several steps to ensure quality along the way.

Okay, just kind of a process question too.

How do we move from from draft to adopted policy?

Um what what are kind of the next steps?

Because I've heard a number of kind of questions raised and advice given tonight.

So from tonight, where how do we arrive at the final policy and when?

Fantastic process question, Deputy Mayor.

Uh, so what we're going to do as a staff team is take the council's feedback for those areas that are uh relevant to the to this uh administrative guideline policy, we'll work to incorporate where we can, uh, and you'll see that come back later in the year.

Uh to those areas that are specific to the formation uh of a potential BIA, we will we will work with Patrick and others who may be interested to make sure that they have that feedback in mind as they start their pre-petition conversations and as they start drafting their actual petitions.

So it's a bit of a two-step process uh with pieces that are the administrative guidelines and then the other pieces coming back to you'll see it represented when you get a petition.

Okay.

And is the sole legislative authority what is our first interaction that we would have with the BIA or potential BIA?

Great question.

Amy, can you speak to that?

Yeah, um, the council would receive um the opportunity to evaluate a VIA proposal at the point that it it reaches the threshold of support right now, 60%.

Um so that would be the point where um it would be presented to the council for your approval.

The ordinance that ultimately could be passed that establishes the BIA would include a lot of the details as to how that particular BIA would be operated and um so every every ordinance that would be for a potential BIA would be unique.

Would include a public hearing as well.

Oh, yes, sorry, there's a public hearing process.

So um when the um council evaluation process begins, there would be a notice of a public hearing.

And at that point, the public would be noticed, and people could come in, make public comment, um, air their support, air their concerns, and it would allow the council to make a decision.

And would it be just an up or down vote, or could the council amend the proposal in some way, amend the ordinance?

The council has an up and down vote.

You can would be able to give staff feedback, which we can pass back to the petitioner if they chose to repetition.

Uh, but you will not be able to align item amend the budget.

Okay, great.

Um, so I'm I'm pleased to see us moving forward uh with implementing this important action uh from our economic development plan.

I've been on the three study tours that were uh mentioned of the cities uh that have BIAs, and I've I've seen how impactful uh they can be.

I think we need to be thoughtful, diligent, and demanding if and when we decide to allow a BIA to form and operate.

This really is our standard operating seat procedure, so it's almost uh goes without saying a BIA has to deliver for its members, and we have to make sure our final policy ensures that that occurs.

So good work here.

I appreciate it and look forward to um what you bring back and um seeing where we go from there.

So great.

Thank you.

All right, we will uh I will bring up our next group.

I bet they're ready and rare in here.

So uh okay.

We have one nose powdering going on and we'll get situated here.

Do we have to use okay?

Why don't we uh go ahead and take a five-minute break?

We'll be back at 9 15 and deputy city manager.

If you would introduce our next study session item, please.

Thank you.

It would be my pleasure, Deputy Mayor.

Our final study session tonight features our partners uh from the Cascade Water Alliance.

As a member of the Cascade Water Alliance, Bellevue passes through the costs of water supply to the city's rate payers.

Bellevue and Cascade staff tonight will provide the city council with an overview of Cascades proposed 2728 budget and rate adjustments, along with an update on the Cascade Supply Program.

The presentation will highlight major project phases, funding strategies, and Bellevue's projected cost impacts for the 27-28 budget cycle.

We're pleased to have uh as our guest tonight, John Taylor, CEO of Cascade Water Alliance, as well as Andy Baker, economist.

And they are joined by Lucy Liu, our fearless director of our utilities department.

Uh and again, this update is for information only.

And I'll hand it right over to Lucy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Atkins.

Uh good evening, Deputy Mayor and Council.

Um as uh Ms.

Atkins mentioned tonight's presentation uh from the Cascade Water Alliances for information only.

Um Deputy Mayor Hamilton serves as Bellevue's representative on Cascade's board of directors, and Councilmember Bagaba serve as the alternate.

Um tonight is an opportunity for you to hear directly from Cascade and ask any questions you may have about Cascades budget and rates as well as the Cascade Supply Program.

Um I will briefly uh review our agenda tonight.

Uh, we'll start with an overview of Cascades Financial Impact on Bellevue's water utility, and then John and Andy will provide an update on the Cascade Supply Program and the Capital Funding Plan, highlighting the regional investments that are being made to ensure a reliable and resilient water supply for our community as well as the region.

Uh, they will then present Cascades proposed 27 and 28 uh budget and wholesale water rates, including the factors driving those costs and how they support long-term system uh reliability.

After Cascades presentation, I will then highlight Bellevue's utility bill assistance programs and the resources that are available to help community members who may need support on paying their utility bills.

