We can call the meeting in order.

And before we start the business of the meeting today, I would like to ask that we take a moment to address the tragic gun violence over the weekend at the Bight of Seattle event.

Three people lost their lives, and at least four more were injured, including a toddler.

This is an offsetting unnecessarily and unacceptable tragedy.

Tragedy that has forever altered the lives of many and created fear at a beloved regional event attended by hundreds of thousands, including many from right here in our own community.

Thank you for doing that with us.

Our hearts and thoughts are with everyone affected by this weekend's events.

I continue to have hope that we can work together to create a future where this type of strategy is not longer part of our lives.

And now I'm going to welcome you all for being here and for taking the time to engage in the work of our city.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Malikutian.

Here.

Councilmember Bargaba.

Here.

Councilmember Breyer.

Here.

Councilmember Newman House.

Here.

Councilmember Robinson.

Here.

Councilmember Suma Doworia.

Thank you.

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

Please rise in your remote.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda.

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor and seconded by Councilmember New Enhaus.

Any discussion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

The motion passes.

City Claire, are there any speakers signed up to provide oral communication?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

This evening there are four pre-registered speakers.

So before I start calling names, I will go over a few uh comments and then a few of the rules.

The council does appreciate members of the public engaging and contributing their perspectives and supports everyone's right to express themselves.

Comments shared during oral communications represent the views of individuals and not necessarily the views of council members or the city.

Now, a few of the rules.

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

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

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

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 speaking on those topics will be asked to stop.

So with that, I'll call our first speaker who is Steve Kassner.

Mayor Mo, members of council, my name is Steve Kazner, the proud president of the Lake Hills Neighborhood Association.

It seems like I was just here yesterday, was back in February to talk to you about all the exciting things that were going to happen in Lake Hills.

But the real reason I'm here tonight is to thank each and every one of you who are supporting our neighborhood association in presence if you were able to come to the pitnic, working at the pitnic, or supporting the neighborhood association.

But a problem that only you guys can solve is all of the neighborhoods are desperately in need of new folks that you know that we don't know.

I've whined loudly to a few of you who are directly connected to Lake Hills.

But when I started doing this work 30 years ago, I was one of the youngest, but there were a group of us who got involved who are still involved.

Some of us you wish would quit being involved, but we cannot do that until such time is the 20, 30s, 40 year olds.

I mean, last year, nine of the people who worked very hard for Lake Hills were over 70.

Um they still want to do our bodies cannot do it anymore.

So in working with the city and the people that you know who invited all of you or elected all of you to be here, please send them to the neighborhood associations that exist, of which there are many.

There are still neighborhoods that are not represented because there aren't any people to build association on top of.

So great neighborhoods is coming to Lake Hills.

Some of you are on our neighborhood walk.

I met a lot of young families that I didn't know, which was fun, and we've created a place where people can come to our We Are Lake Hills website and email the website.

Well, I just recently found out that we didn't send those emails anyway, anywhere, but they're now corrected to go to somebody in the association, and I have the most people on my board of any organization in the city, and we need five to ten more people.

So thank you for all the hard work that you do, and I'm thrilled that you are here today.

Um but the neighborhoods want to participate.

We just need some new folks to help us.

Thank you very much and have a wonderful meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amina Condell.

Welcome.

Hello.

Um very last-minute attempt to speak to you today.

Uh because I just started Miss Condell.

I'm sorry, if you could adjust the microphone down.

Oh, sorry, I turned it up.

Oh, sure.

Just the head.

Can you hear me now?

Okay.

I think a home closer for the mic would be maybe even more.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um I did not have time to actually create a presentation, and I haven't spoken at a city hall meeting since I tried to save a school a long time ago.

So bear with me here.

Uh, my name's Amina, and I'm here today to talk about challenging a Bellevue City code uh because there is an issue that I'm directly affected by uh along with my other neighbor here.

Um, and that code is related to uh having farm animals specifically, roosters, and possibly hens on and in regular neighborhoods in the Lake Hills area, um, and also specifically Bellevue.

At first I thought why are roosters not illegal in Bellevue, and then I thought, well, maybe there's some parts of Bellevue that have large properties and maybe some farmland still, so it wouldn't be fair to maybe say have roosters be completely illegal in Bellevue.

But I came up with a solution, um, and that is that if somebody in a regular neighborhood who doesn't have an HOA that strictly prohibits roosters in their area, so neighbors don't have any protection and have to go through contacting many organizations to try and stop someone from having a rooster.

Um that before a person gets a rooster that they need to go through the permit and licensing process, just like they would with a cat or a dog if a rooster is going to be considered a pet.

Um the problem that I have is that I listen to a rooster um from 5 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

at night that crows all day long every single hour, multiple times a day.

And I don't have a reasonable neighbor.

So I can't just approach my neighbor, which I already have respectfully, but I can't just approach a neighbor and say, hey, your rooster's really bothering me.

Could you please not have a rooster?

This neighbor actually buys a rooster to has a rooster to bother the neighbors and is malicious and difficult to deal with.

So that is why I do feel like the code needs to be changed to protect people that have neighbors that are not reasonable.

And my neighbor in the past has said if I hate my neighbors, I will buy a rooster.

And so I already had uh dealt with a risk different.

Um years, and now she was asked to get rid of the rooster, and now two years to three years later, she has another one, and it creates rat problems, five fly problems, um, attracts many other kinds of pests, and I find living rats in my house and dead rats in my land too.

Fortunately, your time has expired.

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

Okay.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Nava Carlisle.

Good evening, Mayor Moe and honored council members.

My name is Nava Carlisle.

I'm the government affairs intern at the Bellevue Chamber of Commerce.

I'm here tonight to acknowledge the work of development services.

Permitting and entitlement work is demanding.

Given the volume and technical complexity involved, it touches nearly every business, developer, and homeowner in Bellevue.

In the first half of this year alone, development services processed over 8200 permit applications and issued nearly 7800 permits.

Handling that volume requires sustained efforts from staff.

We want to recognize Jake Hesselgesser's leadership in this area.

First review performance improved from 72%, meeting target timelines in 2025 to 82% in 2026.

Well, some of this is due to the volume of complex permits being down.

Implementing AI tools to streamline complex processes helps position Bellevue well for developers considering major projects here.

This kind of investment in efficiency matters as the city works through land use and policy updates intended to unlock development capacity across Bellevue.

We also would like to appreciate the technical rigor that Nick Whipple and his team bring to difficult issues.

Even where there are differences of opinion, the dialogue has remained productive and focused on finding workable solutions.

We recognize that these are complex, high-stake matters.

This is incredibly meaningful work, and it reflects a clear institutional focus on operational efficiency.

We'd encourage the council to continue supporting these efforts, since improvements in permitting speed and process directly affect Bellevue's competitiveness, investment attraction, and the pace at which housing gets built.

The chamber values its ongoing partnership with development services.

And as you receive this important update from staff about the department's pipeline in progress, we did not want to miss an opportunity to share our appreciation as we look forward to continue working together.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Paul Rood.

Thank you.

Last year I prepared for you data showing that small yard equipment makes more noise, noise in excess of heavy equipment, and I explained why this was the case.

Leaf lowers noise is illegal on Sundays in residential zoning.

Sunday the 19th started out as a beautiful quiet day in the neighborhood.

I plan to read at 8:30, a yard crew started power equipment.

I called the police.

I coached Officer Smith on how to enforce the noises.

He was unfamiliar with the regulations.

I insisted that he go out and address the noise.

I measured 81 decibels at the property line, 400 times the limit.

The noise stopped briefly then continued.

I contacted my neighbor directly, and the neighbor said that the cops would come by and said the noise was okay.

I called the police again.

I got a return call from Sergeant Hurley.

He said we are not going to enforce yard noise.

Then he said we have warned you not to call in noise complaints.

I call in about one noise complaint a year, and only the most flagrant violation.

I knew that someday the police might resort to threats and intimidation to preserve their inertia.

As a designer, I cannot put equipment as loud as leaf blowers in power plants or industrial facilities.

Because the operators could not communicate or think clearly to operate the plants safely, the maintenance personnel could not focus on repair procedures, and the administrative personnel could not concentrate on business communications due to noise inundation.

They would all go home at the end of the day numb, irritated, detached, and stunned.

Leaf blow blower noise levels are between industrial and combat noise levels, yet the city thinks the equipment is acceptable in residential zoning where we live, love, sleep, study, entertain, and relax.

Have we lost our sanity?

As a reminder, I've prepared a red line for you.

Updating the noise ordinances to make the regulations clear, fair, objective, and effective.

Let's the seven of you, me, police chief, city manager, and one of your lawyers sit in a room, harmonize on the updates, present them to the public, and establish some noise regulation in Bellevue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our final pre-registered speaker is Alex Zimmerman.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Disability is not good.

Not exactly good.

Okay.

My name is Alex Zimmerman.

I am president of Send Up America.

Bellevue right now is number one Nazi Gestapo, fascist city controlling by junta.

No analogy in America.

And I spoke about this before many times.

So right now I want to bring you example.

How this system working?

What is you build?

Yeah.

So Mayor Robinson give me trespass for three years and cut my statement for election last year because I'm candidata going against her.

This is a pure crime.

It's a felony.

In civilized countries, she must be being in jail.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My complaint to Bellevue police, nothing.

Belly police is not police.

It's a gestapa.

Yes, it's my experience.

Good experience for 40 years.

Second, what is I want talking and about decision?

What is make Mayor more Muhammad?

I'm totally complained to police.

I have order number of my complaint right now because a three-time complain about this.

You mayor cannot sign all the official document by not legal name.

It's a very serious problem.

Is this problem need to be fixed it?

You know what this means.

When you cannot do this, this is a form in court for change name.

It's cost only 50 bucks.

When you don't make a more than 200,000, I can pay you 50 bucks.

I'm poor men, so I have 50 bucks.

But this exactly what is unique do it because it's a crime.

It's a felony.

There's not only problem about you, this problem about this seven Nazi pig, you know what this means, but it's know this for four years in very quiet.

When you see the outside, it's okay, but right now you make a decision inside, but not legal name.

Is this a felony?

Yeah.

And I complained to Belleville police do this gestaper is there a reaction.

Zero reaction.

It's a so serious problem, what is we have.

In another problem, fundamental, what is I talking for many years?

Twelve years ago, you changed rules only because Alex Zimmerman come and speak every day, so you people can speak only for 30 minutes.

You only tend people look right now, place empty.

People not believe you because you're crooked.

You are Nazi, you are fascist.

You more dangerous than Gitler Nazi, he gets to know what it means.

Because Gitler Nazi Gestapa don't have constitution for 250 years.

You don't have freedom of speech.

You have this.

So why you broken everything?

Can you explain to me?

Nobody can explain to me.

So you all criminal, all bandita, all Nazis.

That's exactly what has happened.

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

Yeah, I very appreciate you.

I give you the.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That is the end of our list.

So if there is anyone else joining us this evening who would like to make comment to the council, please raise your hand.

Go ahead, ma'am.

Come forward.

Julie Cott Bellevue.

3015 1062 Fourth Place.

Right now I'm one involved in the mid new mid-housing development.

We have 10 houses on our block, a dead-end street.

We will now end up with 24 houses because of this mid-level.

That's wrong.

That's not why we came to live in Bellevue.

And something about Mr.

Alexander.

We get tired of listening to him.

But you know what?

Some of the things he says are really true.

Some of the things we say, people are not listening.

Bellevue is changing fast.

And it's not really changing to the better.

And I feel badly when people sit there and kind of laugh at him because if you listen carefully, there are some facts that we should be aware of.

So I've done the housing.

Nothing I can do.

We have no voice, no say anymore.

So it really isn't a democracy because the government, the state of Washington, has taken that away.

Bellevue, Mercer Island, all the cities have to do it, or I don't know, you get fined.

But the reason today is the transportation, because transportation is a problem in Bellevue.

Transportation down Bellgred Way, they have taken three lanes, made two lanes, one north, one south, put two bicycle lanes, which took the suicide lane turning.

I've gone down it for two weeks now.

Well, this beginning of the second week.

And uh Redmond's in charge, Bellevue's in charge.

I know exactly who's in charge.

Bellevue on the east side, Redmond on the west side, Bellevue has the intersection at Northeast 30th, and Bell Red Way.

I was there and I told the policeman, please put a revision sign.

We've just about had head-on accidents even this morning.

I go, where's the lane?

We're using the road, and the lanes are not there when you get up the next day.

And when I came back, I just about had a car hit me because he did the same thing that I did when I was going north.

There's a problem.

And I it's going all over the city, I'm sure, but I hate to see the roads disappear to bicyclists, which maybe we have 10 bicyclists a week go down that road or less.

It's a lot of money, and it's made it very unsafe.

And I don't know.

That's the transportation, it's a problem.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Goodbye.

Thank you.

We do have one hand online, and that's Heidi Dean.

Miss Dean, can you hear me?

Just a second.

As a point of order, can I ask that staff respond to the traffic complaint that she just buy out?

Absolutely.

Ms.

Dean, can you hear me?

I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Uh yes, we can.

