The Kirkland Planning Commission held a public hearing on the 2044 Comprehensive Plan Housing Element and Appendix, including the Glossary, Community Profile, and History of Kirkland. After staff presentations, extensive public testimony, and deliberation, the Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the Appendix chapter with administrative edits and continued the Housing Element public hearing to October 10, 2024, closing spoken testimony but keeping written testimony open.
I call to order this meeting of the Kirkland Planning Commission. Let's get started with a roll call. Catcha Alan. Present. Rhea Heiser. Here. Aaron Jacobson. Here. Gina Madea. Here's Scott Ryser. Here. Angela Rosman. Rodney Rethford. Here. We're uh we have called the meeting to order, so um please uh wrap up uh and we have taken roll call. We have a majority of the commissioners present, and so we have a quorum. Uh we will start, I believe, with comments from the audience. Um let's see, let me just double check my yep, uh comments from the audience. And so let's see. This is uh oh, yeah, as a reminder, please silence your cell phones, and if you would like to speak, there are assignment sheets on the table over there, uh, either for the comments from the the items from the audience or for tonight's public hearing. Uh tonight's public hearing is for the housing element and the appendix of the comprehensive plan update um for uh 2044. Uh and so do we have let's see, general comments. I see two people up here so far. Um uh Jenny Eger. Oh, and also for the record, Angela Rosman is now present, Commissioner Rosman. Um I'm I I actually have comments for the uh the housing element, but I have another meeting, so I'm going to give them now and leave and uh submit them. Um I understand that's for city meetings. Okay. Um I am a Kirkland resident. I strongly support the vision statement in the housing element. Kirkland urgently needs housing, especially deeply affordable housing. I want Kirkland to be welcoming, inclusive, and socioeconomically integrated. I want Kirkland to be multi-generational and robust. I want my teenagers to be able to stay near family and friends. We should not force a whole generation to move away from Kirkland. I want people who work in Kirkland to be able to live in Kirkland. As long as most of our essential workers have to commute long distances, our services will struggle to provide staffing, especially during extreme weather and other events that make long commutes impossible. Last winter, my mother experienced a health emergency during the massive ice storm and a power outage in the Greater Portland area. She suffered needlessly due to the lack of health care staffing caused by workers unable to commute long distances for the entire week of the storm. Kirkland cannot provide robust essential services to any of us if workers cannot afford to live in Kirkland with us. And over the course of each year, hundreds of women and children live in cars in a church parking lot in Kirkland. No one should have to sleep in a car. The new affordable housing that we create should support socioeconomic integration, not segregation of our city. That is why I support the vision statement in the housing element. Thank you. Thank you, Jeannie. Or Jenny. Next up is uh Evie Bennett. Hi. Uh my name is Evie, and it's okay.