And as a background before John begins the discussion on Cascades proposed budget and rates, I just want to take a moment and speak about our important partnership with the Cascade Water Alliance.

While Bellevue owns and maintains the infrastructure that delivers water to our community, we purchase all of our water supply from Cascade.

Cascade has been Bellevue's wholesale provider and an important regional partner for over 30 years.

And that helps ensure our community have safe, reliable water supply for generations to come.

As Cascade's largest member partner, Bellevue will continue to stay engaged in the important work of the Cascade Supply Program.

Now let's take a look at what this partnership with Cascade means to our ratepayers.

The cost of purchasing water from Cascade represents about 27% of Bellevue's water utilities operating budget.

And in 2026, we will pay Cascade, about 24 million dollars for water supply.

For a typical residential customer paying their utility bill, the water portion is about $82 per month.

And about $24 of that goes towards paying cascade costs.

And as we shared with council on June 23rd, wholesale payments to Cascade is anticipated to result in about a 3% per year increase in Bell View's water rates for the next two years.

Passing through the costs of water supply from Cascade translates to about $2.50 per month for the typical residential household.

We thought it would be valuable for you to hear directly from Cascade about the investments that they are making, how they establish wholesale water charges, and why those investments are important in ensuring a resilient regional water supply.

Their perspective provides important context for understanding one of the key cost drivers behind Bellevue's proposed water rates.

And with that, I'd like to turn it over to John Taylor.

Great, thanks so much.

Really good to be here.

John Taylor, I'm the newly minted chief executive officer of the Cascade Water Alliance.

I think I'm on week six.

Oh, thanks.

I get to drive.

Awesome.

Okay, let's see if it happens.

Maybe.

There we go.

Thank you so much.

So poke me.

All right, great, I will do that.

John Taylor, CEO, Andy Baker, our economist will be giving the presentation.

In the interest of time, I'm gonna go pretty quickly as it's getting late.

But just to ground you in, um, so we're your water purveyor, but also the water purveyor for uh five jurisdictions in addition to Bellevue and two water and sewer districts uh who comprise Cascade.

We serve about 400-ish thousand residents, 380 employees uh in our service area.

And we do that by buying water from Seattle.

We also have negotiated a longer-term contract with the city of Tacoma, and we're gonna talk about that because that's really what the Cascade Supply program is all about.

And we also are the stewards of Lake TAPS.

We bought Lake TAPS a number of years ago and maintain all the infrastructure associated with it with the long-term goal of turning that into water supply, but that is a longer-term source of water for us, probably in the horizon of 2060 or thereabouts.

Um, so I think what we're really focused on right now is the new agreement that we have with Tacoma and realizing the water that Tacoma has available to us and to the region through this Cascade Supply Program.

So if we could go to the next slide, I will do that.

Uh so this is a very long-term project, and I want to again ground you into this map because it will be a good sort of orientation point for all of you.

There are three phases to the Cascade Supply program.

The first is the green on the map, which is the region where we will be running a pipeline from the southern boundary of that green is Tacoma's Pipeline 5, which is their main water conveyance from the reservoir impounded by the Howard Hansen Dam to their customers in Tacoma.

Our intention is to intercept with that pipe somewhere along the route and run up a conveyance line from there up to our service area, the Bellevue Issaqua pipeline and intersect with that so that we can disperse it to our customers.

Um you'll note there is no line on that map yet because that's how early we are in the planning, which is to say we have not yet uh identified even a potential corridor.

We're in the process of doing that right now.

Phase two, which will occur, start while we're in the middle of construction or wrapping up construction in phase one for the pipeline, is beginning to plan for and then build out the distribution pipeline from what we've delivered into our service area.

Uh and that will run for quite a while, almost until 2060, and then theoretically in 2060, we would begin working on Lake Taps and a treatment plant there, which would treat the water in LATAPS and make that available to our customers as well.

So this is a very long-term ambitious vision for creating the ability to flex water between two major regions, three different watersheds, really four watersheds once you bring in Lake Taps.

Um, and it's gonna roll out over you know for almost 40 years.

Uh let's go to the next slide.

So the cost for this for phase one is significant in the history of Cascade.

This is probably the biggest expansion of our capital improvement program that we've ever undertaken.

Um I just want to point out that talking about building a pipeline like this has been batted around for a number of years, almost 20 years, and what we're working on is the evolution of a vision that's been around for a number of years, and so there are older numbers associated with this effort, but I really want to like have you understand kind of where we've gotten to.

So in 2012, there was talk about connecting this, but that would have connected the pipeline to the Lakes Young facility that's owned by Seattle.

Much shorter pipeline, about 8.5 miles.