Your time begins now.

Thank you, Charmaine.

Uh, good evening.

Sorry, I am stuck in track this evening.

Uh congratulations to development services.

Uh being um that we're celebrating development services.

As a matter of fact, I stopped at City Hall in Burlington on my way home from Ferndale to see our former development services director, Rebecca Horner, in her new job as administrator of City of Burlington.

Um great little town, and she's doing well.

And I, you know, I don't want to take anything away from Mr.

Hasselgesser in the four months that he's run uh development services.

Um also wanted to acknowledge that some of the things that have the improvements that have happened have also been um due to Rebecca's work as development services director before that.

So congratulations all keep up the good work.

Um I did want to say um since Lake Hills and Westlake Sammish are starting on their neighborhood area plans.

Um, Leslie Geller would not be able to speak tonight for you know what's happening with Eastgate.

Um but I did want to ask that given what we saw with Factoria and Eastgate, that the council makes sure that the staff, when they go to do those surveys at the beginning, and especially about the transportation portion, that they really make sure that it's a multimodal survey because that did not happen with Factoria and Eastgate.

As a matter of fact, um any kind of traffic congestion related to cars uh was left off of those surveys.

And it was all um about bike bus um and walking, pedestrian.

So it was not a multimodal survey that was called out by the Transportation Commission, and the staff was asked to address that, fix that in the policies.

And by the time it got to planning commission, again, that hadn't happened, and that was just kind of shrunk off.

Planning commission should have addressed that.

They did not.

Um, and that's what's coming to you.

So I you know, I feel good that Lake Hills has a strong neighborhood association that will address things.

And you've got Vic Bishop and Westlake Sam, but um engagement's gonna be important, and it's gonna be important that you truly address that, and that you not just let these special interest groups that come in and try to drive neighborhood area plans um get a hold of those things, or the staff deciding what a neighborhood area plan should be like.

So thank you for your attention to that.

Good night.

Thank you.

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

I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much.

Again, thanks everyone uh who took the time to share your comments uh with us.

Uh, I assure you that we are listening and we will follow up if and when necessary.

Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

It's been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by councilwoman New in House.

Any discussion.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

The motion passes.

We have a public hearing.

City manager, would you please introduce that to us?

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council.

Uh, tonight we're asking you to hold a public hearing that is required uh related to action that you took in June, implementing a moratorium on uh detention center siting in Bellevue.

Uh staff is here to provide you a brief presentation, just summarizing the issue prior to you um considering opening the public hearing.

So we have Nick Whipple, our code and policy director from development services, and Matt McFarland, our city from our city attorney's office.

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

Great.

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

Um, so we are here tonight as uh as City Manager Carlson noted, um, asking you all to hold the required public hearing um action to adopt this ordinance happened at the June 9th council meeting.

Um, so this is a requirement um for the process when you adopt a moratorium ordinance.

And I'm having trouble advancing the slides here.

I don't know, Jacques, if you can assist.

There we go.

Might have been me.

Um, so uh with that again, the action is to hold the public hearing on ordinance 6926, which imposed a one-year moratorium on the acceptance or processing of applications for detention centers.

For our agenda, we want to touch on the background, um, just recall that June 9th meeting, what's included in that moratorium ordinance, and then what's the plan uh long term to address this through a code or a potential policy amendment.

So, starting out first with our background.

Um, so as we noted at the June 9th meeting, uh detention centers have expanded nationwide, including in the Puget Sound region, and we also know there is uh interest uh in the federal government in citing a potential detention facility within the Puget Sound area.

In response, several jurisdictions in Washington state and in the region have recently adopted moratoriums on detention centers to allow that time to uh figure out what's the right approach to address this type of use.

Uh, Matt will walk through some additional background in the moratorium.

Thank you, Nick.

Um, good evening, council.

Um, you may recall from June 9th that one thing we discussed, and it's in the moratorium ordinance as well, is there's a gap in the city's land use code and our zoning and land use control ordinances that uh don't regulate uh moratorium uses.

I'm sorry, detention center uses as a specific use, and that can lead to a lack of mitigation because of the intensity and the high occupancy of those type of detention center uses.

So the goal with the moratorium is to pause while the city can adopt appropriate regulations for that type of use.

And uh the moratorium specifically, which you may also remember from June 9th, adopted um uh a one-year pause on the acceptance of any land use applications to establish a detention center use in the city or processing any of those land use applications that Paul's will give the city time to evaluate and uh develop zoning and land use controls in order to appropriately mitigate and address the impacts associated with uh uh detention centers, and also if you recall the scope of the moratorium covers detention center uses as they're kind of defined and identified in the Growth Management Act with some Bellevue specific language in that scope, also where we looked at some of the uses that are ongoing in Bellevue to try to make sure this moratorium ordinance does not affect those as well.

All right, and so um just as a reminder for the council and the public, the Growth Management Act and Code City provisions do authorize cities to adopt moratoriums uh when a public hearing is held within 60 days of adoption.

So that is why we are here tonight.

Um, also as a reminder, the moratorium did establish a work plan to identify those regulatory and policy gaps around this uh novel use, evaluate potential code and policy amendments, and develop findings and recommendations for you all to consider at a future date, and then coordinate this work with our existing uh planned legislative initiatives.

So this could be absorbed within our current work planning process without needing additional resources to address how moratorium regulations should look.

And our process here, so uh the moratorium that you all adopted on June 9th will expire June 9th of next year, 2027.

Uh review and development of potential code and policy changes are happening within existing and planned work uh legislative initiatives, and then an additional public hearing is required if this moratorium was needed to be extended.

Um, if for example the work wasn't quite completed, um then we would um assess at that point whether an extension of the moratorium ordinance would be appropriate.

Another hearing would be required to do so.

With that, Mayor, uh, we'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much.

Do I have a motion to open the public hearing?

I move to open the public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by council member Robinson.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

City clerk, you are in the public hearing.

Thank you, Mayor.

There are two pre-registered speakers.

So our first speaker is Guillermo Rivera.

Welcome.

Mayor, oh, sorry.

Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

My name is Guillermo Rivera, and I'm a community organizer with D Side for All.

First, I want to thank you for your leadership and your work to pass ordinance 6926 banning detention centers in Balvi for one year.

That was an important step for our communities.

Deeply appreciate the council taking action.

At the same time, our communities continue to experience tremendous stress and fear because of the ongoing ICE activity in Bellevue.

Almost every day we get the reports of someone being detained and another family being affected.

Yesterday, around 7 a.m., we received a report that ICE agents were near Walmart and Hopelink.

A husband and a wife were detain after leaving their apartment for work just outside their car.

I could share all terrible details, but we must protect them.

What we can share is that a young children witness agents taking parents away.

The circle, a community-based organization, along with community volunteers, responded to state with the little girl and her needs to the day, ensuring that they have support during an incredible difficult and frightening situation.

Families are afraid to go to work, take their children to school, or simply leave their homes for daily needs.

We cannot add more fear and uncertainty to communities that are being ready carrying too much stress.

That is why I respectfully ask to make Bellevue ban detention centers permanent, not for what's not for a year.

As you develop and implement a permanent ban, I ask you to include the community most directly affected immigration enforcement.

Their experience, voices, and expertise must have shaping the intent to protect them.

Finally, local policies are important, but our communities also need long-term regional support.

We need a regional center that can coordinate resources, information, rapid response, and so forth for immigrants and refugee communities through our region.

Our network of providers have been engaging with Bellevue and others inside staff to explore this vision.

As Bellevue continue to welcome the world, the need for a coordinated regional center has grown over in the past 20 to 30 years, reflecting the e-side involving diversity and increased demand for accessibility culturally grounded services.

We look forward to sharing more and exploring Balbius' leadership role in shaping the next step in our region collaboration.

And thank you again for all the work that you are doing on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Heather Kelly.

Welcome.

Thank you.

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

Thank you so much for passing the one year moratorium and detention centers in the City of Bellevue.

I especially want to underscore that because I know that the city's hands are tied in many areas around immigration enforcement.

I also appreciate your direction to staff to identify gaps in the current ordinance and to recommend additional protections.

I urge you to act promptly to make this prohibition permanent and to close any loopholes in city code or land use regulations that could allow privately operated facilities or federally operated detention centers to locate in Bellevue.

Bellevue must not, under any circumstances, become part of a system that detains people in cruel and inhumane conditions or strips them of their rights and due process.

We have all seen the devastating human cost of detention, families torn apart, people held in degrading conditions, and communities living in fear.

Our city has a responsibility to ensure it is never complicit in these abuses.

By making this ban permanent and closing every remaining loophole, Bellevue can send an unmistakable message that detention facilities have no place in our community.

I respectfully urge you to act swiftly to permanently ban detention centers and strengthen the ordinance so Bellevue's commitment is clear, enduring, and impossible to undermine in the future.

Thank you all so much for your leadership on this issue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That is the end of our pre-registered list.

So I'd ask at this point if there's anyone else joining us this evening who would like to make a comment in this public hearing, please raise your hand.

That goes for those online as well.

Okay.

Mayor, I do not see any additional hands.

I'll turn it back to you.

Thank you so much.

Do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

I move to close the public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been uh moved by deputy mayor and seconded by council member Robinson.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes, and uh the public hearing is closed.

So, City Manager, are we done with this part of our we are complete um unless the council wishes to ask any questions.

Anyone has any questions?

I think we are all great.

We can start the first study session.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council.

Um, I'm very excited to have our development services team up here uh this evening uh to give you an update on some three primary things.

First, the team's here to give you a look at what's coming in the development pipeline.

They do that regularly.

Um second, you're gonna hear some highlights of the key process improvements.

And I want to say the department is working very hard to make these process improvements to help make it uh faster, smoother, more consistent for our customers in the development services arena, and the data is showing that that it's working.

Um, and lastly, some good news about a new program that's helping out small businesses through the uh permitting process.

So um thank you to Jake Kesselgesser, our acting director who's here this evening.

Uh Greg Schrader, our assistant director, and Steph Collier, our program manager.

So, with that, I'll hand it over to Jake.

Thank you, City Manager Carlson, good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

It's so exciting to be with you here this evening to share this development services update.

Um this is an informational update, just uh on the items that um city manager Carlson noted.

Our agenda for this evening will include a brief development update that Greg will provide.

I'll talk a little bit about our work plan and what we're focused on for continuous improvement.

And then we'll dive deeper into a couple of topics.

Our small business program, which Steph Collier will talk about, and then I'll round us out with a little bit of information about our GovStream AI project.

With that, I will hand it over to Greg for the development update.

Great.

Thanks, Jake.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members.

It's a pleasure to be here.

So I will start with this graph, which illustrates our permit activity.

The top line represents permit applications.

The lower black line is issued permits.

You see that in 2025 we reached a peak, and this year is trending very close to that same high level of activity.

So that's that's great news.

I wanted to include some photos of projects that are under construction.

You're probably familiar with a number of these.

The Pearl Apartments is the farthest along at the Silver Clouds site.

Broadstone on 112, Bosa Park on the east side of the downtown park on Bellevue Way.

And then, of course, the ANI project, a very large project on 106.

They have all broken ground with demolition and some excavation activity.

And then I wanted to talk about permit timeline performance.

The local project review act was modified by Washington Senate Bill 5290 in 2023, and it established these timelines that you see that relate to projects that do not require public noticing, that do have public noticing and last for 170 days projects that have both public noticing and public hearing.

The applications that we were required to report to the state on, all met the shot clocks after the January 1st, 2025 implementation.

That is, I will note a small subset of all of the total permits that we process, but that's I think also good news.

Our goal is for 80% of those decisions to meet the established targets.

There's more information in the agenda memo about the targets and the types of projects that those apply to.

But our performance in that regard did improve from 72% in 2025 to 82% in 2026.

And we are continuing with very targeted emphasis in each review team on that.

And with that, uh I'll turn it back to Jake for the work plan update.

Great.

In your agenda materials this evening is attachment A, which is a pretty detailed uh look at our continuous improvement work plan balancing across four different perspective areas.

Wanted to start first by centering around customer feedback.

We take in a lot of customer feedback through channels like the Valve Development Committee, our customer experience program, and while we do receive pretty high satisfaction ratings, we do hear uh ideas for process improvements.

And some of the top-line themes include uh really specific improvement ideas, and I'll share a couple highlights here in a minute.

Um, also the desire to improve project management and coordination on the city side of things, really uh abstracting the regulatory complexity that applicants have to go through.

We hear a lot of feedback around streamlining and simplifying permitting and definitely creating more consistent and predictable process.

We also saw a lot of synergy across customer personas, so those who might be submitting a deck addition to all the way up to a high rise construction.

So many of our improvement efforts are focused on delivering the best value for our customers.

A few initiatives that we have underway right now.

Our consolidated review pilot is targeting a new process for single family building permit applications.

The early data from this is showing that we're able to cut revision cycles by an entire revision cycle, thus uh shrinking the amount of time that it takes for those permits to go through the system.

When we complete the pilot looking to perhaps scale that process improvement to other permit types to receive that same benefit.

