Kirkland Planning Commission Study Session on 2044 Comprehensive Plan - December 8, 2022
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Kirkland Planning Commission Meeting - December 8, 2022
The Kirkland Planning Commission met on December 8, 2022, at 7:00 PM for a study session focused on the Kirkland 2044 Comprehensive Plan Update. Commissioners received a briefing on the community engagement plan and an equity review of current policies. Public comments were heard, and commissioners provided feedback to staff. No formal decisions were made.
Public Comments
- Lisa McConnell (Kirkland): Commented but no details recorded in the minutes.
- David Allen (Kirkland): Commented on the high cost of parking, noting above-ground spaces cost $3,000 and underground up to $80,000, and suggested eliminating parking minimums to allow more affordable housing. Later, he proposed adding a guiding principle to "make decisions that are people-friendly rather than individual-friendly," citing the Park Lane closure as an example.
Study Session: Kirkland 2044 Comprehensive Plan Update
- Deputy Director Allison Zike and Senior Planner Janice Swenson presented the community engagement plan developed with Broadview Planning Consultants and the equity gap analysis by EcoNW.
- The comprehensive plan update is required by December 2024, with key themes including diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, sustainability, housing options, mobility, resiliency, and smart city initiatives.
- Engagement strategies include pop-up events at community gatherings, focus groups with priority populations (including compensating participants), collaboration with Lake Washington High School, and a virtual visioning event on January 11, 2023.
- EcoNW's equity review recommended shifting language from "preserving neighborhood quality" and "community character" to more specific terms. Commissioners discussed these terms extensively: Commissioner Rutherford emphasized the need for clarity about specific qualities; Commissioner Heiser expressed discomfort removing the word "character"; Vice Chair Reusser called for precise language; and Commissioner Rozmyn noted the packet was large and requested a summary for future meetings.
- Commissioners suggested a joint meeting with the Transportation Commission to coordinate land use and transportation planning.
Administrative Reports and Commission Discussion
- City Council Actions: On November 15, Council held a public hearing on the Planned Action Ordinance for the station area plan (action pending Phase 2 recommendation) and adopted updates to Lake Washington School District impact fees. On December 13, Council is scheduled to adopt the budget and annual Comprehensive Plan amendments, incorporating the Commission's recommendation.
- Meeting Calendar: The December 22 meeting was canceled. The January 12 meeting is tentative.
- Retreat Planning: Commissioners suggested topics including school capacity and growth, development benefits in station areas, parking, solar/green energy, evaluating land use regulation effectiveness, improving recommendation transmittal to Council, and live-work/home occupation codes. Staff will aim to schedule a retreat in January or February.
Key Outcomes
- The December 22, 2022 meeting was canceled.
- Staff will refine the community engagement plan and equity review based on commissioner feedback.
- A joint meeting with the Transportation Commission was recommended for future coordination.
- Retreat topics were identified; staff will work to schedule the retreat.
Meeting Transcript
A suburban Oregon where a developer who does uh workforce housing, so housing that's not as expensive, they wanted a variance from the city. The city required two spots per housing unit. They wanted to go to one point three. They didn't want to go to zero, they want to go to one point three. A parking space at grade level is three thousand dollars on average. A parking space underground can be up to eighty thousand dollars per space. A parking unit, a parking space above ground on a parking garage is between twenty and fifty thousand dollars per space. This is all going on to the cost of the units. I don't see anybody else in the audience, so is there there was no one on Zoom? Perfect. Okay. Tonight we will have a study session on the 2044 comprehensive plan. And we receive the packet and we'll receive an overview on the reports to initiate equitable and inclusive comprehensive and the comprehensive plan. So staff reports. Thank you, Vice Chair ICE. So for this, we're gonna have our senior planner Janice Swinson presenting you with the presentation tonight and also walking you through the comprehensive plan update. She is the project manager for the 2044 comprehensive plan update, and we'll be spending a lot of time with you over the next couple years on this one. Just a moment here I'm trying to find my presentation. Yeah. Okay. Thanks very much. Here we are. Good evening, uh Janice Swenson with uh the planning department. And um now that we have our community engagement plan uh completed, uh we are off and running and ready to do our big media launch for the comprehensive plan update. And we thought it would be a good time to brief you on what we've been up to since uh we last uh gave a briefing to you in April. And um so we're not looking for decisions tonight. We just like your feedback on the community engagement plan and also Eco Northwest um equity review of the comprehensive plan uh policies and some of their recommendations for text and policy changes. And those are in your packet. Uh we also um wanted to talk with you a little bit about what uh to expect uh for this uh next year and uh the following year. Um as a reminder, all cities are required to update their comprehensive plans for changes to the Growth Management Act and for consistency with the revised regional and countywide planning policies and with the end date of December 2024. Simultaneously, we're working closely with the Transportation Division and the Transsportation Commission to update the transportation master plan. So that'll be a major effort. And where feasible, we're coordinating these two tasks. Um we've organized an interdepartmental staff teams to work on each element and and/or chapter of the comprehensive plan. And the uh staff teams have conducted an initial scan of each chapter, looking for potential uh changes, policy changes, and we anticipate that they're minor to a moderate scope with uh more revisions likely to the housing and transportation um elements. So this is the logo that uh we've uh designed with the city managers uh communications division, and we feel that it really uh strives to uh symbolize the several key themes of the comprehensive plan update in the future of Kirkland to strive for a sustainable, connected, and welcoming Kirkland where everyone feels they belong. Just as a reminder, the key themes uh for the uh comprehensive plan update that will be interwoven throughout the plan and the policies. You uh reviewed these in April, and the city council also has affirmed these uh key themes. Advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, sustainability, housing options for all, and housing affordability, mobility connections to regional transit system and accessibility, resiliency, smart city initiatives, and to be consistent with the city council goals. So as far as scope of changes, as I mentioned, the key major changes will be to the transportation master plan or the transportation element that will fold in the highlights and the priorities for the transportation master plan and the housing and human service elements to respond to House Bill 1220. So those mainly affect what we're required to do for the housing element, and the focus is on planning to avoid racially desperate impacts, displacement, and exclusionary exclusion in housing. So we'll need to dive closer into that and we'll bring you more information about that. What that will require is really assessing data, demographic and racial and housing data and real estate you know data to determine what we need to do to address those requirements. And much of that will be done with our update of our community profile. Also we uh, depending on staff resources, we're planning on updating the Juanita and Kingsgate neighborhood plans, uh starting those in 2023 and completing those in uh 2024 with the rest of the comp plan update. Um we will be uh assessing community amendment requests, and those applications are due December 30th. And so those are requests from the community to change land use, uh rezones, uh zoning code amendments. Uh so far we've received two uh submittals, but we anticipate more. It's hard to know the level of those. We'll bring those to you.
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