The Kirkland Planning Commission held a public hearing on the 2023 Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Map Amendments (File No. CAM23-00022) at its November 9, 2023 meeting, convened from 7:03 PM to 8:05 PM. The commission deliberated on three city-initiated amendments and voted to recommend the updates to the City Council, including additional advisory language regarding the Houghton Park & Ride site.
It was very very silent on my end, so I wasn't sure. I'd like to I'd like to call to order the November ninth, uh, twenty twenty three planning commission meeting, and we will begin with roll call. Gotcha, Alan. Yes. Angela Rosman. Here. Rodney Rutherford. Here. Sandy Psingle. Here. Here. Great. So on tonight's agenda, we will have start off with a study session and then um a public hearing for the two thousand twenty-three comprehensive plan and zoning map amendments. And so before we start that, are is there any uh comments from the audience? I don't see anybody in the audience. Um, but is there anybody um so is that okay, and okay. So I think we can start. So for that public hearing, we have Scott Guter, senior planner to present the 2023 annual comprehensive plan amendments. We are asking for planning commission deliberation and recommendation tonight. And if the chair could just open the public hearing prior to Scott making his staff presentation. Okay, I hereby open the public hearing. All right. Good evening, uh Chai, uh Vice Chair and Commission. Um tonight's presentation on the annual comprehensive plan and zoning map amendments. Pretty brief, only about uh seven slides. Let me see if I can advance the slides here. How do I advance the slides? I have a mouse here. This one here. Ah thank you. Thank you. All right. Yeah. I have to get used to this new screen here. All right. So this evening is agenda includes a staff briefing on the proposed annual amendments, followed by a public hearing, and finally, the commission will deliberate and provide a recommendation to city council. Additional staff from both finance and capital projects are here to handle any technical questions regarding the budget and capital facilities at the end of the presentation. Each year, the uh city identifies potential comprehensive plan amendments for review and consideration and possible adoption. At minimum, the city must amend the capital facilities element annually to reconcile the capital facilities plan with the six-year capital improvements program as required by the Growth Management Act. Other amendments are initiated by city staff as needed, including consideration of land use change request via a community initiated amendment request, park acquisitions, together with other miscellaneous housekeeping amendments. This year we have three city initiated amendment requests and no community initiated requests to consider. Really? First, there is the annual annual amendments to the capital improvements plan tables and the uh capital facilities element. Second, uh we have the land uh land use and zoning map amendment associated with a recent par uh recently acquired park property, and lastly, we have a proposed land use amendment of the Houghton Park and Ride properties recently approved for acquisition. Right. The capital uh facilities updates reflect necessary uh uh amendments to maintain consistency with the 2023 to 2028 capital improvements plan and the 2023 to 2024 budget. The changes relate to updates to uh the city uh city work program, project timeline and or cost, and changes to uh project funding sources in September the City uh council authorized purchase of the James G. Fisk property located on Sixth Street South adjacent to and in support of the cross Kirkland corridor with this amendment, the low density residential property will be changed uh to park and open space and will require amending the zoning map from RS 8.5 to park and open space. All right. Additionally, in October, the city council authorized purchase of the Houghton Park and Ride, which was closed in February by the uh King County due to low utilization.