We're focused on a number of land use permitting process improvements, including developing templates for staff reports, as well as uh improving public facing information and uh balancing the workload across our land use division for entitlement permitting.

We've hired an outside consultant, Matrix Consulting Group, to come in and do uh kind of an internal audit and needs assessment for us and develop a customer service training program.

So this is really investing in our workforce and helping them develop the competencies and skills that they need to be successful in navigating a highly regulatory complex environment while delivering good customer service.

On the technology front, I'll talk about GovStream AI in more detail in a minute.

And then one other, which is our public-facing dashboard project, which is aiming to increase transparency and accountability into much of the timeline data that Greg spoke about earlier.

We're looking to launch this in quarter three and have that available for the public.

And with that, I'll turn it to Steph to talk about our small business program.

Passing the baton here.

It's great to be here tonight, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council members.

Last time I was at council, I think was about 20 years ago, so it's nice to be back in the seat here.

If I had one picture to share with you about our new small business program and development services, it would be this one because it illustrates teamwork, coaching, and empathy.

In some ways, this little leaguer is like our small business customers.

They are so energized and eager, eager to learn, eager to open their business.

They're very optimistic, but they don't necessarily know about permitting.

They need a coach.

And what do we know about a great coach?

A great coach helps us understand the rules.

They help us walk through each step.

They don't necessarily go to bat for us, but they make sure that we have everything we need to succeed.

And that is precisely what this new service is for our small business customers.

We want our small business customers to have the confidence to know what to expect, that they have clarity and that they we care about them, that we care and value that they have a successful project.

So it's been a blast to have this program and to be able to build it out.

What it looks like from an operational standpoint is this essentially a customer journey, and it really captures the first call to the grand opening.

We have partnered with economic development.

Yoshiko Ueda is our small business analyst.

She essentially greets our small business customers and ensures that they not only receive these services but other services that the city and/or region may offer our small businesses.

She qualifies them, and the way we qualify is that you have fewer than 25 full-time employees and you make less than five million dollars in annual recurring revenue.

Once Yoshiko meets with them, I take the baton and I really work with his customer one-on-one in a personalized dedicated way.

The theme here is that this is very proactive.

We have never worked with our customers in the pre-lease phase of their journey.

So we are really there to help them and their real estate broker find a location that they can afford, that they understand what it's going to take to remodel that tenant space.

Then once they find a location, we work with them and get them ready for the next legal race, which is essentially the permit review process before they apply.

We make sure that they have all their answers squared away.

Then when they're ready for construction, we do it all over again and prepare them for inspection.

We have had great success so far, and we wouldn't be here at all without a great team.

We now offer office hours every Wednesday for walk-in customers to come join us and ask questions about small business services here in the city.

Economic development has indeed been a key partner for us, helping us build these services and get the customers to us as soon as possible.

Externally, we also have been on the streets of Bellevue forging partnerships with real estate brokers, small business bankers.

The Chamber of Commerce now offers a small business discount on your membership.

The Bellevue Fire Foundation has a starter kit for small businesses and well as well.

And all of this to say that everybody is in the corner of the small business owner in Bellevue.

We have had six months of so of data so far, and what the data is telling us is something we did hypothesize that early, early engagement is really the way to go.

The sooner we can work with our small business customers, the better.

Diversity is real.

The demand is also real.

Each small business customer comes to us from different backgrounds, different experiences, and different exposure levels to the permitting process.

But I can also say that those proactive services have been really key for us.

One of our small business customers came to me mid review during the review process.

They are opening Taste Buds Kitchen in Kelsey Creek Park.

They should be open, or Kelsey Creek Plaza.

They should be opening sometime in the next month or two.

We started working with them during the inspection process, and this is the sentiment that Connor and Marta shared with us about the services.

Our first international customers, Esther and Attila, Yoshiko and I actually met with them before they even landed a real estate agent.

So that was very proactive.

They are relocating their bakery from Budapest to Bellevue.

So look for that bakery to open sometime in 2027.

Attila is an award-winning and internationally known chocolateer.

So it will be a really wonderful thing to see them open their shop in Bellevue.

And I'll hand it back to Jake.

Great.

Thanks, Steph.

So to conclude us, I wanted to talk a little bit about our GovStream AI project, which has uh drawn a lot of attention from not only the council, but the public, the region, and even nationally.

We have been focused on permit acceleration, and the the approach that we've taken with GovStream is really a holistic approach, partnering with our IT department and their staff who come here to City Hall and sit with our staff to understand the process and develop tools that really aimed at each phase of the process.

So starting first, this graphic shows permit inquiries on the on the left-hand side.

That's when people are asking us questions before they even file an application, the actual application process.

We have uh aspirations of moving into plan review and inspections and code uh compliance uh after our first phase here.

What we've deployed so far under permit inquiries is their product called Permit Guide, which is two AI assistants, an email assistant and a chat assistant.

Each one of those is highly trained and integrated with our city system.

So think about permit tracking system data, public records, GIS, all of the city codes so that we can surface information across multiple different systems in a very quick and efficient manner, thus drawing down on the time that staff have to take to uh handle those permit inquiries, always keeping a human in the loop uh uh under each one of those.

We spend about 20,000 hours a year answering questions, so you can imagine if we could create a 30% efficiency gain, we could repurpose that human capital on higher value work, and that's the goal.

We're working with them right now in the application and completeness phase, working on two AI assistants here, research assistant and application assistant.

These will be public-facing.

Um, later this summer, we look to do kind of a soft launch of both of these to the public.

And just know that uh throughout this entire journey when the public would be interfacing with this, really the the aim here is ongoing two-way communication between the applicant and the builder, making it a more intuitive process for everyone.

Uh, you might ask what are some of the results here.

Uh we did do a bit of a pilot here for application assistant.

Um, we chose two different permit types, um single-family uh building permit, which is that top row, and then a tree removal permit.

Uh, we ran five over 500 permits through the GovStream AI tool, and um, in the current state, without any of the AI applied, we see about 22% of those new home applications coming in complete the first time.

That means that we have to ask for more information, there's an initial correction cycle and such.

40% for tree removal permits.

With the new intake system through just a few iterations, we were able to increase that uh application quality to 67%, so a three times increase in terms of application quality.

And really, um, you can imagine this is going to help move projects uh uh to approval uh weeks, if not uh uh even months sooner.

So, what's coming here in the future?

The public launch that I mentioned, which will be a bit of a public preview, working alongside mybuilding permit.com and our other systems.

So we're not looking to replace anything at this point, um, but also looking to expand that intake guidance as we gain experience in these two permit types and begin to scale that to perhaps other permit types.

Also, later uh here in the fall, we look to start to dive into the permit review phase of our partnership with GovStream AI, looking at tools that can really help the reviewers as they're going through documents and reviewing those uh sort of things.

And really the payoff here again is moving Bellview permitting from things that take months towards weeks and even days in some instances.

So, with that, that concludes our presentation.

Again, information only, happy to answer any questions, take any comments that the council may have.

Thank you so much, Jake.

Uh Greg, Steph, nice seeing you.

And also I see Tony on the back end and Neek.

Thank you for the whole team.

I think moving from 72% to 82% on the first review target is really meaningful progress.

Uh meeting all of the state shot clock is amazing.

The small business programs warms my heart.

And I think I was one of the fewest moments I was very proud was I was in a meeting with all of the other mayors, and we were the only city that had the Gulf Stream AI, and the other mayors were looking at us like we are doing something right.

So I wanted to appreciate you all for making our city being uh we are known for being innovative, and uh, you are uh example of that.

The other thing that I really appreciate when I was looking at the work plan was we are not just thinking about the speed, we are thinking about being predictable and also consistence from application to permit.

So just want to say thank you.

On that note, we start with council member Robinson.

Thank you, Mayor.

I I agree with what the mayor just said.

This is so gratifying to hear the results of, and I just want to thank everybody involved.

It's I hear it from other cities and people who are applying for permitting right now, and everybody's sounds very positive with all this change.

So thank you.

I just had um two questions.

I've had at least five designers reach out to me about wanting to have a small business here in Bellevue where they can show their showcase their fashions, and you know, they're kind of starting with very little funding.

And so just trying to figure out how we can support that style of business, maybe finding older um shopfronts or temporary shopfronts for them to use.

I don't know what the answer is, but I would love if you could get back to me on what the options are for those individuals.

And then um we saw in New York the success of these pop-ups and and having an area where uh people can do that.

So I I'd really love to hear from you someday what we can do to encourage that and support it.

Happy to get back to you with information.

I will say the next leg of the journey beyond the small business program for staff here is also to help us activate public uh space and uh that sort of thing.

So we're beginning to work with our community development department on how we might do that and streamline those type of activations, so which could help with some of the pop-up stuff that you mentioned.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh, Councilmember Smodaver.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um thank you for the presentation and good to see you again, Steph.

I I just want to give a couple praise because as soon as she was foot on the ground, we had a meeting right away, and she she reached out to talk to brokers, just ready to go.

So I really appreciate you making a huge difference.

Because I think that when you all work together removing the uncertainty and then no when you um invest majority people's capital into a space, it takes a lot of effort, right?

And then because the city is really prioritizing that, it makes this place so much more attractive.

Invest.

Um, and I love can I just um I have let me see?

Yeah, I think I don't have I've had only two questions about the slides.

Um, the one of the STI 10 is talk about uh customer service, the workforce training part.

Um can we can you give me an example?

Like, is that like a training, uh upscaling the skill set so they can um external facing the customer answering question better?

What type of program are we thinking about?

Yeah, so this is good good question, council member.

This is kind of a multi-faceted thing.

The first phase here is the consultants helping us kind of reinforce some of the standard operating procedures that we have today and also identifying where we have gaps.

So some of the things that we deal with include um you know conflicts, managing through conflict, yeah, enforcing regulations is kind of fraught with that.

So, how do you handle that with care and empathy and work with the customer to find a solution and get to a yes?

Uh the initial answer might be a no, but how do we get to yes?

So that's really that kind of mindset.

We're also looking to embed this in our ongoing onboarding program.

So when new staff come in, this is not just a one-and-done uh type of program.

And then beyond that, they're looking to help us develop new standard operating procedures, perhaps that we don't have today.

So yeah.

I think that's great.

And I believe that the first initial interaction, first impressions, everything, right?

So when people asking for help and they feel they can be heard and respected, also um we are eager to help.

They always most likely gonna come back repeatedly to make the process more and giving really great feedback too.

Um, my next question is about there's a slide talking about there's a diversity of the small business come into town, which is so exciting.

Thank you, bring great chocolate to town.

That's amazing.

Um I do have a question about if there is a if when small business they I mean, every space could be different, right?

And then every industry could be different.

If there's something that we haven't seen before in design, a process, the how the HVAC is built.

Um what is that look like so we can we don't delay the whole process still moving forward, even it's something like we have maybe have never seen before in the building design.

So we do offer some alternate pathways, and maybe I'd ask Greg to talk about this a little bit from the building code side of things, but the same type of uh alternate pathway that Greg will explain or allowed through some of our other codes.

So, Greg, do you want to talk about alternate methods and appears?

Um most of the construction codes have provisions that allow designers to provide alternatives that equal or exceed the intent of the code, and so it's it's sometimes what we might call a performance-based code, and it uh is a process of some back and forth and evaluation and questions and research, but the that path does exist to allow that type of innovative approach.

Thank you.

Um, and I think that's that's it.

But last question is about AI.

Can I ask, please?

Okay.

Um so because is making our work so much more efficient, and because of that, would you think that would you say that our staff now has so much more efficiency at it now?

They can actually help more customers because of the AI.

Do you feel that way?

Um the capability is certainly there, and we've seen the efficiency gains.

What we're working on right now is scaling the use across all of our staff.

We just rolled these two first AI assistants out not too long ago.

So staff are getting used to those, where do they fit in their daily uh workload?

The goal really is to create that front-end efficiency of about 30% in the small scale spy uh pilot, we're able to see that level of efficiency, but seeing on the broad scale, we're we're not quite there yet, but we do expect to get there at some point.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Briar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I looked at the presentation in our state and target of 11 weeks for utilities and eight weeks for major projects, is well ahead of the Washington statewide average.

Um, and it also sets us up on the national stage where we are uh ahead of cities like Austin, Texas, and Charlottesville, North Carolina.

Uh obviously we're going off of this first review and not issuance, but even benchmarked with that caveat, according to my research, we are killing it.

So this is really, really exciting to see.

Um, and I have uh municipal friends in Massachusetts that have reached out to ask about this implementation of Gusstream AI, which was before my um uh time here on the council, but I'm hoping we can produce some scholarship about it because it's scalable solutions that have provided excellent results.

So thank you so much for everything that you're doing.

Um and these small business uh programs are great, especially office hours.

I've heard from a number of folks who are interested in getting uh started here.

So just making yourself accessible efficient.

I I have nothing to say but praise.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilwoman Ewenhaus.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um Yeah, this is an exciting update.

Um I 100% agree that we're making a lot of great uh progress to be more efficient.

Um be more I I think uh the the speed and the predictability um really really important and paramount.