Um, and the cost estimate for that, if you look at this chart, you can sort of see uh what each of these represented.

Um in 2023, we took those numbers and updated them and had uh a slightly different vision of what we were doing, but but more or less it would have intercepted with the um Bellevue Issaqua pipeline.

Um but we estimated at that point about 17 miles and a much larger diameter pipe, and then finally we're here in 2026 with what we feel are more robust, more refined numbers on what we think this project will cost.

And it also adds in a lot of elements that were not in that 2023 estimate.

So in addition to a longer pipeline, now we're thinking it's going to be around 19 miles.

That is an estimate.

Um it's gonna be a smaller diameter pipe, but it adds in a chlorination facility, it adds in a storage tank.

It takes into account the amount of land we're going to have to acquire for a number of these facilities and operations facilities, storage and maintenance facilities, and in an under tie at Lake Young's, which would give the region the flexibility we need.

We arrive at a cost estimate that's at about 1.1 to 1.3 billion dollars.

Um, and to be clear, that is the midpoint of a lot of risk analysis that we did, looking at different things that could impact project costs.

So we feel like this is a very, very well thought through, but still a planning level cost estimate, which brings us to our next slide, if you would.

Thanks, Andrew.

Um, which is I I want to make it clear to everyone that these are planning level cost estimates.

So no design has been done yet.

We don't know what our route is.

Um I think they're more fully thought through and more evolved than anything that's been done before, and we've put them through pretty exhaustive risk analysis, so we feel like they're within a band of reasonableness, but this is a large project with a great deal of uncertainty, um, and we'll have pretty significant environmental requirements to meet.

Uh, one of the things that I didn't mention the previous slide, but I will now is earlier estimates assumed a lot of trenched piping.

So you're just digging a hole in the ground and putting pipe in.

We have to cross a number of water bodies.

We added a significant amount of trench uh trenchless drilling into this cost estimate.

That's typically two to three times more expensive.

So we feel I'm as confident as we can feel at the level of planning that we're at, that we have good solid numbers in front of all of our members, which is why we're talking to you about them.

But I also want to ground people into the reality that we are not gonna get to construction until 2030 or beyond, and a lot of things could change in the intervening period, and I just always want people to be grounded in reality that you know there's a lot of uncertainty in building a project like this.

But um, if we do all the things that we intend to do, I think we have a really great opportunity to do something for this region that will create a huge amount of resilience.

Why don't we just go to our next slide?

And uh and that'll be Andy, and give our members uh the ability to really fully be able to plan and predict for the future for future growth, residential growth, and commercial growth with a reliable water supply that will be available to them for many, many decades into the future.

So that's the NMI little spiel on the supply program.

And Andy's gonna talk about how we pay for that.

Which is probably the most important part.

Well, I'm biased, but I agree.

Um good evening, uh, Deputy Mayor and Council members.

My name's Andy Baker.

I'm Cascade's economist, which means I'm responsible for our rates and charges, our long-term financial strategy, and our demand forecasting.

And prior to joining Cascade, I had the pleasure of being utilities uh fiscal manager for Bellevue Utilities.

So it's a pleasure to be back here this evening to talk about uh this shared's update on Cascade's financial outlook for you.

So John described the scale of the undertaking that we have.

In addition to engineering challenges, planning challenges, we know that a program of this scope needs a financial strategy that is tailored to it.

And so I'm gonna talk briefly about the capital funding plan that we have developed alongside the engineering planning that's going on to uh to be able to deliver phase one of the Cascade Supply Program.

So, first I'll say we are building from a strong foundation.

We Cascade has a robust fiscal policy structure already in place and a stable financial track record.

And this is the plan of how to go about building on that foundation.

So our funding plan identifies and evaluates potential funding sources, both internally controlled and external, and defines a strategy for how we plan for accessing that funding using it.

It also evaluates the rate and other financial impacts and aligns those with our fiscal policies.

Long-term financial forecasting has been a strength of Cascade.

While we can't know the future, the process of defining assumptions, looking forward, thinking about impacts, risks, opportunities over decades instead of just a few years, helps us make better decisions.

John mentioned how much uncertainty still remains.

Um, by evaluating that uncertainty, we're able to develop a flexible framework to support our decision making both now and over the course of this program as it evolves, continues to evolve, I should say.

Sure, yeah.

Okay, so speaking of uncertainty, um, in the course of this work, we've looked at costs, schedule uncertainty, what funding opportunities may be out there, both what we can do with rates with bonds, with uh federal support, state support, and more.

Uh from that work, we have used the framework that we developed to put together a recommendation for how to navigate that certainty today.

Uh, this slide summarizes what we found from that work.

So, in the near term, there's a very broad range of rates that would meet our needs, depending on what happened with costs, factors that are outside of our control.

