On June 9, 2022, the Kirkland Planning Commission held a public hearing to receive testimony on the NE 85th Street Station Area Plan (File CAM20-00153), a comprehensive planning effort to guide growth near the future Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) station. The hearing included presentations from staff and consultants, followed by 31 public comments. The Commission voted to continue the hearing to June 14, 2022, for deliberation and a recommendation to City Council.
Staff (Adam Weinstein, Allison Zike) and consultant Erin Ishizaki (Mithun) presented the station area plan framework, including the comprehensive plan amendments, form-based code, design guidelines, and incentive zoning program. The presentation emphasized that the plan implements existing city policies on sustainability, housing, and transportation, and that growth will occur regardless—with the plan adding bike/pedestrian improvements and capacity for schools.
Okay, thanks. Okay, we're live. Thank you. Can you call roll, please? Sure. Katya Allen. Oh, oh, yeah. Sorry, just wait. Just wait one moment. I apologize. Recording in progress. Okay. Katya Allen. Yes. Ria High sir. Yeah, yes. Scott Reiser. Here. Angela Rosman. Here. Rodney Retriford. Sandeep single. And John Tim Chison. Here. Thanks. All right. Um, so to start with, I am going to, well, now that we've called the order, this is just the public hearing for the 85th Street Station area plan. So we're going to first, I'm going to read a statement from a planning commissioner who's not going to be here tonight. And then staff is going to give a short presentation. And then after that, we're going to move on to the public comment phase of this evening's meeting. And you know, we are now a city of 90,000 people, and a lot of people are very invested in this project, rightfully so. Um the station area plan is probably the single biggest thing that any of us are going to do during our years in Kirkland. It's going to be a very long-lasting piece of Kirkland's future. And so I know that there are a lot of people who are very interested in sharing their opinions tonight. So for that reason, we are limiting our comments to three minutes. And we are going to have people come on, not as panelists, but to speak as phone so that we can move quickly. If you have a presentation or slides or something, we can promote you to panelists so that you can show your screen, but otherwise to keep everyone's time as reasonable as possible. We're going to just stick to getting through comments as as they happen. And any individual member has a three-minute limit period. You cannot give your time to someone else. I know that we've done that sometimes in the past. Um, but because this is such a big topic that a lot of people want to comment on, in order to be fair to everyone in the city, we are limiting to three minutes per person. And so to get started, I am going to read Rodney Rathaford's um comments as he is not here tonight. So this is from Rodney. I have chosen to recuse myself from the upstation area plan. As a homeowner living within the plan station for almost 14 years and having served multiple terms as the chair of the South Rose Hill Bridal Trails Neighborhood Association, and having served in the core team that updated the Rose Hill Neighborhood Plan in 2018, I have remained committed to working with a broader community to cooperatively envision the future of a stage for that. Since then, um informed that his employer Google is working on a development agreement in the city in the area that is under consideration by the commission tonight. As such, I have chosen to recuse myself from the upcoming vote and deliberations on this phase of the stationary plan. And again, that's from Rodney Rutherford. So that is uh why he's not here tonight.