Um love to talk about the new tools, especially AI.

Um I2 speaking at NLC was on a panel, no other city um had implemented.

They were talking about it, they were interested in it, but they actually hadn't implemented anything yet.

And I know we're you know taking uh I would say a very measured approach to see um how um AI can help us um with the permitting process, which is great, and we should continue to do that.

And I love the um uh that that partnership with GovStream and as well as your plan to continue to look and implement uh additional technology um uh when when when needed.

But I also like to hear just a little bit more in terms of how we're tracking success as well.

I think speed is one of them, absolutely, and thanks to uh thanks to the state, we're given some clear parameters there in terms of how quickly we need to get through the this permitting process.

But the other part of that too, and I think the concierge program, which I love and been an advocate for for a year, I'm so glad that we're um that that's fully launched and and the early results look great.

Um, but it's early still, and I think we could still learn from it.

In fact, I'm even gonna bring up an example that I would like to um get your thoughts on.

So I found it kind of curious that one of the examples that you used, um, the Taste Bud examples, the Taste Buds Kitchen, they approached me and I think the the city manager as well about their frustration with the process.

And in fact, we were trying to put them into a situation where they had to pay for a parking study.

Now it got resolved.

But tell me what did we learn from that and how do we improve going forward?

So that clearly they were happy with the end result because they provided, you know, um uh, you know, I'd say a good quote, and and certainly um they were aware that probably we're gonna talk about them this evening.

Um, but what did we learn from that?

Actually, they weren't aware we were gonna do that.

Oh, okay.

So better.

Uh and that is one of the reasons we included them because I caught them mid-tailspin, and that is not what we want for an optimal experience for our small business.

Oh, so they were not in the program yet when they ran into that issue.

Gotcha, okay.

Correct.

And so uh because I was on board and building the program, then that's how they got on my radar because I am available and certainly helpful in an ombuds type role at that point.

Yeah.

So when I met with Connor and Marta, I asked them what was their experience and and what can we do going forward to get you to where we need to go?

And so that's where our partnership began.

But that's also part of my role is we we have yet to catch everyone at the pre-lease.

No, but that's a great story.

That's a success story right there that we were able to turn that around, and um I don't believe they ended up having to do that that that part that part.

Good, because they were shut down for uh um a certain period of time, and every small business owner can understand every every day counts, every hour counts, but they're not open, they're not having revenue come in.

So I know that uh certainly that was uh um a stressful time for them, but but that's that's that's a great so how do we intercept those earlier?

Um is it when they first make the uh permit submittal?

Do we get a sense immediately if they meet that criteria if they are uh smaller uh business and we offer our services, or do they have to request it?

Um go ahead.

Happy to sing some notes on that as well.

Uh one more thing about Connor and Marta.

Uh we also for them they ask them for advice, right?

So that we can incorporate their feedback and improve the process going forward so uh that we can learn from those experiences.

So our the outreach to the real estate brokers and property managers and the small business bankers, that has been instrumental in us getting to small business customers when they are looking for their leased tenant space.

We ideally want to work with them before they even sign a lease because we don't want customers signing a lease where the use is not permitted, or they get into a tenant space where construction costs are cost prohibitive for them.

So that's why the outreach to brokers and bankers and property managers.

So if you have any advice of folks you'd like me to meet with, please let me know, and I'm happy to reach out to them.

If, however, we miss them at the pre-lease stage, then staff are also very aware of these services, and they are saying, Staff, I think, you know, and then we get them into the queue and start working with them wherever they are.

So um what and and that's a great story, and I love that, and I love the constant improvement.

That is fantastic.

Just wondering what's what other feedback loops do we have to continuously look at improving or changing or adapting if needed.

Um what other feedback loops are there available?

Maybe I'll offer a couple of comments on this one.

Uh certainly our customer experience program.

We receive a lot of feedback through that, and that is data that we collect that tells us how well are we doing.

Great.

We do have aspirations, well, you don't see it in the work plan right now, of making that data more publicly accessible so the community can see what we're hearing and then how we're responding to that and how we're using that to prioritize our work plan.

Um so that's that's one way that we get feedback.

Certainly we hear it from staff too, so from an internal perspective, they're the best equipped to understand where those rev points and how do we resolve those.

So concepts like really good project management, single point of contact, uh, things that we're trying out with our small business program or showing really good success.

That consolidated review pilot that I mentioned.

Yep.

Part of the success on that is we have a single person orchestrating all of the review comments and dealing with the applicants.

So those are c concepts that um are coming from real feedback loops and that we're deploying and then hoping to iterate and improve over time.

Do they have an opportunity to rate the quality of customer service that they received?

They they do, and I'd be happy to provide you with our survey uh comments or uh questions that we provide to applicants.

And okay, fantastic.

And what is our goal for that?

We we target 80% customer satisfaction, so that's either satisfied across everything.

Across everything.

Okay, or very satisfied.

Okay.

Um I think we're at about 82% right now, I want to say.

So similar to the timeline.

To the time, yeah, I was gonna say.

That's not bad.

Okay.

All right, great.

Well, I look forward to that number continuing to go up and improve, and um uh very excited about this uh moving forward.

So thank you for all your work.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Councilman Newmanhouse.

Councilman Bargaba.

Yeah, thank you.

Um really great presentation, a lot of optimism.

Uh uh great work across the board as well, uh, small business support or improvements, the data is telling.

Um, so really appreciate that.

Uh let me start with just a couple things on the small business piece, which I think is really great.

I love the idea of a concierge program.

I like the idea of proactively also doing work.

Uh, one question I have on that is one of the biggest challenges that folks talk about when they think about a small business is understanding um is it feasible?

Can we do something?

If I do something, I can do many things, what should I be doing?

And they come with choices.

Do we have anything like that in the concierge program that understands Bellevue's demand curves on small business opportunities?

And do we put that out in some way?

We have a small business development center.

Uh he's an advisor, Dio, and we partner very closely with him.

So he has one-on-one consultation meetings with any small business.

This is a no-cost service.

If they have even an idea, he will meet with them and help them understand the market, what a business plan requires, etc.

So we uh partner with him when we see small businesses come across our we refer him them to him.

Yeah, I think that's great because uh if folks come in, like economic development will bring in likely successful small businesses to come and flourish, which I think is really great, but then organically growing small business opportunities within the city will be a really big win.

So I better applaud you for doing that and encourage you to grow that further.

On the um permitting side, uh one question and one sort of thought that I wanted to share.

Uh question is it's really great to see the data.

So when we think about the parameters, it's cost, quality, customer experience.

But in the public sector in the way we work, we have to think about access and equity as well.

Um, so clearly defining metrics around those pieces of how we look at that, each of them, I think would be really important.

Conservative new enhouse was pushing on the quality metrics or the CX metrics.

I think it'll be really great.

Uh, you know, when the next time we see this to see beyond the productivity and time uh reductions, um, but also to see the real measurable metrics and outcomes on the CX and put potentially on how we're making sure that these tools are accessible and easy for everyone to use.

Um the question I have uh is how how are we accounting for mix of projects?

Because I know we've seen a lift in the productivity and outcomes in terms of meeting short clocks and all of that, but the change can happen year on year in the types of projects you get in.

And do we slice and dice in that way?

And are we sure we're accounting for mix appropriately?

Um, if I understand your question correctly, council member, I think you're talking about the complexity and the scale and how do we resource for that and deal with the ebbs and flows.

And how do we make sure that our rate of improvements are accounting for that change as well?

So we're confident that the rate is as good as it gets.

Great question.

So it's not an exact science, but we have a pretty good methodology in terms of the way that we forecast development activity.

We look at economic indicators during the region, partner with our finance and asset management department to understand what's happening with the broader economic trends, and then we develop a forecast each year, which we're using usually within a couple of percentage points of.

And that forecast goes all the way down to the individual project level.

So the actual permit types and the amount of time that we spend on that.

So we have a pretty good idea of what the data is telling us.

We also resource with not only internal staff but also outside consultants so that we can uh kind of shape the peaks off of workload as uh things are coming in the door.

Um, and we might be going through a staffing change or turnover or trying to fill a hard-to-fill position.

So those are a couple of ways that we kind of account for those things.

Got it.

Um last uh comment, really.

As you think about your next agent beyond the readiness check and the other things, you go into your research for staff.

I think uh one of the things you could consider looking into is something that I've seen Seattle do really well is that they have a um trying to remember the name, I think it's called Blue Beam, which they use, which essentially creates a centralized repository of comment collection across teams that really simplifies this process for them and has improved productivity significantly.

I don't have to say that's the vendor, but I'm just saying that those are the kinds of opportunities beyond uh just an agent that might be worth looking at.

Appreciate that feedback.

Thank you so much, Councilman Borgaba.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

Um thank you also for all the hard work uh that you and your team have done to make development services increasingly more customer focused.

I think the results uh speak for themselves, and they're really quite impressive.

Um just a few questions here for you.

Um, just kind of digging into this.

I'm curious what are the main factors contributing to the current high volumes of permit applications and issued permits.

So last year we saw the high applications really underpinned by single family, so new single family and some of the new middle housing typology and also single family reinvestment.

That little bit of a dip that you've seen this year is a result of the residential market on the single family front, where we haven't seen quite as many of those applications come in.

We are seeing more of the major projects move out to construction right now.

I think we're we've issued over, gosh, I want to say 600 to 700 million dollars in construction valuation already this year.

Great shared a few of those projects.

So starting to see not that economic conditions are perfect, but some of those developers moving those projects out to construction.

So those are a few of the trends that we're seeing in the data.

In the agenda memo, it's stated that amongst other things that the pace of permit applications is being driven by investment and new single-family housing, residential reinvestment projects, and new applications stemming from the Wilburton Vision Implation Luse Code.

And I'm just curious if you could provide some context regarding Wilburton and why the Luca has so been so effective at spurring growth.

Well, certainly the Wilburton Lucas brought in a number of new applications under the catalyst program.

So we filled up that catalyst program very quickly.

And obviously, that was a uh a policy decision that the council made to bring in that multifamily housing uh during tough economic conditions.

So certainly that collaborative process and developing the recommendations with uh stakeholders, the planning commission, and the council really led to that uh being a code that um brought in those new applications fairly quickly.

I think we've seen now about 700 of those units now file for building permit applications.

So it's not just the entitlement phase, we're starting to see a few of those actually move into kind of the construction permitting phase.

Um looking ahead, which process improvements that are currently included in the DS work plan or could be added to the current work plan could help us realize the most positive impact on speeding up our development review pipeline.

I think it's uh a couple of different factors here.

It's um, and I'll maybe borrow a line from the city manager from the other day, which is uh uh high human touch and high tech uh put together.

So really ensuring that we have uh humans that are equipped with the skills and competencies to deliver really good customer service, leveraging technology to create efficiencies where we might see those, and then also um doing the the hard work of process improvement, which um throwing technology at something doesn't always uh solve the issue.

You also have to look at the process behind that.

So I think it's a multitude of those different process improvements that we're working on in connection with one another to achieve the results that we're looking for.

Um also wanted to mention I really like the employee learning and growth perspective section of the DS work plan, and I'm pleased to see that all four categories will be in the implementation stage by the first of the year.

Um as was mentioned in the presentation, you've made significant and impressive improvements in overall departmental effectiveness with the nearly 14% improvement in permit timelines for first reviews, and I think that uh there's really widespread support and appreciation uh for all of your efforts.

Um, like a lot of good things, I think there's a desire for additional improvements, and I just want to recognize the impactful improvements for sure that you have made, but more of a good thing is good.

So uh please keep up that effort.

I think now certainly is the time uh for us to keep our foot on the gas and to keep pushing for greater efficiencies and quicker approvals.

But excellent work, really appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Can we go to go ahead?

Yes, a quick question and follow up to uh councilmember Hamilton.

Of the 800 uh 700 units seeking permits for Wilburton, how many are affordable?

How many?

I I don't have that information, but I'm happy to get it to you.

Okay, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you.

Can we go to a slide seven, please?

Again, the numbers looks amazing that we are meeting all of the um shot clocks.

Can you tell me about that uh 120% that uh average time outside city review increase 100-24 uh 4%?

What is driving that increase?

The amount of time spent by applicants responding to comments.

So we've seen this in recent years, it's been kind of a trend.

Um, and it kind of matches the economic trends.

So projects that aren't moving as quickly because the applicants are um slowing down their process and responding to us.

So last year, though, we saw a pretty big increase in the in that kind of trend.

So that's awesome.

Uh and when you have that dashboard that you mentioned in a slide, I guess 10.

Don't go there, but you we are going to see that in dashboard, like how much time lapse, how much is applicant time, how much is city time, everything should be there.

That is the goal.

I will say that our consolidated review pilot for building permits is really essential to achieving that.

Currently, right now, for many of our construction permits, the process is not consolidated, so the data is really hard to report on uh and separate that applicant time and city time.

So that process improvement will help us do that for across the board for all the permits, but that is the goal.

That's amazing.

Now from improve from uh 72% to 82% again, amazing job.

What does the remaining 18% look like?

Are those missing by a few days or a few months?