Over the long term, though, there's a much tighter band of where rate increases need to be on average over the long term.

And we've developed a recommended funding strategy that sets us on a moderate moderately conservative course.

It isn't a path that is high enough to cover every possible scenario that's out there.

Setting rates to cover so that we would never need to do anything above that would frankly place too much burden on all of the ratepayers today to cover and own all of that risk.

But this is a path that sets us up to have flexibility to both take advantage of opportunities and respond to risks without being purely reactive.

Let's go to the used that strategy over the long term to focus in on our near-term uh biannual budget and rates process.

This chart presents our proposed 2027 to 2032 capital budget grouped by program area.

And the first thing that any of you will see on this is that we are looking at a significant increase in the amount of capital spending that we're undertaking.

Delivering a program of this scale is a significant undertaking, and that's why we're here talking about this today.

Uh, our major program areas are the Cascade Supply Program, but we do also have non-Cascade Supply Program projects involved in responsibly maintaining and operating and continuing to preserve the infrastructure that is the Lake Taps Reservoir, as well as the Bellevue Escobat pipeline.

And we also make capital payments to Tacoma as part of those agreements for permanent supply that we've purchased from them.

So I sorry, just on the last slide, that I do want to point out two key points that are upcoming.

So you can see that in 2029, where it steps up significantly from the 27-28 level.

That's where we're targeting beginning design.

So that's going to be a key milestone for us as we get to that.

And then the next major increase is in 2032, and that's where we're currently anticipating being construction.

But that is quite a few years down the road, not unlikely to change.

Flexible framework.

All right.

Now you're ready.

Now I'm ready.

Thank you.

So on the operating side of our budget, this slide shows our 2027 proposed operating budget on the left and our revenues that support that on the right.

Purchased water makes up almost half of our operating budget.

As John mentioned, we currently purchase water from Seattle and then deliver that to you.

So of that purchased water, 98% of that is our contracted payments to Seattle.

And the last bit is some initial payments to Tacoma.

Debt service is our next biggest component of our operating budget.

The amount shown reflects current assumptions about initial bonding that we are planning in support of that capital program.

Operations is our next largest portion, which is the cost of operating our existing infrastructure as well as our non-CSP planning and engineering activities.

And then we have our administration budget as well as the overhead functions of the organization and also a conservation budget budget.

The right hand slide shows how we pay for all of that.

So Cascade establishes charges for its members made up of a few different components.

And the reason that we have a few different components is that we want to make sure that we recover our costs, what we need for revenue equitably from our members.

So we have administrative dues, which are capped at 9% of our total, as well as conservation charges that are allocated out to each of our members based on how many equivalent residential units they have.

And so essentially a scale of how big the customer base of each of our members is.

But we are proposing to phase those in over a few years.

Lastly, I wanted to leave you with a look ahead.

So in September, we will be bringing our budget package to our board for adoption, including the funding plan and a bond package.

We anticipate making updates to that plan consistently over the course of this program.

It will be an ongoing tool rather than just a report that's sitting on a shelf.

When key assumptions change, we will be revisiting it and using it to help us continue to make decisions consistent with our overall strategy.

I am confident that there are things that we don't yet anticipate today that will cause us to revisit that plan.

But I do want to mention a few of the ones that we do anticipate coming.

In the 2029 to 2030 time frame, when we reach our first design milestone, that will be the first major cost estimate update that we have.

So as John mentioned, we have a pre-planning cost projection right now.

We need to have a route in place and a formal basis of design to get a better cost estimate that will lower the uncertainty around what those costs really will need to be.

And that's going to be a trigger for doing an update to our funding plan.

Around the same time, having that alignment and the design, the beginnings of design in place is the trigger for being able to apply for federal water infrastructure finance and innovation act support for construction funding.

And that is one of the key outside funding sources that we've identified that has the ability to materially lower the rates that we will need to pay.

Both of those things are going to be triggers for updating our funding plan.

Then in 2032, when we get to construction, that's gonna be the next point where we anticipate a major update to the cost estimates, having gone through design, getting those construction bids.

And while there will still be some uncertainty in cost and schedule at that time, don't really get rid of that until you're all the way through construction.

That is going to be the next major trigger for an update.

So it is a long process yet to come.

But I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge that we've we've already gone through a lot of work in this.

What you've heard today is the result of a significant amount of engagement from our board members as well as staff from all of our member agencies.

And we very much appreciate the time, expertise, and insight that they've contributed, and we look forward to ongoing partnership with them and you as we continue through the program.

Thank you.

Thanks, Andy.

So as we consider Cascade's budget and rates proposals and the Cascade Supply Program, we will continue to put a strong focus on affordability.

