Kirkland Planning Commission Study Session on 2044 Comprehensive Plan - January 11, 2024
Kirkland Planning Commission Study Session on 2044 Comprehensive Plan - January 11, 2024
The Kirkland Planning Commission held a study session on January 11, 2024, focusing on two main items: the final draft of the 2044 Comprehensive Plan Vision Statement, Guiding Principles, and General Chapters, and the first policy briefing on the Land Use Element. Commissioners provided feedback on draft goals and policies, and staff outlined the schedule for upcoming reviews and public hearings.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Forest Whitehouse expressed support for pro-housing and pro-transit policies, noting encouragement from the meeting packet and interest in the Growth Action Plan.
- David Allen voiced strong support for the Vision Statement's first paragraph and the "living and welcoming" guiding principle but urged a specific commitment to prioritize public access in designing spaces. Later, he recommended two policies: significantly upzone areas within a quarter mile of transit stops and eliminate parking minimums in those areas to encourage car-free living.
Discussion Items
- 2044 Comprehensive Plan - Vision Statement, Guiding Principles, Introduction, and General Chapters: Senior Planner Janice Swenson reviewed the draft Vision Statement themes, Guiding Principles (livable, welcome, connected, sustainable, resilient), and proposed consolidation of the Introduction and General Element into a single chapter. Commissioners suggested adding language encouraging innovation in connectivity (e.g., e-bikes, electrification) and refining "encourages growth" to specify "appropriate growth" or "growth to meet community needs." Staff agreed to incorporate these suggestions.
- 2044 Comprehensive Plan - Land Use Element Policy Briefing #1: Deputy Planning Director Allison Zike presented the land use element foundation, growth targets (which are met without land use changes), study issues (housing, commercial, parking, etc.), and potential land use changes (Parmac Business Park, Goodwill site, Michaels site, and upzoning along frequent transit corridors at 50 units per acre). Commissioners discussed over 20 draft goal and policy revisions, including:
- Strong support for reducing or restructuring parking minimums, especially for residential uses, and broadening to commercial uses to support 10-minute neighborhoods.
- Interest in a new minimum lot size policy (starting point 1,200 sq ft based on ADU size), with many commissioners favoring a lower minimum to enable smaller homes.
- Support for policies allowing small-scale commercial uses in residential neighborhoods (e.g., corner stores, home occupations).
- Emphasizing environmental justice and per capita vehicle miles traveled in land use policies.
- Request to include design guidelines in the evaluation of zoning code barriers for energy efficiency.
- Need to study barriers in neighborhood commercial centers and ensure recreational access in growth areas.
Key Outcomes
- Staff will incorporate commission feedback into a revised version (V2) of the Land Use Element goals and policies, expected to return in March before public hearings scheduled for late April.
- The commission directed staff to consider specific language changes, including strengthening parking reduction policies (e.g., "pursue" rather than "consider"), clarifying minimum lot size direction, and expanding sustainability policies to include design guidelines.
- The January 18 retreat was announced to finalize the 2025–2027 planning work program and discuss best practices for policy briefings.
- No formal votes were taken; all decisions were preliminary guidance for staff to continue drafting.
Meeting Transcript
Sandy Single. Great. And tonight on our agenda, we have uh two items. We will be looking in our study session at the vision statement for the 2024 comprehensive plan. And also we will be looking at uh land use updates. Uh but before we start, is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak? Uh just stand up to the podium, state your full name. And you have three minutes. All right, I'll try to be quick. Um my name is Forrest White House. Um it's nice to meet you all. It's my first time coming and commenting at one of these meetings, so kind of shooting from the hip here. Um year's resolutions was to get to meet more commissioners, more city staff, more of the council members. So I've already met a couple of you, but the rest of you, watch out. Um yeah, I just wanted to come up and say that from what I've read in the packet, and I I am very new to this, but um, I see some encouraging signs. Um I am very pro-housing, pro-transit. Um I'm in favor of anything that connects us more as a community. Um so I'm looking forward to hearing uh all about you know your opinions on the matter and about the growth action plan, which I just learned about and read about in preparation for this meeting. Um I think that's that's all I've got to say. Thank you so much. Thank you. Just stand right up and commissioners. Uh David Allen uh here again. Um Kirkland resident uh 201nd Street South, uh, just up from the Ben and Jerry's, and I'm here to talk about the vision statement and the guiding principles. Uh wanna say kudos and congrats. Uh love the first paragraph of the vision statement. Uh I love how it talks about what people want, what people want. Uh we're talking about things like livability in that statement and access uh to places in the city where they want to be. Love that. Absolutely love it. Um and uh let me be specific about why that matters, right? So we have two examples. One example is true leadership, exemplary leadership. Not only do we make the waterfront accessible through a necklace of parks available to the public, but you can walk on the trail from Marina Park in front of all of those properties, in front of, on the water side of all of those properties. I mean, think about the leadership there to say the public, people are more important than those folks that are living in those places in terms of they need access to that waterfront. That's an amazing show of leadership. Let me go the uh opposite way. We did not double down on the leadership that was shown in 2020, 2021, where we made Park Lane available to the public. We said pedestrians are more important in 2021 and 2020, and in 2022, 2023, apparently we decided that that's not the case. People are not important enough for us to continue what was a huge success in making a people-oriented place. That's not the leadership that's shown in this vision statement, and I think the vision statement is important because of that. Guiding principles, congrats on the living and welcoming section. Uh again, it's got the right words in it. It talks about welcoming people to Kirkland. It talks about making places available to the public, to people. And it talks about how we need to make Kirkland a place where people want to come to. What's missing? And I know that you still have time to make changes. What's missing is a specific commitment. Something in there, a sentence about designing spaces, prioritizing the public, making sure that when you go into the next question of park lane, or the next question of a necklace of of uh of parks that is connected by a trail that goes in front of the properties, that it's specifically spelled out in the guiding principles that you are going to prioritize the public, the public access to spaces, the public's needs, the the prioritization of the public.
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