Is it in different permitting type?

Can you tell us something about that 18%?

So part of the reason we target that 80% goal is to deal with what we would consider edge cases.

Um and those edge cases could be a result of us uh having a short-term resource challenge.

So it could be on the city side of things.

It could also be the complexity of the application combined with the application quality, leading to more time that the reviewers actually have to spend reviewing that.

Um, hopefully, with some of the improvements that we're making, like Dovstream is a good example.

We can help to improve that application quality so we can kind of minimize those type of things.

Um, happy to follow up with more specific data on the actual permit types themselves and provide that to you.

That would be great.

Uh my next question is uh the work uh the work plan uh plays a strong emphasize on uh consistency in code uh interpretation.

Uh are you going to document that?

Like what happened if uh one reviewer changed from a different reviewer, one reviewer retired, the other new new reviewer.

How are you going to bring that consistency on how we are interpreting the code?

One of the main ways is developing really good strong rigor around standard operating procedures so that we don't rely as much on institutional knowledge.

Um we've had really good SOPs or standard operating procedures in the past, but um maybe not to the level that we would like to see them.

So staff training, of course, is another thing that was really essential to that.

Thank you.

Now you have some uh AI questions, and I think uh the first one is where uh when we are moving with AI.

Uh so in the WorkAck plan you had AI moving, technology modernization moving, and as you just right now mentioned, we are updating our standard operating procedure at the same time.

Is there any sequencing?

Like, or is something should happen first, then we bring the AI automation, or how do you uh kind of look at that sequencing?

Great question.

I think the work plan lays out a balanced approach, and we did take into consideration kind of the change management associated with that, as well as where would we maybe need to do a process improvement first, like the consolidated review pilot before we maybe institute that more broadly across all of the permits.

So, really doing like small-scale pilot um and that sort of thing with the GovStream AI um uh initiative is it's really an iterative process.

So uh it's not a kind of one and done type of uh scenario.

So we're looking at both process changes as well as implementing the technology kind of simultaneously and trying to understand where the challenges and then where are the benefits and then how do we scale that over time?

So thank you.

Uh can you go to a slide 19?

I like that view a lot.

And then I think my uh last AI question is on that.

Uh so we we did permitting in quo inquiries and you have two uh permit guide and some chat assistant, then we are at the application completeness and document quality.

How long does it take to finish the whole process for you all as of right now?

Great question.

Um currently, right now in our partnership with GovStream, we've covered the permit inquiry bucket, application, and the plan review bucket.

We do have aspirations to think about how do these tools benefit our inspection staff as well in the future.

I would uh cast this as probably a two to three year transformation uh project.

We will be rolling out these tools, the application completeness tool, and then hopefully the plan review tool, maybe by the first part of the next year.

So it's going to be a very iterative process where we're rolling these out and then learning and adapting over time.

Very similar to the way we approach paperless permitting.

That particular initiative took 20 years from vision to actually realizing this is going to be much faster than that.

That's awesome.

Everything is fast these days.

If you uh again, I am talking about the quality that we do everything in the city of Bellevue.

If you wanted to keep that quality, doing it very well.

Uh, is there anything that you think you can do?

V as a council can do the city of staff can do that these two or three years become one and a half to, again, I don't want to put numbers, but become faster.

Yeah.

Certainly, we do need to balance uh quality as well as the community's capacity to handle change and also staff capacity to handle change.

I think what you see before you in the work plan is an optimized work plan that takes into consideration both speed, quality, and then just the change management associated with so many initiatives.

So we're moving at that optimal speed while also recognizing that we still need to have commitment to quality and uh the initiatives that we're moving forward.

The council has been very supportive in the past as we go through the budget process.

That's really the opportunity for kind of setting and providing us with the resources that we need.

So as we move into that process, we're working with the city manager, of course, and developing preliminary budget recommendations that would be back before you later this year.

That was a very politically correct answer, but you didn't answer.

Is so just think about it.

If I don't think uh I my whole point is this council would love to see our permitting become number one in the whole uh country.

So if there is anything that the council can do to expedite that again, I understand change management, I understand quality that we have in Bellevue, I understand the whole responsibility of that we have toward AI.

What's what do we see that we stop even using AI?

That could be something that you are considering.

So all of that considered, if we can do anything to help expedite that, please let us know.

Uh my last comment is something that I think both Councilman Newhouse and Bar Gabo mentioned.

I also want to see on this small uh business program.

Uh, we see some metrics that uh shows what are we doing after the lease is done, after our help is done, and see have we done the quality of work that we think we are doing?

Like, was that list good or bad after it's done?

After now the person is doing the lease.

Um is there was any permitting problem?

Is there any costly delays?

Like what are some of those those output metrics that shows that we are doing what we are intending to do?

So if we can have those, that would be great.

But again, overall, as I mentioned earlier, uh you guys make me proud whenever I go, wherever I go.

So thank you so much for everything you do.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Is uh 729, so we can come back 7:30 uh 74.

Great.

We are back, and we have our second study session.

City manager, would you please introduce a topic?

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council.

Uh, the tonight's study session is on the Great Neighborhoods program.

That is a link between our comprehensive plan and neighborhood planning.

And it allows the communities to engage in planning that helps shape their future.

Staff is here tonight to ask you to initiate the uh next two neighborhood planning efforts for 26 and 27.

Um, and with us tonight, we have Tara Johnson, our planning director, and Zachary Lukin, our senior planner from uh community uh development.

And I will hand it over to Tara.

Thank you, City Manager Carlson.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council members, um, community development staff are um very pleased to be here to present um and start discussion with you on our next iteration of the Great Neighborhoods program.

Community development staff are very pleased to be here to present and start discussion with you on our next iteration of the Great Neighborhoods Program.

So tonight, as uh City Manager Carlson mentioned, we're requesting council to consider providing direction for us to initiate comprehensive plan amendments to update the next two neighborhoods based on pre prior council direction.

So that's Nake Lake Hills and West Lake Sammish, as well as confirming future program iterations.

So tonight we'll start off, provide some background on the Great Neighborhoods program.

We'll also talk about the overall neighborhood planning process, which some of you are familiar with.

We'll talk about the proposed scope included as part of the plan update, and then our approach to community engagement, and then finally conclude with requesting council direction tonight.

So a little part, um, some additional context.

So Bellevue's comprehensive plan is really divided into two volumes.

It volume one, which covers citywide policies, really serves as our guiding document.

It provides guidance for both capital facilities as well as general policies about how the city grows and develops over a long-range timeline.

It also really reflects the community's values and also provides direction on how we plan for jobs, housing, and growth.

Volume two includes our neighborhood area plans.

And they're really intended to implement a lot of our policies that are and goals that are contained in volume one, but at a more local scale.

So with that, I'm going to turn things over to Zach.

He's going to walk through the majority of the presentation, and we're going to start off with talking about some of the program goals.

Thank you, Tara.

So the primary objective of the Great Neighborhoods program is to develop neighborhood area plans that are relevant, community-driven, and reflect both citywide and local priorities.

We conduct this planning process collaboratively, engaging residents in a meaningful way to ensure that their input shapes the outcomes.

Beyond updating plans, this program seeks to expand community capacity for leadership, fostering a sense of ownership that extends beyond the planning process.

By aligning these plans with the city's comprehensive plan, we ensure that they support broader citywide goals, as mentioned, like housing affordability, equitable growth, and enhanced public spaces.

And just a couple uh examples of how these plans had resulted in some real world outcomes and our informing future projects is that they are informing our current parks and open space plan through our engagement through the Eastgate and Factoria process that we're conducting right now.

And this is also supplementing some of that more citywide engagement that the parks department has been doing by getting these local insights through concept maps and policy.

And then the neighborhood area plans also help Bellevue meet requirements for county wide center designations.

Um strengthening the city's eligibility for regional transportation funding that supports future infrastructure investments.

So as you know, Bellevue is made up of 16 neighborhood areas, each containing several smaller communities, creating a diverse and dynamic uh city fabric.

In 2018, council initiated the Great Neighborhoods program to enhance these areas through updated neighborhood plans and strong neighborhoods are really the foundation of Bellevue's quality of life.

They play a crucial role in building an engaged community and social capital.

Since the program's inception, we have completed neighborhood plans for Northeast and Northwest Bellevue, Newport and Crossroads, and again, we look forward to bringing the draft Eastgate and Factorian neighborhood area plans to council this fall for review.

So these plans will build on past successes and address new challenges identified through extensive community engagement.

Through the previous plan iterations, staff have learned that community really wants more substantive outcomes in the neighborhood planning process, and we'll continue to implement some of these improvements relating to urban design through new mapping and visualization tools through community engagement and enhanced collaboration with community groups and through the plan development process in closer coordination with subject matter experts from across the city.

And the neighborhood area planning process is divided into four phases.

Discover, define, refine, and adopt.

In the discover phase, the team will establish the foundation for the planning process by engaging communities to identify neighborhood area values, priorities, opportunities, and challenges while validating our understanding of existing conditions there.

We will provide accessible engagement opportunities through interactive project kickoff, presentations to neighborhood groups, and participation at community events to build awareness and encourage broad participation early in the process.

Then, during our define phase, we will engage communities to identify and affirm the key policy and visioning elements that should be included in the draft plan.

In the refined phase, we will have those complete draft plans for community and board and commissions review to provide feedback on.

And then staff will incorporate this feedback into the final plans, which will return to planning commission once more for review before advancing to council for consideration and action during the adopt phase in the fall.

So the scope of neighborhood area plans touch among touch upon three major areas.

The first is the full update to the neighborhood area plan and any remaining portions of former sub-area plans to be consistent and supplement the citywide policies in volume one of the comprehensive plan around topics such as land use, transportation, parks, climate, and the environment.

The second is urban design, which focuses on shaping the physical environment of the community.

And in the context of neighborhood area planning, this means identifying strategies to improve the design, function, and experience of public spaces so that they are welcoming, safe, and accessible, and really reflect the needs and character of the community.

And then the third is land use.

And this sets the direction for future growth as reflected by the comprehensive plan's future land use map, whose designations broadly describe the buildings and uses that are envisioned for each type of land use.

And the neighborhood area plans themselves are organized into subsections that provide updated policy on enhancing different neighborhood assets.

Each subsection includes the overarching goal and related policies that align with the overall vision statement for the neighborhood.

The first of these sections is neighborhood identity.

This works to preserve and strengthen the unique character, culture, and history that defines each neighborhood.

Then we have mixed use and neighborhood centers.

This works to create vibrant, accessible destinations that provide housing, jobs, services, and community amenities.

Community gathering spaces works to expand opportunities for people to connect by enhancing and creating welcoming indoor and outdoor gathering spaces.

Then mobility and access works to improve safe, convenient, and connected travel options for people of all ages and abilities.

And lastly, environment works to protect and enhance natural resources and open spaces that support healthy communities and Bellevue's city and a park identity.

Then we have urban design, and again, this is about shaping neighborhoods so they are welcoming, connected, and enjoyable places to live.

The neighborhood area plan will use community input to identify opportunities to improve public spaces, strengthen neighborhood identity, and guide future investments.

Community members will help shape these ideas through interactive workshops so they can share their priorities, explore design concepts, and envision the future of the neighborhood.

These are also helpful as they inform the city's functional plans, as I had mentioned.

And together we will work to develop two different types of concept maps.

An example is here shown in the screen from Newport.

The first of these is the gathering spaces map.

This works to identify opportunities for parks, plazas, community hubs, and other welcoming places where people can meet, relax, and build community.

And then the second is neighborhood connectivity, which is kind of our transportation element.

And this works to identify opportunities to improve connections through the neighborhood so that people can more easily and safely reach those everyday destinations.

Then again, we have our land use element, which also plan for that future growth through evaluating and update, updating land use designations to reflect community conditions, community needs, and Bellevue's broader growth goals.

And this also works to really enhance neighborhood vitality by considering land use changes that help create and strengthen third places where people can gather, connect, and build community.

And throughout our process, inclusive and equitable engagement is really at the heart of everything we do, ensuring that all community members, especially historically underrepresented groups, have meaningful opportunities to share their experiences, priorities, and ideas.

And we do this by meeting people where they're at, using a range of outreach strategies, including community partnerships, events, surveys, and online tools to build relationships and gather input that reflects the true diversity of each neighborhood.

So as we look ahead to planning for Lake Hills and Westlake Sammish, we recognize that these are very distinct communities with unique needs, opportunities, and challenges.

We've already done some really informative early engagement and relationship building, which has taught us a lot about these areas.

To start, Lake Hills is one of the is actually Bellevue's largest neighborhood area by population and has our largest percent of Spanish speaking residents.

It's known for its thriving neighborhood centers and third places, such as Lake Hills Village, shown on the slide here, has a strong neighborhood identity with diverse and engaged residents and community organizations, and has exceptional parks and schools.

At the same time, we've heard that there's challenges experienced there around pedestrian safety and flooding.

And you know, we really want to be aware of this and include this in our dialogue with community moving forward.

When we look at Westlake Sammish, this is predominantly a single family neighborhood and has a high percentage of residents to 65 plus.