And so I'd just like to take a few moments to review our efforts in this area.

We offer a range of utility bill assistance programs to help residents who may be financially disadvantaged, and these programs are making a real difference.

Currently, we have ongoing support for low-income seniors and residents with permanent disabilities.

We offer a 70% discount to folks that receive a bill directly from us.

And for residents that receive their utility bill through their housing provider, we provide a 70% rebate of their utility bills.

Additionally, per council direction, uh, the proposed budget for the next biennium will include an expanded utility uh bill assistance program, which would offer a new tier of benefits for residents at or below 80% of area median income.

The new tier of benefits we'd offer assistance to low-income residents who are directly as well as indirectly billed by Bellvue Utilities by providing a benefit of 35%.

In addition to our long-term assistance programs, we also offer short-term assistance for those facing sudden financial hardship.

Our emergency assistance program can waive up to four months of basic utility charges.

And our neighbors helping neighbors program offers up to two months of waived utility bills for households that are passed due.

And this is the community funded effort, and we match donations up to $50,000 annually to encourage support.

Altogether, about a thousand households benefit from these programs each year, and we invest over a million dollars annually.

And with the proposed expansion, we anticipate an additional 11,000 households will be eligible for our utility bill assistance programs.

And so looking ahead, we will also continue pursuing state and uh federal funding opportunities both for Bell View as Bill is through regional partnerships, and uh that is just to help uh continue to efforts to help keep rates affordable.

And we also are looking for opportunities to support Cascade in pursuing external grants or uh and or low interest loans that would help mitigate rate pressures for us.

And so with that, um Deputy Mayor, I turned it over back to you.

Great, thank you.

Um, John, Lucy, Andy, thanks for the presentation.

Uh John, I I know this is your first time with us in your role as uh Cascade CEO, and Cascade is certainly fortunate to uh have your leadership.

You stepped into very big shoes, but it's already clear to me that you are aligned with Cascade's historical approach to thoughtful long-range planning, strict cost containment, and overall system resiliency.

So 10 out of 10 so far, been very impressed.

Uh and Andy, uh, as you mentioned, I know you've spent uh two and a half years here uh working for the city as our fiscal manager, so I appreciate you looking out for us at Cascade and glad to have you uh with us tonight.

And both of you have brought with us brought with you some pretty big uh big group.

And I just think since they're here at uh 20 to 10, if we might just mention their names and kind of what they do, then I think that'd be appropriate.

Well, we have I first and foremost, I want to um introduce and thank Melina Thong, who was the acting CEO for quite a while and is now back to her role as chief of staff.

Um then we've got Brian Barrell, who is the supply program project manager.

Did I get your your title right?

Yeah, close enough.

Uh and then I think you all know Alison because she's an old uh Bellevue hand, but she is our government relations person and is here keeping tabs on me and making sure I stay out of trouble.

Great.

Lucy, you brought a couple of folks along as well.

Um we did.

Uh we also have uh Scott Edwards, our deputy director of utilities, and Ella Williams, who is our policy advisor that supports the utility.

Great, uh awesome.

So just before we uh uh hand off to my colleagues, I'll just make a few uh comments.

Um we've all had uh many conversations about increased rate pressures across all of our utilities, and the increases on their own are not huge, but in the aggregate, they're significant.

And we know that we have community members that will struggle with the increased costs.

And initial estimates to pay for some utility infrastructure projects, like the Cascade Supply Program or Pipeline Program, are higher than initially anticipated.

And yet the increases are necessary and more expensive unless we move critical projects forward now.

It's hard to think of our proposed utility rate increases as the best case scenario, but I believe that they are.

I really appreciate the question.

I think that um right now, if you look at the funding plan that Andy was just going through, the only outside funding we've yet identified is uh Wi-Fi alone.

And uh again, that's water infrastructure fiya.

Um I always forget the last three letters, but I have it written down here, but it was funnier doing it that way.

Um I I think that my experience has been that money flows towards collaboration.

Money flows towards regional efforts.

This is a regional effort.

This is really unique in that we're doing something that has implications for both the members of Cascade, but also for Tacoma.

It creates resilience across two major enterprises.

And it knits together, if you think of this all the way through phase three, it knits together four watersheds and creates connection between four major watersheds.

I don't think there are many places that are doing that.

So my expectation is that just you being part of this coalition is how you help it be more successful.

And when you have a project that's this resilient, it one would imagine if we do a good job of communicating it, that it will be very competitive for all sorts of outside dollars once we get to a place where we can really talk about it in a substantive way.

So being part of that dialogue, being continuing to be part of the largest part of this coalition is critical to us.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Again, appreciate you all being here.

