The Kirkland Planning Commission met on March 14, 2024, from 7:00 PM to 9:14 PM in the Council Chamber. All seven commissioners were present: Chair Scott Reusser, Vice Chair Rodney Rutherford, Katya Allen, Bria Heiser, Aaron Jacobson, Angela Rozymn, and Sandeep Singhal. Staff included Planning & Building Director Adam Weinstein, Deputy Director Allison Zike, Transportation Manager Doug McIntyre, Planning Supervisor Denise Russell, Senior Planner Janice Swenson, Transportation Planner Kim Scrivner, and others. The meeting covered three study-session topics: an update on the Transportation Strategic Plan (TSP), a policy briefing on the Economic Development Element of the 2044 Comprehensive Plan, and a review of 2024 Miscellaneous Zoning and Municipal Code Amendments.
It will become like the most of it and the core pieces of it will become the transportation element to the comprehensive plan that includes the goals and policies as well as the fiscally constrained project list, which I'm going to talk about. The plan itself does, since it's a standalone document, we will get into more detail than the transportation element. Which, as I mentioned, it'll include the goals and policies. We look at the existing conditions of our transportation system, but we also look at analysis of the future transportation system and in particular how we are balancing the transportation system with planning for future growth. So we've been working hand in hand with the planning team in terms of not just growth in general, but with where that growth happens and how the transportation system is responding to that. And so we're looking at that now. As we look into, which is my next topic I'm going to talk about our fiscally constrained project list. Those projects that support and that are required to support future growth will be included in that in that in that 20-year project list. Before you was listed, the transportation plan goals. Of course, is a really big part of our work program. What we've been doing more recently is putting together the project list, which is a very big part of our transportation plan. Those projects, most of those projects have been identified through previous planning processes, such as our active transportation plan, our safe routes to school plan. We've done various modal studies, corridor studies. Those do go through an engineering review. And we have identified 450 projects through those processes. We've worked really hard to not only just identify them but reconcile them because in some cases there may be projects that overlap on a corridor and they might not always agree with each other. So we've worked really hard to put these together. And then we are looking at our forecasted revenue because we do have to have a fiscally constrained project list that goes into the comprehensive plan, specifically our capital facilities plan. And I hope you all got to dive in with it a little bit. But it allows it allowed people to select projects and comment on them or like or dislike. We had over 2600 reactions, and what I mean by reactions is that's the like, the dislike, or comments, but specifically over 600 unique comments, about half of those were not related to projects, and about half of them were about the projects themselves. But specifically over 600 unique comments, about half of those were not related to projects, and about half of them were about the projects themselves. What we're doing with that information is that we're summarizing all of the kind of the themes of the comments that we've received. I think if a memory serves me correctly, we had well over, so in terms of the likes and dislikes, we had well over a thousand likes and maybe in around the 300 range of dislikes. So seems like you know we're doing pretty good job. Um we are summarizing what we heard from the comments in terms of themes. Um we and then um and then identifying which of those comments might um be a candidate for a future project. Um and then there are a number of projects that go that are um really would kind of fall into what we're calling service requests. And so um we receive these online on a daily basis, and we respond to them, or um people are asking about site distance and speeding and that type of thing. Um those we will do our best to respond. There are a lot. We can't you know promise that we're gonna have that same level of service for responses, but we are looking at them. Um we've looked at every single comment, and then the ones that we you know really feel like we should we should probably go and check that site distance. Um we will because um all of all of the comments that we receive are really important. Um as we start to put together this 20-year fiscally constrained project list, we have to balance it with our future projections for what we expect to receive over the next 20 years. So this is a very high level estimate, um, about 317 million. I should mention it does not include some categories, such as our transportation benefit district, that's really really new, um our schools and safety cameras, that's very, very new, and grant money, which is very unpredictable. Um, and so that that funding level line will move, move around as we as we implement the plan. And there are opportunities with a capital facilities list and our capital improvement program when we update our six-year CIP and we update this plan every, you know, now there's an opportunity every five years. Um but this is what we're looking at now. We have also put together cost estimates for the 20-year project list, and that is a that is a pretty high-level planning cost estimate, and we're not looking at right-of-way costs. Um, we are looking at um stormwater costs. Um we are expected um over time that a particularly um new requirements coming into effect in 2027 that will significantly increase the costs of projects. So those are included at a at again at a high planning level. We have a range of costs that we're looking at. Um there are some federal requirements that impact costs that we're not including because we're also not including grants, which would be federal, and so keeping that all aside. Um we plan to um go to council next Tuesday to talk with them about our public engagement from the projects, the um uh planning to talk with them about our cost estimation and our revenue projections, and so that's really that's one of the reasons why I'm talking with you about that tonight, because that's our really big push right now, is getting through this fiscally constrained 20-year project list. Um we have our um draft uh goals and policies that has um uh been available and and kind of we've gone through that process, but it's still available for public review, and this is our next push. Um then um, and then we'll be obviously going back to the Transportation Commission pretty much every month or the rest of the until the plan is adopted. Um we are looking forward to um public hearing in June, which is when you can expect to see a draft plan.