It's known for its welcoming and connected community, a scenic residential character, uh, in really wonderful parks and access to nature and especially the shoreline.

Again, we've heard there's some challenges already around traffic and pedestrian connectivity, and we're excited to bring the great neighborhoods program to these communities to work together to shape a future that is more livable, connected, and resilient for those who live, work, play, and go to school there.

And as we begin our process for Lake Hills and Westlake Sammish, we do want to look ahead to our future iterations.

We want to start by affirming the direction council provided last year to conduct updates in Woodridge and West Bellevue in 2027 and 28.

And we are now seeking council direction to proceed with bridal trails in 2028-29.

And as a note here, we're recommending updating only one neighborhood area plan that year to ensure that staff has capacity to conduct work necessary to comply with recent state and regional planning mandates.

And I'll hand it back over to Tara.

With that, um, that concludes our presentation.

We're requesting direction uh that council consider uh directing staff to initiate work on comprehensive plan amendments to update Lake Hills and Westlake Sammamish neighborhood area plans and also confirm our proposed future program iterations.

Thank you, both Tara and Zachary.

Uh Councilmember Barga, but we'll start with you.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Uh so let me just first start by appreciating the work that uh community development does.

Uh, you know, uh one of my favorite sayings is you know, planning is a triumph of logic and engagement over dumb luck, and you make that happen.

So uh, you know, it's it's really tremendous.

Uh I also really am excited for uh Lake Hills and West Lake Sammamish's neighborhoods to go through this process and uh all of the great outcomes this will drive for those neighborhoods in the future and the opportunities and alignment with the comprehensive plan.

So uh just gratitude to you and the the full team and also uh the Great Wealth the Planning Commission continues to do in partnership uh with that, so shout out for them as well.

Um I only have one question really.

Um, based on all of the work that's been done for other neighborhood plans that we've built, uh, and what you're going to do here, already planned in terms of engagement as you laid out.

How will we make sure that the inputs we get for this planning process go beyond the usual uh engaged set of residents and and community members, but are truly reaching a much broader swath of people to collect that input and create that engagement.

What are the mechanisms, tools, and processes you plan to put in place and what are learnings from past experiences?

Yeah, I think we touched on a couple of these.

Uh, those aspects as part of our presentation.

Um, we've certainly there have been some really good lessons learned.

Our first two neighborhoods were done during the COVID era, so a lot of virtual meetings, and we've really expanded our approach.

I'll let Zach go into more details on some of the specifics of our real um various forms of engagement.

Uh we also have a cultural outreach assistance, and that's been really successful with really reaching those diverse communities and um, I'd say folks that don't typically participate.

Um, those are some of our ongoing, ongoing strategies.

Um, we've seen a lot more participation.

We do uh both virtual or rather online surveys as well as uh workshops, um, our urban design workshops are really exciting uh with Eastgate and Factoria.

We've actually did a number of smaller workshops and focus groups and went to different parts of East Gina and Factoria and found those really successful.

We also did business walks, and we'll talk more about that when we bring those neighborhood plans back.

Um, Zach, was there anything more you wanted to add on there?

Yeah, so I mean I think our our human services and housing folks, you know, are really uh a great way to get in tap with these communities.

Um we've already had a couple really good uh early conversations, talked about partnerships, doing presentations and workshops at these places, um, potentially a partnership with youth east side services.

They do a lot of really good work for in-need youth and families, specifically our Spanish-speaking population.

Uh, similarly, Jubilee Reach, another fantastic organization providing critical resources.

We might be having an event there, um, definitely ongoing partnerships and really getting the word out, making sure that we're doing things in language in a relevant way that it is appropriate.

Uh we have hope link.

We've had an early conversation with them.

And then I'm gonna be in um Samamish High School.

I'm gonna be in big picture school doing planning workshops, doing stuff in language, um, really making sure that we're trying to hit the full swath of folks there, in addition, of course, to our important neighborhood associations and the big players.

We want to make sure that all those other folks are really in on the ground floor as we build out the engagement plan.

It's not an afterthought, it's not something we learned about halfway through, it's an integral foundational element of this process.

And I'll just touch on I believe staff were at the Lake Hills picnic recently, and so we've really already started engaging with the neighborhood associations and really connecting with the community.

Yeah, no, I really appreciate that uh that being in the picnic was actually a great, great uh idea, and so a lot of engagement as well there.

So I appreciate that.

And I think I'd made some notes on ideas to shared with you, but you are ahead of the game as students and uh the idea of using community partners and organizations that actually book within the community, seems like you, Zachy was sort of laid out.

So I haven't no better suggestions, but I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you, Councilman Borgelbo.

Councilwoman Yuanos.

Thank you, Mayor.

As a proud Lake Hills resident, glad we could weigh in on this uh this evening.

Um, you know, this is uh an opportunity, I think um, always to enhance um existing neighborhoods um and maintain um the unique characteristics of each each neighborhood, and it's such a um a great opportunity to um to engage with the residents, hear directly from them because I I think this goes you know beyond just um what we take in in terms of comprehensive plan amendments, etc.

It's really the kind of get in the weeds in terms of what's happening in in every neighborhood.

Um and speaking of that, I wanted to um mention uh something that uh Steve uh brought up earlier during oral communications.

It would be great if the Lake Hills Neighbor Association could play some kind of role as we move this out to identify and invite potential neighborhood leaders that would like to be a part of the neighborhood association.

This is not unique to Lake Hills neighborhood.

Every neighborhood association at some point is gonna have turnover, right?

Um so to help the neighborhood associates become stronger by identifying people who would like to that might be engaged with this, but hey, let's you know, let them know that they can stay engaged.

There's other ways to do that through a neighborhood association.

So if there's a way to do that, um I think that would uh that would be fantastic.

Um I'm gonna go to a question about you mentioned about the capacity.

Um and uh I'd like to understand that just a little bit more in terms of we've been we've been in this um kind of the sequence of two neighborhoods a year, and now um, as I saw in the memo, and you mentioned the PowerPoint as well.

We're just gonna go to one due to um well, that's what I want to know more about because it it does feel a little um maybe not as equitable as it as it could be that we've been going through two neighborhoods and now bridal, it's just gonna be bridal trails.

Um not saying there would be, but there could be some you know apprehension about bridal trails getting you know uh all of staff's time and attention on their neighborhood, but we had to share that attention when it came to uh uh to to Lake Hills and what and Westlake Samama shows.

So can you just dive into that a little bit and share what it is that's driving that, what the what the issues with staff or capacity is and how we can address that.

Um and and is there still an ability to change the uh maybe uh you know, just bridal trails.

Is that just a suggestion or is there still an opportunity to adjust to ensure two neighborhoods next year as well?

Um actually let me go back to that slide so we can talk talk through that a little bit.

So for 2029 staff's uh recommendation was bridal trails, and one of the reasons is we have the TOD legislation, so 1491.

And that was with just staff is start just starting to scope uh what that entails with development services, um, as there'll be comp plan potentially comp plan amendments, um, definitely code amendments, and so a number of us sub-areas could potentially be uh amended as part of that 1491 effort.

So it'll be bridal trails, but there'll be a lot of other amendments uh citywide that are also happening just to just to respond to 1491.

Just to respond to 14, okay.

Okay.

Um but certainly um, you know, defer to council if council wants to provide direction for us to well it could be just a follow-up in terms of uh the the staff requirements, which staff would be for as it relates to 14 uh was it 9191, that's the TOD.

Yeah.

Um, to have just a greater understanding of that, I think, uh and you can follow up on that would be what would be great, but I'd love to say in that cadence too, um, in terms of dev too each each time um versus it's just gonna take us longer to get through all of the neighborhoods, right?

Uh in the city.

So um so you know, every neighborhood, as I said, is unique with unique characteristics.

But given that neighborhood plans, right, cannot conflict with citywide policy or our growth strategy, for example.

What boundaries or maybe expectations um are you kind of uh I guess making folks aware of when shaping this plan in this direction and the type of feedback that we are looking for or you will be looking for?

Zach, do you want to answer that?

Sure.

Um I mean, the focus of these plans are really neighborhood identity public spaces, things that the city has control over, um, or that we can use partnerships that we can build and leverage uh to influence.

Um so certainly we don't look at things around pirate property.

There's certainly a lot of other going programs, some of our functional plans that already, you know, have influence or control to kind of more of those niche topic areas, and we don't want to provide you know direction that would conflict with that or have really entertained conversations that are going to you know lend themselves kind of going in the rabbit hole of of things that just are kind of not within scope.

So I think just really outlining up front what it is that we can and can't do.

I think you know, giving a nod, it's helpful to provide examples of things that we've done in the past.

Um but I mean I I think that's it's always a really tough conversation because we hear from people early on.

We have some open-ended, you know, questions, especially in our visioning process, and people are gonna say a lot of different things.

Um but I think the other thing is that we're able to, because we're you know, I'll have a one-city approach here in the City of Bellevue, really pass along some of the input that we get, things that are out of our control or out of our scope uh to other departments, um, other working groups, other partners within the city who do have you know work programs that can truly align with and address various challenges that we hear.

Well, I think it's also just an opportunity, right, to educate and and and to help people understand um you know the the how we you know develop policy at at the city level, why certain decisions were made um or why they weren't um you know, I'd be prepared to answer middle housing type questions as well as you're uh doing all all your all your engagement.

Um but that's a but that's a good thing.

So um so the memo mentioned a successful community-led uh urban design pilot in Eastgate.

Can you go into some depth on that a little bit in terms of how that model might be able to be replicated or or or or scaled in some way?

Are you speaking into the one with the Eastgate Community Association led the event?

Yeah, yeah.

Um so you know, we have an urban design consultant that comes in and we have a larger citywide workshop that they help facilitate.

Um, but we've been trying to build on some of these experiences to do what we call like a workshop in a box.

How can we work with our neighborhood leaders who know we build these relationships throughout the the planning process and give them something they can hand on and take ownership of it so that they can you know inform their own groups, do it on their own time in a way that is accessible and familiar to the groups that they work with.

Um so we had a really good example last year in Eastgate.

Um and as I was scoping our urban design contract that we've renewed this year, we've really uh built up that workshop in a box idea.

So not only do we have that, but we have a train the trainer.

So our urban design consultant within scope is gonna be able to offer up to three workshops with community organizations to train one of their neighborhood leaders to then do a self-guided event, um, as well as just building on our own, you know, internal expertise, uh institutional knowledge on how to how to work these things over time.

Um so I think we want to see more of that.

We've scoped more of that, and just through some of the partnerships we've already talked about, engaged community groups.

I think we've got a real opportunity to build on the successes.

That's great.

I really appreciate all the community groups that we've already met with and uh engaged with and we'll be working with as you move forward.

Uh one of my questions um as well as Councilmember Bargava was just about you know how you know we're where we're going to reach out to some of those underserved communities and others that we don't hear hear from as as much.

And you know, Lake Hills is probably um at least last time I checked, it was the most diverse neighborhood in all the city of Bellevue.

So we want to make sure that all voices are are equally heard and we and we want uh hear everything they have to share.

Um last question, and um it kind of goes to the to the previous um study session as well, is the metrics that we're going to be tracking to know that we're successful in this endeavor.

You know, talk to me a little bit more about what that fee feedback loop will look like in terms of did we get it right?

I know when we've done some of these in the past, um uh the the final product didn't quite meet um not that we can please everybody, of course, but it did not meet what um uh residents felt that they were contributing um or their um their vision for for for their neighborhood.

So what is that feedback look like?

What is success look like that you know, for the most part that we have gotten this right, that we have heard from the residents of this neighborhood, this is what they want to see.

Um and and and we've properly kind of documented that.

How how how how are we gonna know?

Um so we do um there are multiple ways we've been doing that.

I think with our first iteration, um, as I mentioned before, that was during the COVID um COVID timeline, and a lot of our events were virtual.

The schedule was a little compressed too because we were transitioning.

And um, so we really learned from that experience to provide additional opportunity in terms of timeline to go back to the community once we've developed the policies and then ask them for that feedback.

And then we have uh several discussions and dialogue with the planning commission as well, where we go through a pretty detailed um kind of matrix, if you if you must, um, that documents what we heard from the community, and then even our workshops were kind of asking for feedback on specific policy areas, and then that goes back to the planning commission, and then we document how we've addressed the the comments specifically in terms of policy direction, and then quite often we get additional feedback from the planning commission to to make further changes.

So all of that gets documented pretty uh consistently through through the process.

And everybody we've also tracked um or able to follow back up with those that have provided feedback to us, uh, and then we reach out to them hey, here's initial plan, or it's going to the planning commission.

We want you to okay, okay, good.

You do a number of emails and um social media posts and different ways of communication.

Great, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember New Enhouse.

Councilmember Briar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, to Councilmember Bargova's point about making sure that we're engaging uh a good portion of our community, considering we have roughly a thousand, a hundred thousand fifty residents.

Um I I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, and I am likely, but I'd love to leverage uh social media here uh across the city.

Um just because I had in my personal capacity written some thoughts that I had about non-business city related items and folks had reached out that were in my neighborhood.