Thanks for your continued efforts on uh behalf of our ratepayers.

And I will move to Councilmember Bargawa.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and uh thank you Lucy and John and Andy for the presentation.

Also, thank you to uh Molina, Brian, Allison, and the team from Scotlandella as well.

The Cascade is uh a big effort, it's a big project.

Uh and I really appreciate all the work you continue to do.

Um also thanks for coming and speaking to us today and sharing, you know, more about the Cascade Supply Program and how Cascade is working to ensure there is a reliable future water supply for Bellevue.

I also want to thank Deputy Mayor uh Hamilton for his leadership on the Cascade Board and our council uh in representing Bellevue.

Um I appreciate our partnership and how he encourages a transparent uh cooperative approach to Bellevue's representation on the Cascade Board.

Um I have seen uh firsthand cascade work to engage us at the board level, but also our staff, which are heavily engaged at the member staff and technical subgroups.

So uh just really um a lot of gravity, gratitude, and appreciation all around for all that great work.

Sometimes not easy, uh, but uh all of this good.

So thank you.

Uh just a couple of really quick questions uh from my perspective.

Um really appreciate the structures that have been put in place to ensure uh there's multiple levels of engagement uh with Bellevue.

How will this be extended to decisions that impact the community?

And what can Cascade do to ensure accountability and transparency for Bellevue?

Uh very much appreciate that question.

And you know, I for me, transparency and engaging community is a touchstone.

Uh having kind of come here from the county.

I ran a department there called the Department of Local Services where we were basically the service provider of unincorporated King County, and we did a lot of work to engage community in ways that they'd never really been engaged before.

The success of projects like this is incredibly dependent on our ability to engage the communities that are being impacted by them and benefit from them.

And so we are going to be really focused on that.

We're gonna be developing a communications and outreach plan that will be brought to the board to the um, well, first it's gonna go to the um supply program oversight committee, SPOC.

I didn't make up the acronyms on new.

Uh, and then it will go to the full board.

But you all will have a real opportunity to review and think through how you want us to structure that community engagement effort and communications effort to make sure it meets the standards that you all have.

And as I have sat here tonight in this meeting, it's been a theme that's run through this meeting is your deep concern about engaging community in meaningful ways.

I've heard it in each one of the study session items.

Um so I made note of that, and I it's uh touchstone for me as well.

Uh and then we've just hired a communications lead for this project and for Cascade, who's gonna be helping us think through that plan and be the architect of it with all of us.

Um I mean, I think that that oversight tool that you all have and the work we're going to do knit together, I think will create a really, really robust system for engaging community in a meaningful way.

And projects like this that are big and sprawl over a lot of geography, they rise and fall on your ability to engage community.

If you don't do a good job of engaging community, you end up with lots more problems later in the process.

Um, if you do a good job of engaging community and you really hear them, you find in my experience things go much more smoothly over the long haul because people feel like they understand what's going to happen, they have a vested interest in the project and they want to see you succeed.

Yeah, really appreciate that uh thoughtful approach that you plan to take.

And uh I think for a project this size over this many years going forward, that I think it will be a really important piece.

I mean, looking around the corners and no surprises will be the key to owning trust with that many stakeholders and and folks.

So, you know, I really appreciate that.

Uh lastly, uh we hear regularly from our residents that they are concerned with rising costs of living in Bellevue and in the larger region as well.

Um Lucy, you've shared a little bit about information about Bellevue and what Bellevue is doing to minimize the impacts on our ratepayers.

What is Cascade going to do to manage costs?

Um and make sure that there are no surprises and it's planned.

Other things that you're thinking about?

Yeah, I mean, I think it gets back to the there's been a significant amount of energy that's gone into board oversight on this project, as you know, um, and thinking through how the board is going to exercise oversight and at the same time leave the staff in a position where they're flexible and fleet enough that they can move the project forward quickly because we all understand time is money.

Um, and if you have project delays, it just translates into more cost.

Uh we're gonna be reconvening with you all in the fall to revisit that board oversight discussion and in the intervening period, there's going to be um a significant amount of work with staff on trying to refine that and bringing you some kind of a straw dog proposal that you can react to and approve.

Uh, and then lastly, I would just say we're very mindful of the work that you've been doing with our staff on risk register and really tracking those risk elements of the project at each SPOC meeting, so that we're really being thoughtful about where the areas of risk are, how we mitigate them before they escalate or avoid them all together.

That's kind of our goal.

The the best, you know, the best way to manage a risk is to completely eliminate it from being a factor.

Some things you just have to confront and deal with, but you know, to the greatest extent possible, we want to be ahead of those risks.

We want to have mirrors to see around those corners.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Uh, thank you.

