This was a regularly scheduled meeting of the Kirkland City Council, beginning with a 5:30 p.m. study session and reconvening for the regular business meeting at 7:30 p.m. The Council addressed a wide range of topics including zoning code amendments for the Juanita Business District, a capital improvement program update, speed limit policy, transit planning, human services funding, and homelessness response positions. The meeting concluded with an executive session regarding potential litigation.
Session tonight is on two items. First, we will receive a briefing on the community initiated amendment requests for the Juanita Business District in North Juanita Center. Second, we'll receive a preliminary update on the 2025 2030 capital improvement program. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7 30. City manager. Okay. Uh thank you, Madam Mayor. Deputy Mayor, members of the council, welcome back from our break. Yeah, as you mentioned, we're gonna be giving you an update. We're gonna focus primarily on what we call the Goodwill site and our center, but there's um some follow-up from our last discussion of what was referred to as the Michaels AR as well, uh, looking for council input and feedback, and then we'll figure out how to bring this back for decisions at future council meetings. Um I will keep an eye on the time. We probably need at least half an hour for the CIP update, so um I'll watch out for that. But otherwise, I'll go ahead and turn over to uh our planning team to kick us off. Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, council, uh mayor and deputy mayor. My name is Leandra Baker Lewis. I'm a senior planner with the planning and building department. Happy to be here tonight to continue our discussion on the Juanita uh community initiated amendment request zoning code amendment project. Um I'll hop right in. This is our scheduled agenda. Uh we thought it would be a good idea to continue working through these requests by topic rather than by location, um, just to get more of a comprehensive read from council. Uh we'll start off with the housing topics for council to consider. Those include allowed housing types within the BC one zone and then the inclusionary zoning requirements applicable to both sites. We will then pivot to a bit of discussion on the general development standards within the BC one zone that the planning commission has recommended recommended. Um we can discuss the ground floor commercial requirements. Um we'll recircle back to the high performing building standards recommendation as well as the JBD four pathway requirements. Hoping to end with a discussion or continued discussion on the required design review process for both sites and then open it up to answer some of those questions that I posed to you in the packet. We are joined by our planning commissioner chair, Rodney Rutherford, so he'll be here to provide his insight and uh and opinions as well. So this is just a preview of what we'll be working through. We've got about 45 minutes to get through eight questions. Six of those questions are pretty specific and pointed, uh, with two more general questions that follow, depending on how far we get. Uh we'll be pausing after each topic for council input. So hopefully that helps with the the flow of things. Quick review of the July 15th study session. Uh we were all here, so I won't go too deep into it, but this is a continuation of that prior study session. Many of the topics we covered tonight will be familiar, although council has requested that staff provide some additional information on the topics noted on screen. So we're gonna walk that walk through that with you this evening and circle back to some of those other aspects of the planning commission recommendation. All right, hopping right in. One of the bigger pieces of the planning commission recommendation that we didn't have a chance to get to back in July was the decision on the allowed housing types in the BC one study area. So our planning commission worked through three options which explore the extent in which townhomes should or should not apply and be um an allowed housing type within this neighborhood center. The first option that the planning commission reviewed does not change the allowed housing types in the study area. Right now, there is an a prohibition of townhomes or attached dwelling units within the BC one zone. That's our North Juanita commercial or neighborhood center. And option one would be to retain that uh prohibition. Option two allows allows the alternative for townhomes, but only um to be permitted within a mixed-use development because of the commercial requirements that the planning commission has also recommended for property or buildings abutting along along 100th Avenue. This option prohibits townhomes along that north and north to south right-of-way of 100th Avenue. And then finally, option three. This was where the planning commission landed with their recommendation. This option allows townhomes as an independent use, meaning that they can be proposed and completed as their own project, but they would be geographically limited to the western half of the site. We've provided just a quick visual aid of what that would look like.