And so I think you had mentioned that uh bringing in the neighborhood associations to really engage with the community is fantastic.

I personally had the pleasure of helping uh Lake Hills rebuild their website because Steve showed up to my front door and said, fix this website, and I said, Yes, sir, because I'm dedicated to serving.

Um, but the uh you know uh jokes aside, um uh oral comms today had provided an example of some of these neighborhood associations seeking to gather more community involvement.

So if we're relying on partners that are also simultaneously seeking new engagement, I think we have to uh uh develop a much more not develop a much more but be a little bit more systemic in our reach, I guess, or more broad in our reach, rather.

So that's just one point that I wanted to bring up uh from there as well.

And then besides uh community sentiment, which is very critical, what are the other inputs that are helping inform the design strategies, or is that the sole contention?

Um Zach uh Zach touched on it with our urban design concepts.

So we have an urban design consultant that we bring on.

Um so gathering spaces are a big component of public uh third third spaces are a big component, um, the concept maps that we presented.

So that's a very tangible product off the great neighborhoods program and something fairly new that we've done with this with all these updates.

Have we worked with this consultant before?

Yes.

Okay, and the pillars or values that are driving this consultant and what they develop is what was mentioned mentioned in the slides as well, right?

The open spaces Thursday.

Okay.

Uh okay, that sounds great.

Thank you so much.

And thank you again for your work.

Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Break.

Councilmember Smother.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

I was gonna ask the engagement question, just like Malie, but thank you for answering it, because we know that they have the highest spent speaking, as you mentioned.

So I really love the way that you're going out to the community, to the schools, and also to Jubilee Reach out the community partners.

One question I had there's a mention about the racial equity toolkit.

Um then, but it hasn't it's in the process, right?

Can you tell me more about it?

Absolutely.

Do you want to go into detail?

Yeah.

Um so the racial equity toolkit is an internal tool we use.

Um, and we do that really right from the outset as we are scoping and chartering um uh the process for each of the neighborhoods, and that's a really tool that helps us document who are all the various stakeholder groups, you know, who do we know, who do we not know about like when we know who we have to hear from we haven't heard from before, that analysis uh helps inform that, which directly translates into the development of our community engagement strategy as well as our our calm strategy, you know, not just the the materials, but how we get in touch with people.

Um something that I've been trying to you know work on as I've refined this over the last couple of years because I did the racial equity toolkit for Eastgate and Factoria, um, is that there's a lot of equity considerations just outside of racial equity.

We have socioeconomic considerations, we have environmental considerations.

Um trying to create a more holistic view of what equity is, how that impacts different people, um, different different you know, ways of life throughout the city, and then trying to tailor different engagement approaches, different partnerships so that we can kind of touch each one of those distinct, unique pieces and perspective.

Um, and this is a living document.

After like partway through each phase, we reflect.

Did we hit our mark?

Is there anybody we're missing at the end of that each phase?

We have an official reflection where we meet with our team and kind of internally, like what worked, what didn't work, and then the end we have you know a larger reflection, be like, okay, moving into you know our next iteration of great neighborhoods, what are those lessons learned?

You know, is there anyone that we still haven't heard from, or what are other some opportunities that we can leverage uh other in initiatives throughout the city who did have success reaching those people?

Um, because we want to make sure that you know we're gonna do our best to do it this time, check back midway through, try to, you know, attenuate, amend, do better, and then at the end, you know, really take a hard look and say, okay, there's always an opportunity to improve and what does that look like?

That's really helpful because I think like when you thinking like even you know, council members we are saying, different age group, right?

Different things could be different ways to targeting to reach the audience.

Um, so I think is there any room when this tool is created that we can use that to engage the like the neighborhood, um neighborhood and neighbors, and then has actually having them into that same conversation, talk about like okay, we see these um data points.

Uh maybe these are the family that we are not able to reach out and find like reach, and then is there a way that you can connect us?

Is there any room for that?

Yeah, I would say so.

In our kickoff meetings, we have like a neighborhood kind of identity data board where we have some of that really key demographic information, just so that even if you live in the neighborhood, you might not be fully aware of the types of demographics or the challenges or lived experiences of people who live there.

And I think that also really comes to play when we develop the neighborhood vision statement and that supporting narrative, because that's where we can get into that fine-grained detail of like, okay, there's there's different experiences, different people living all within the same geographical area, but we really want to kind of suss that out throughout our process, and it's it's a two-way street.

We're being educated by the community, but we're also educating them at the same time.

I love that.

Um, I have two questions, but I emailed um, and then you so you can answer me later.

So, one last question is kind of looping this together about the format of the survey.

Um, as we know, Bellevue is the most, I mean, to my heart, I think it's the safest city, right?

And then so public safety, any safety in general is very important.

Um, so I'm looking at the Eastgate and Factoria, you know, safety is always the first value in those neighborhoods, and I believe that's the same for every neighborhood.

Um the survey of those two neighborhoods, I didn't see you know the the list of the questions safety was listed in there, it was um other.

And I think that goes to other aspects.

I'm just wondering for is there gonna be a room for that category?

Um, I mean, to clarify, I think if a parent they don't feel safe, their kid always are crossing the street, or they might need extra lighting, a sizeing and things like that make them feel safe.

Like what area would that lend on the survey in this uh new neighborhoods?

Um I mean, in a number of places, and it was interesting because we had you know, um learned about there was a growing public safety need throughout kind of part way into our last process.

Um, and we engage with a lot of conversations with various stakeholders who had a part in that.

Um, again, engaging with other city departments who are really taking the lead on some of the public safety things.

Um I've already been working to implement some improvements within that very survey really early on.

I think part of it is you know, what is what is your neighborhood known for?

What do you want it to be known for?

So kind of those what is now what are those aspirational things.

I think safety is a big piece of that.

Again, understanding it's a lens through which we do all of our planning.

So for instance, there's the kind of transportation related question.

I've added things around crosswalks, um, lighting, uh, lighting is a big one of those things.

So just understand, you know, within our scope.

Again, understanding that is limited, what do we have control over to create a more inviting, safer, you know, pedestrian realm for people, public spaces, you know, people they want to gather and build that community.

Um, so I think it's both in policies and urban design, but just kind of improving some of the questions and the framing in those early conversations will get us a long way.

Thank you.

Because I I I do I agree with you, and I think that um everybody's definition safe.

Safety could be very different, even the different culture could be different, right?

So, one culture could be I feel safe when I can talk to my police officer or my firefighter directly.

To other culture, it could be completely different.

So I would advocate to be um, I guess culturally sensitive about um more inclusive about their needs and how do they define safety because sometimes it's not only the physical things that matters, it's the I think the mental and other elements too.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Uh Councilmember Robinson.

Thank you.

I appreciate hearing my colleagues' comments, and um I really love this great neighborhoods program.

I just think it's such an amazing opportunity for the community.

So I support what you've laid out here.

Um I do like the idea of emphasizing the public safety conversations.

I think that's really important.

Um I also wonder when we talk about mobility, it doesn't look to me look like we're it it looks like you're describing public spaces and connectivity, but I I would really like a more emphasis on uh travel.

So multimodal travels, love to hear what sidewalks are problematic or or um what bike lanes, and just kind of understand the pain points for mobility in those neighborhoods.

So I hope there's a space for that for people to discuss that.

Absolutely.

Um I think we presented as one of the concept maps, but we have another that really goes into that.

I figured you did.

Okay.

So the only thing I wanted to ask is, you know, outside of this program, are we have neighborhoods who right now are trying to navigate the missing middle housing house bill is 1110, and there's not really a forum for them to talk to the city what's possible, what's not possible, and that helping that neighborhoods navigate through these changes.

So I wonder um how you think we can be having those conversations outside of this neighborhoods program because people shouldn't have to wait until their neighborhood comes up in the queue.

That's certainly something we can uh talk with development services about and and bring back to council perhaps when we uh come back with the East Gate Ad Factoria.

Just or provide a response to you in via email.

Yeah, I'd like your response before then.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation.

I'm a big fan of the Great Neighborhoods program, uh, updating the comp plan in neighborhoods around the city to better reflect current citywide and neighborhood priorities and address issues of opportunities, I think is a big boost for the city.

Uh, the objectives and scope of the great neighborhoods program are well defined and ensure that we achieve impactful outcomes.

I think our focus on social connectivity and our neighborhood's core needs is especially important.

Uh the work program and specifically the engagement plan are very solid.

I really like the focus on managing.

I know it's turned off.

Managing my device.

Um managing the equitable and informed dialogue about the community's vision at the neighborhood level.

And I'm very excited to see the program come to Lake Hills in Westlakes Mammish next year.

I hope you'll keep us posted on ways that we can engage in that process.

Um, and uh certainly appreciate Councilmember Newnhouse's comments earlier.

Um, and so I'll be curious to know uh how we do move forward in 28-29.

But as of now, I think the staff recommendation to limit to the great neighborhoods program to bridal trails uh for the reasons mentioned in the uh agenda memo makes sense.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

I think managing my device is uh sentence of the night.

Yeah.

Uh again, thank you so much, Zachary uh Tara.

I saw Dr.

Nessie on the back and Emil King and everyone else in the community development team.

I just have a vischleist, and I think I mentioned that yesterday also if there would be a dashboard, yeah, we love dashboards from great neighborhood programs to track all of this.

And I think everyone kind of maybe say some of that.

What we've heard from residents.

What are the some of the tangible outcomes programs, project delivered directly because of this program and engagement?

Otherwise, we wouldn't hear them, we wouldn't do them, we wouldn't do anything.

And then there are, I'm sure there are going to be some of them that we need to put in the transportation budget and transportation department and like all of those transparency.

I think would be great if we can show all of that neighborhood by neighborhood and track them, and that's would be my wish list.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you all.

Uh can I get a motion?

I move to direct staff to initiate work on a comprehensive plan amendment to update the lake kills and Westlakes Manish neighborhood area plans in 2026, 2027, and provide direction on the recommendation for bridal trails neighborhood area planning to occur in 28 and 29, consistent with Bellevue Land Use Code Section 20 dot 301.b.3.

It's been moved by deputy mayor Hamilton and seconded by councilmember New Enhouse.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Thank you so much.

We go to our other ordinance.

And there are a bunch of them, city manager.

There are, mayor.

They are all located, however, in one package.

So what you have before you is work that was initiated by the council earlier this year.

Um and that work contained technical amendments and corrections and clarifications to the city's land use code.

It's aptly named the omnibus land use code amendment.

Um it also includes some amendments uh to the Bellevue City Code.

Um this covers a variety of um topics and issues and codes.

Um and tonight you have that package all wrapped up in five ordinances.

Nick will go through those, uh review them, and then seek your um direction and uh approval tonight on those.

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

Great, thank you, and good evening again.

Um, so as mentioned, we are here tonight um seeking action from council on the 2026 omnibus code amendments.

Um it's a number of uh ordinances as noted, five in total.

Um, also want to share um this is one of those examples of the feedback loop.

So um we use this as an opportunity where we're evaluating how implementation is going, where might there be rubs or areas that we didn't quite hit the mark with policy, and then this is how we would then incorporate some of those changes.

The omnibus code amendments uh are small enough where they don't necessarily warrant their own standalone process.

So this is a really efficient way for us to address some of the challenges that really impact multiple areas of our code.

Um we have organized the ordinances though by subject area.

Um so uh with that we have five ordinances that we'll um ask for you to take action on um separately for our agenda.

Um we'll recap what the omnibus 2026 project is, the scope, our outreach approach for this and timeline, and then we'll be turning it back to you all for action.

Uh, first, as a refresher of what's in this omnibus package, there's really kind of three categories of changes that we're bringing forward here.

Um, our first is cleanup.

Uh, this is about 30% of the changes we would say in the package are under this category of cleanup.

Um, state laws where we're seeing most of the changes.

These are items where the legislature passed a number of bills over the 2024, 2025, and even the 2026 session that are pretty minor in nature, and we're just looking to obtain uh minimum compliance with those.

So there's a big uh portion of this package that is trying to provide direct compliance with state law.

And then there were was a small category that did require some policy consideration.

I would say this is where the planning commission spent most of their time, and then you heard from the chair at that June 9th meeting some of the uh uh considerations that they worked through as part of that review.

First with the cleanup, these are generally uh scriveners errors, clarifications, some formatting issues, um pretty simple, straightforward items for us to address.

Pretty simple, straightforward items for us to address.

State law compliance.

Wanted to just highlight this is a repeat slide from June 9th, but these are the different bills that we are aiming to comply with as part of this omnibus package.

So they really range from simple things like how what type of building cladding is the state telling us we can allow versus not allow, and where do we need to allow for child care uses and clarifications on ways that you can subdivide land both through the unit lot subdivision process, lot splitting.

There's also one on binding site plans.

We also have some areas around streamlining.

These were amendments that were specific to our process requirements.

And then there were items that were trying to support retrofits of existing buildings by allowing a little more flexibility in the building envelope when they're trying to repurpose those buildings.

Then we moved to the category of small policy scope amendments.