I'm not sure Brian agrees that he wants as much involvement in the risk registry, but uh, thank you.

That's it.

And I think too, we are gonna be bumping up against our time here.

So uh a motion to extend if we could.

I move that we said we need to uh attend to the second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All right.

We will no.

Okay.

Umpposed, say no, got a no.

All right, we will extend to 1015 and move to council member Breyer.

Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor.

I just wanted to add a quick uh quote.

Um, in 97 AD, it was Julius Frontinus, Rome's water commissioner that stated uh it is such an array of indispensable structures carrying so many waters.

Compare, if you will, the idle pyramids or the useless useless works of the Greeks.

I don't have the same resentment towards the Greeks like this gentleman did, nevertheless.

I digress.

But uh 2,000 years ago, it was known that uh water infrastructure was absolutely critical to the health and safety of a population that still stands today.

Um so wanted to extend my gratitude for all the work that you all do, including the leadership of Councilmember Bargova and deputy mayor as well.

Uh with that, I wanted to ask I see that the cost projections change over time between 23 to 26.

Um, just curious about the microeconomic conditions that are driving this.

Is it inflation?

Could you just lay the foreground for that?

And then second question, I'll get out of the way as well.

Uh, I know that you mentioned you can't predict the future, but how does capital funding plan account for uh the costs associated with uh phase two and phase three?

And is there some certainty associated with that?

Uh I'll answer the first part of that and then let's Andy answer the um capital funding plan part of the question.

I think inflation was clearly a factor in you know, from 2012 to 2026.

Lots of stuff happened in the region, and construction inflation has been a consistent trend throughout.

In addition to that, um of the project elements, such as storage tanks and land acquisition and operation facility were uh moved up into the earlier phase.

So they were always anticipated, but um when we were rescoping this, we realized, for example, early in the early in the operations of this pipeline, we're not gonna be moving water very fast.

So we're going to need to reclorinate it so that it's actually fresh and potable when it gets to people here and comes out of taps.

Um and then lastly, you know, there's some things that we just weren't anticipated in the early iterations and that were added on.

Um that's what drove the cost.

Also, we're being more aggressive about trenchless drilling.

We're being more thoughtful about land acquisition.

We just realize in this environment, this permanent environment, you're gonna need to put this underneath some things and not dig holes in the ground.

They're gonna people are going to demand that of us.

So that those are sort of the drivers that resulted in that.

Um, that move from you know, hundreds of millions to over a billion.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I I would just add that you know, we did uh some broad scale cost inflating, moving from those earlier cost estimates.

However, steel in particular was extremely exposed to increases well above general CPI over the time frame we're looking at increased at a rate of 4x CPI.

And that's a major driver when you're building 19 miles of steel pipe.

So that was uh uh increase well above the general rate of inflation.

Um with regards to your questions about phases two and three and our certainty.

Um phases two and three at this time are frankly conceptual.

Um we we do not yet, even for phase one, have a specific route defined.

And phases two phase two will be constructing major infrastructure, distributing that water, but we don't know from exactly where yet.

And so the the honest answer is we don't know exactly what those phases will cost.

However, significant work on phase two isn't expected until the 2040s and into the 50s.

Phase three, significant work in the 2050s.

We have time to develop those costs.

So for phase one of the funding plan, it accounts for the uncertainty that we know we have in those later phase costs by ensuring that we don't fully exhaust our financial capacity by 2040.

And so that's how we're planning for it right now.

However, we will be undertaking the pre-planning work necessary to better define phases two and three before we get to there.

We're not waiting until we finish phase one to start work on those next phases.

And so this, as I mentioned, this is going to be something that we are continuing to iterate and improve on as we better define what these needs are.

Thank you.

Anywhere.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thanks again for the presentation tonight.

And it's uh, although there's still a lot of unknowns, um, it does give some insight into the thought process and the things that you're gonna be tracking and looking at, et cetera.

Um, along those lines, you know, my my my biggest concern um, and and and maybe that's because of other uh agencies um and and their and their track record, but my biggest question is the what is going to be cascade strategy, or what mechanisms are you gonna put in place um to continually identify um uh any mitigating risks to deliver this project on time on schedule and under or within budget.

I won't say maybe under budget but within that budget.

So I think the risk register is probably the single most important tool that we're using.

We've identified how many risks, Brian?

Right, 10 20 and counting.

20 and counting, and I'm sure that number is gonna grow.

And you know, my experience is you need to get ahead of those things and you need to be thinking about them well before you actually encounter them.

Yep.

So you have the things in place to navigate around them or through them.