So these were amendments that didn't require, or that do require rather some minor policy direction to make sure that we're aligning with what council had established as that initial policy direction.

So we went through this list at the June 9th meeting, but the ordinances do include these provisions.

One of them is the single family exclusion from high density areas.

We have a huge portion of the city where we do allow single family development to happen.

This is looking at our high density multifamily areas where we really would like to see denser development happen.

Those are closer to transit, they're near our growth centers, so that's where we'd want to see that development.

There was also some tree code adjustments.

There was a major overhaul of our tree code in 2024.

We've had about a year and a half of implementation experience with the tree code now.

The tree code rewrite, it was really bringing about a significant change to how we are requiring properties to contribute to our canopy.

We moved away from a strictly retention-based approach to a tree credit system.

And with that tree credit system, it was really aimed at trying to provide more flexibility for how folks are going to be able to achieve the canopy that the city is targeting.

At the time that it was adopted, it was understood that this was a substantial change and refinements were likely going to be needed as we gained experience implementing the new codes.

So one of the changes that was really central to the planning commission discussion and that we've heard some public comment around was the change for the SR1 district, that's the suburban residential one district.

That was one of those areas that stood out as having some frequent challenges in accommodating the required credits relative to other land use districts.

So this was not a case of projects simply not wanting to provide tree canopy.

So in recommending the change, the planning commission took a look at the groupings and made the determination that we have better evidence now that we're working with, and it would make sense to group the SR1 district with the other suburban residential districts.

So take it away from the large lot districts.

Since SR1, as a reminder, is a 13,500 square foot lot.

Our large lot districts are looking at 20,000 to 35,000 square feet.

So changing the requirements based on their more comparable in size to these other SR districts.

We developed a new chapter for binding site plans as well as our departure processes.

So this required a lot of polling amendments from different overlay districts and consolidating to a single chapter, which really helps both the planners reviewing that as well as the public.

We compile a list, we keep that list pretty updated, and we look forward to these omnibus code changes so that we can start to address the issues that are known.

We took that list, shared it with the public to elicit any other feedback from these groups, and then presented those recommendations to the planning commission and then to you all.

So it was primarily an information only type of uh outreach approach since a lot of this was not really getting into policy shifts or changes.

As a reminder of our timeline, council did initiate this back in February.

Um that kicked off our formal outreach process and co-drafting phase.

The planning commission did review this over uh two meetings and a hearing, and then uh offered their recommendation to you all on June 9th, at which point you directed us to come back for final action, which brings us to tonight.

And so, Mayor, um, we have five ordinances.

We'll turn it back to you.

Uh thank you.

Uh before I go around, uh, just wanted to say as a council, we often receive compliments when because of the success and achievements of our city.

Uh, but the truth is the main contributor to the success is our staff.

And Neek, you are a prime example of that.

Not only just your ability to make very, very hard topics that development services department deals with and making it very easy and digestible to for us to understand.

What is your attitude and the way that you uh calmly with professionalism answer all of the comments that we hear from public, all of the hard questions?

Uh you constantly go above and beyond of your job description, in my opinion, to drive the community engagement and bringing clarity to some of the most challenging topics that your department is handling.

So just want to say thank you.

On that note, Councilmember Bargawa, we'll start with you again.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Um, I would say first thing plus one to the mayor's comments, and I would extend that to the larger team.

I think it's really remarkable and strong team and does a very, very good job.

And I've seen that in difficult planning commission meetings with a lot of feedback coming from many different directions to react in in real time and sometimes react with a lot of poise and consideration.

So definitely a plus one to that.

Um overall, uh, let me just start by saying that I'm really supportive of this LUCA and the components of the LUCA.

I think they're thoughtful.

I think they're uh needed.

And um, you know, going back to the conversation we had with the development services team, uh one of the core components, and I think this question came up on on uh on on the dais today, as well as what are we going to do to really go to the inputs that are going to drive this improvement in productivity and clarity in code is really fundamental to us making any of those changes.

I don't remember which of our which of my peers asked this question, but it was about making sure that you know we're measuring the inputs.

I can I was going to try to say it exactly how to set, but I don't remember the exact words now.

But uh so that I think is is really really important.

I would be remiss not to thank the members of the planning commission and the work that they do.

Um they're very, very rigorous and very thoughtful in bringing these together.

Uh the tree code uh changes is a really good example where the amount of debate and thought that went into putting that together.

Uh you know, standing so far away from this can seem trivial, but it was not.

There was a lot of community input and a lot of thought put into this process.

So I am very supportive of these recommendations.

I also think the the retention to a tree credit-based approach and the recategorization of SR1 is a really good move in the right direction.

It's a simplification and a reclassification that's appropriate for that.

Um the one thing uh I would ask you maybe to illustrate illustrative question, really, is to explain the rationale behind the fee and loot change for East Maine.

Why?

Yeah, so the fee and loot change was an item um that was uh brought forward by stakeholders as part of the planning commission review process.

Um, public comment.

Uh, there was a project in particular that's moved through their entitlement process.

And um, as we all know, um we've gotten feedback uh that this is a really challenging market in East Maine.

Um, the council policy decision in 2021 was to require on-site performance for affordable housing.

And uh what we have learned um from some of the development community uh is that that's it really poses some feasibility challenges in this current market.

And absent um other changes to perhaps MFTE or other ways to support on-site performance, which was not put in place in 2021.

Um, this was the solution that they had offered forward.

We have a fee and loo option that's available for commercial development for the sake of simplicity.

They had asked um that that same fee rate apply to residential.

Um that fee amount is higher than what we would have charged elsewhere.

For example, downtown, um, the fee is not um as high as what these main fee will be.

Um so that was the the rationale um was really to support kind of in interim this project.

I would also um just flag as Tara mentioned in the previous um presentation, we're looking ahead at the TOD bill implementation, House Bill 1491.

Um we will likely need to revisit East Maine in just a year and a half to two years.

And so that would be an opportunity to evaluate what's a more effective approach if the council feels there might be some disagreement there on supporting affordable housing once we get to that point.

Yeah, I'd really appreciate the context for the for everyone.

But the heart of my question is still the the issue of the trade-off on making affordable affordability outcomes happen versus a fee and loo and how we would think about this going forward and measure those outcomes and you know what is our chance to to make sure we're doing this right?

The second consideration for me on that is equity across different parts of the city in terms of the landowners and development opportunities, those would be the two lenses with which I would suggest we think about this, at least from my perspective.

And if you have any guidance on how you're thinking about the trade-offs, I think that would be helpful too.

That's really it.

But we'd appreciate if you have a response to the trade-offs, but it's definitely something in the back of my mind to keep in consideration.

Yeah, and uh happy to give that some thought too.

Um don't know if I'm I'm quite prepared to provide a response if that works.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember Robinson.

Well, since Councilmember Bargava brought that up, I just want to add that we did give increased height to that property in exchange for on-site performance.

And so now that we've removed that condition and they get to keep the increased height, if we revisit it with the other bill, are we going to have to give another incentive in order to put in a requirement for affordable housing?

So the the on-site performance is still an option to achieve compliance with the land use code.

So we're not uh removing that from the table.

So I think what um we were hearing as feedback is uh what's a a creative incentive to ensure that they can provide on-site performance.

And so that might be a look at if there's additional height or FAR potentially.

Um, but there's also other tools that the council has at their disposal that you might want to have us explore as well to really incentivize that on-site performance.

I'll definitely want you to explore other incentives.

Sure.

Thank you.

Um really appreciate the work here.

Um, and I do think that you, Nick, and your staff have gone above and beyond what is typical of staff members.

You've done site visits, you've had multiple conversations with individual property owners, and you've done what I think everything you can to be available to answer people's questions and concerns.

I just want to thank you for doing that.

I am um very supportive of this work.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember R.

Uh I'll be redundant by thanking you for the incredible work that you do.

I hope you do get a raise at some point.

Um not speaking on behalf of the council there.

Um I am also interested in seeing what other incentive tools and levers we can pull for that change.

Um, and I'll wrap my comments up by saying I'm absolutely supportive of the work.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Councilmember New Enhouse.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um great presentation.

Thank you, Nick.

Um I I just want to dive just a little bit more into that tree.

Yeah.

Just make sure I understand that the tree can.

So we we pivoted from the retention model to a tree credit model, correct?

Um is the confusion stemming from some of the emails that we've received about the conditions in a neighborhood that ascertains how many credits they could have per square foot, or how does that where is the confusion coming from, or um uh I I guess folks concerned that we are relaxing our our our tree canopy code that we've made now made.

I think there are always going to be some tension, right, between getting to the amount of housing that we want to create while maintaining our city in a park and specifically a tree canopy.

But can you just dive into that a little bit more?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've been in uh pretty frequent communication with some of the folks that are raising these concerns, particularly in the SR1 district.

Yeah.

Um there's at least two neighborhoods um that have raised some concerns.

At the same time, we're also responding to two other neighborhoods' concerns that are on the other side of the equation.

Are looking for some of that relief.

Yeah.

And so um in trying to understand those concerns that the SR1 folks um have been uh communicating.

Uh we we did actually go out today.

Um, we spent about three hours, walked over to three different sites um with the group.

Um, we're able to understand, you know, some of the the characteristics of their neighborhood that they really value, and then the threat that they felt that this change might be um uh having on their quality of neighborhood.

Right.

So a lot of what we understood in those conversations was Kelsey Creek, Gough Creek, um, as really important, uh both the East Tributary and West Tributary of Kelsey Creek as really important assets for their community that have provided expansive tree canopy.

Um we had some good conversation around what the critical areas code um will do in terms of protecting those trees um from uh being removed, and uh we're very clear with them that we have very strict requirements in place, especially on the sites that they took us to that are pretty pristine uh stream buffers.

Those areas you're not gonna be able to remove trees, and we could feel pretty confident in telling them that.

So the critical areas code kind of trumps a tree.

It does.

And we also explained the tree code is a great supplement to the critical areas code that'll help address some of the trees outside of the buffer areas.

Uh and in fact, the way we've defined in the way that the planning commission discussed how should we um determine what the canopy area is that we're assigning credits to, they didn't want someone to be able to clear their entire lot because they've got a critical area on their site, and all the trees are going to be over in that critical area.

Nothing is gonna be where the building and the driveway are.

And so they were very intentional in saying you don't get to count the trees that are in the critical areas, those are protected by another code.

You need to provide other trees outside of those critical areas.

So that clarification, I think, was also really helpful for them to understand.

There's there is still level of protection here.

Okay, and just knowing kind of the practical effect of assigning this higher credit.

We've got those examples of you know, uh, a person in Newport Shores that was having to plant around 90 trees in their backyard, and um they had shared they don't want a Christmas tree farm in their backyard.

That's an advantage.

Or have to pay a pretty significant fee.

And so I think that resonated with them as well, and they understood, you know, that's not kind of the outcome we're driving towards either.

So I would say it was a beneficial conversation to help each other hear, kind of what what the concerns were.

Okay, okay, great.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that for the clarification.

And I also appreciate the passion that people have for our tree canopy and want to maintain that in our city.

So thanks for going that extra step and going out and meeting with them and walking through that.

I think that's very helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Smother Virgie.

Thank you.

Um I I plus one to all my colleagues, but and I don't have any questions, and I just want to show my gratitude for your patience and also I love the thoughtfulness of the response.

Um, because I mean this code is very like any kind of code, any policy we talk about super complicated.

And the fact that you and the team can go out to meet the neighbors, explain them in real person, that shows a lot.

It shows a lot of commitment our team, our staff has for our residents.

So I'm just grateful for that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Uh Council uh Deputy Mayor Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, not really a lot to add.

I like this omnibus amendment process helps us to accomplish uh relatively insignificant code changes all at once.

So this seems like a very effective and efficient way to do that.

Uh certainly agree with uh the praise and recognition that's been expressed uh by my colleagues tonight uh to DS at large, but specifically to you, Nick.

So uh plus one to all those comments and fully supportive of moving forward.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Um Nick, my only question was the uh tree code uh one, and you already uh councilwoman Yuan House asked that uh you clarified that, and I think the visit today maybe save some of our uh residents trip to council member uh to the council uh chamber and not uh do any public comments, so I appreciate that you initiated the conversation, you went there and you clarify uh some of the topics.

Uh we have uh five of them.

Am I right?

So deputy mayor, can we go one by one and then hopefully we voted them very efficiently and we move on.

And then read this all out all these uh uh they uh recommended we don't need to read all of the land use code, just read the box.

All right, well I practiced all of those, so I was a little disappointed.

But nevertheless, uh I move to adopt ordinance number six nine three zero relating to the clarification of known errors contained in and cleanup of the land use code.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The first one passed.

I move to adopt ordinance number six nine three one relating to development regulations.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

There is no oppose passed.

I move to adopt ordinance number six nine three two relating to environmental regulations.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

I move to adopt ordinance number six nine three three relating to land use review procedures.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

I move to adopt ordinance number six nine three four relating to development.

Second.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Thank you, Nick.

Again.

And at this note, we can adjourn the meeting and see you all next week.

Thank you so much.