Um, I think the other part of this is having a really really fully formed community engagement strategy so that you're out talking to the people who are going to be impacted before you get there and understanding what's gonna be of concern to them and mitigating for that as well, or integrating into your project things that they need that make it work better for them when the project comes through.

The the good thing about a project like this is once it's in the ground, it's a very low impact.

It is not uh it is not like a gas pipeline or a power corridor or something where there are inherent risks in it, it's it's an inert substance in the ground that's pretty critical to everybody.

So I think that you know, getting the community to understand the necessity of the project and that it pretty benign once it's in the ground, it's really the construction impacts that are probably impact community, and we need to be mindful of that.

And there are ways to mitigate for that, and there are ways to mitigate for what other permit requirements would be for the places we're going that we may have to either move around or navigate through.

So in your future updates, we'd love to know touching on that um on that is um a little bit more about your kind of your intergovernmental strategy outreach.

Um I'm assuming you'd have to get like franchise agreements with these different municipalities, and are those municipalities going to charge you, and then that'll be passed on along to the uh ratepayers for uh for the route that might be going through their municipality.

Yeah, it depends on where we go.

I mean the the biggest jurisdiction we're probably going through is probably unincorporated King County, which I'm pretty familiar with.

And what's what's your target for uh finalizing the route?

Uh by the like late next year, I think is when we would have a final route.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

By the end of I think end of 27, is that correct?

This year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that would be easier, certainly if you just clearer.

I think a lot of these questions will become much clearer, and the risks will become much clearer once we actually know where we're going.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, in an unincorporated King County, I would think that you would be impacting less members of the community than if you were to go through more uh more dense areas potentially.

250,000 people out there.

That's true.

That's true.

But more land too that maybe you can go around.

So, anyways, thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

Councilmember Robinson.

Well, I just want to start with thanking Deputy Mayor and Councilmember Bargava for their work with Cascade.

It's just, you know, um access to clean water is a foundation to a healthy population, and this work just is not optional.

So I really appreciate everybody involved here in coming up with a program.

I like that.

I mean, we've been confronted with a lot of utility uh work recently and rate increases.

But what I'm seeing here, which I really appreciate is you're starting early, relatively early.

You're doing rate smoothing, your bonding, and you're applying for federal funding.

And that's really going to help, I think, with the cost of this.

This is a plan that meets future demand while maintaining water quality and reliability.

I just I can't see enough good about it, and I just know that the longer we wait, the more it will cost.

So I really appreciate this, and I'm very supportive.

Um, Councilmember Sumidawaria.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, I had two questions, but luckily my uh our colleague asked one of them already.

This about outreach.

But I do want to thank you for the amazing job you are doing.

Uh, not only we work as a team together, regional partners, but also I want to thank our staff.

Um, working on Saturdays and come engaging with our community.

So people who need the most help on the um Bill resident uh assistance program, they can know exactly um how to get help.

As we know, a lot of the residents only have time on the weekends.

So I think you know, even though there's a very lot of unpredictable things ahead, but we know this um alignment, also partnership is solid, and you know, from our team to also our deputy mayor and our council bagwal that we know that we all aligned in the same mission to providing the best water.

I don't care what they say about drinking tab water, I only trust at home here because of you.

So thank you.

Um I only have one question to ask.

So there, can you kind of share about the rate um smoothing and how the Cascade is using this tool to plan for um the Casque Supplow Program for the long run?

I think it's on slide uh 14.

Yes, I can I can speak to that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for thank you for the question.

Um, so like Bellevue Utilities, Cascade has a rate smoothing policy in place, and we implement that by leveraging our forward-looking financial plan.

So uh like Bellevue, uh, we have a financial plan that looks a long time into the future, and that's necessary because spending on utility infrastructure comes in spikes.

And so rate smoothing is a key strategy that lets us smooth out those spikes.

That's only possible if we start early, plan ahead, look to what is coming in the future, and then by smoothing that out, we are able to use uh provide more steady increases instead of sudden spike increases and then leveling things out.

Um that also contributes to lower long-term cost because by doing that smoothing and looking ahead, we're able to you have less reliance on debt because we're looking ahead and not needing to only have the option of funding through debt.

So it sort of uh has a double benefit, both near term smooth things out, long term keeps costs lower ultimately.

Thank you for writing that um predictability, also safety net to us while everything else is kind of in the air.

So thank you.

We appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Very good.

Uh, thanks again for all the good work.

Thanks for being here tonight.

Oh, thank you.

Okay, and with that, I'll just draw everyone's attention to two written reports that are included in the agenda.

One from our intergovernmental intergovernmental affairs team and one on the East Kid Housing Campus staff took uh quite a bit of time to compile these reports, so I encourage you to take a look.

With that, we've completed the agenda and the meeting is adjourned.