OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Kirkland Planning Commission Meeting - October 10, 2024: Continued Public Hearing on Housing Element

Planning CommissionThursday, October 10, 2024
BodyKirkland, Washington
SessionPlanning Commission
DateThursday, October 10, 2024
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 4:54:50

Transcript — Verbatim
0:02

I open this uh meeting of the Clinton Planning Commission.

0:07

I call this to order.

0:08

Uh let's start out with roll call.

0:11

Gotcha, Alan.

0:14

Yes.

0:15

Bree High Sir.

0:16

Here.

0:17

Aaron Jacobson.

0:18

Here.

0:18

Gina Medea.

0:20

Here.

0:20

Scott Racer.

0:22

Here.

0:22

Angela Rosman.

0:23

Here.

0:23

Ronnie Rutherford.

0:25

Here.

0:26

And with the majority of commissioners present, we have a quorum.

0:29

We are not holding comments from the audience at the start, so that we of this meeting will have it at the end so as to allow us to dive straight into public hearing deliberations on the housing element of the comprehensive plan.

0:44

Other items on the agenda that are empty include uh special presentations, and I don't believe there are any study session, and so we are going straight into the public hearing.

0:58

So I will uh hereby open this continuance of the public hearing on the proposed amendments to the draft housing element of the comprehensive plan for deliberation.

1:10

And uh let's go ahead with the staff presentation on this if we're ready.

1:22

Great.

1:27

Uh we have a go ahead.

1:29

Can you make a point of clarification for the um agenda tonate?

1:34

Are we going through the staff presentation?

1:36

Is going to go through all of the amendments right now?

1:40

So we have a very short staff presentation for you, and then we'll ask the commission to open your deliberations.

1:46

Okay.

1:46

Um and did I'm so sorry, I was walking someone to another room.

1:50

Did we open the hearing?

1:51

Yes.

1:52

Great, thank you.

1:57

Okay, so um good evening, commissioners.

2:01

Um we are gonna give you a short presentation about four-ish slides that are guy outline um how staff uh digested and assimilated the updates uh receive uh that we received from both commissioners and uh community feedback.

2:24

Um if you have any questions related to that, then um if uh you can uh present that at the time or if not, we'll just move right into deliberations and then you can move to recommendation.

2:40

So staff um incorporated the findings from the inventory analysis in our previous uh previous iteration.

2:50

Um we updated that a little bit based on um the the findings that we presented at the um the planning commission via slide, the the slides that were the um uh outcomes of our housing and uh housing um land capacity analysis.

3:08

Um we also responded to planning commission uh and uh community feedback that was received at that um uh September 26th meeting.

3:18

They included these kind of broad themes that there was concerns uh about the impact on the location of additional housing and affordable housing, the use of public and uh open space, uh concerns over life uh uh uh environmental and life safety adjust uh of adjusted development standards and the cost of all of this towards uh taxpayers.

3:46

Um so how did this look in your meeting in in your actual meeting packet?

3:50

So uh we included an attachment uh that kind of showed how all of the commissioner feedback and community feedback was incorporated together with some staff recommendations.

4:03

Um we also uh in circumstances where uh there might have been um multiple you know a lot of feedback or alternative policy uh recommendations uh coming from um either um staff or uh commissioners we added an alternative policy in your in your packet and showed you how those uh edits were incorporated in uh attachment two.

4:33

Uh for note for tonight, um some additional edits, generally uh editorial uh for uh readability and some uh minor policy amendments that were added since the meeting that didn't appear in your packet will be highlighted in red.

4:52

Um and those will um be up for um uh uh discussion and deliberation and making and and uh the possibility of making motions to either accept or um reject those.

5:08

Um there are a couple of uh universal edits that staff employed as are as a related to some of the edits and uh community feedback when it came to policies that touched on surplus or uh city owned property, uh we uh staff uh added some additional text uh that would um address the public feedback that we and and and planning commissioner feedback that we heard uh related to um how uh we should treat parks and open spaces as it relates to housing.

5:47

And um when discussing um areas where we were plan where we're where there is planned or uh planned um existing or planned transit, we wanted to incorporate this um additional um phrase that would um incorporate pedestrian and frequent transit uh service infrastructure as a as a um as a um kind of a an existing or a kind of an underlying in infrastructure that we're trying to um uh encourage um um or at least at least have an uh as an underlying infrastructure that is um desired when putting any kind of uh housing additional housing uh next to that uh next to services like transit.

6:42

So frequency meaning uh a level of service standard.

6:48

Um so here uh I will let Alison kind of talk you through the motion exercise.

6:59

Right, thanks, Scott.

7:00

Um so we are happy to take any questions the planning commission might have in generally about the housing element at this time.

7:08

Um we do recommend though you can run it however you want, but we were suggesting that the planning commission get the motion on the table for the full element, and then we do have slides prepared to walk you through policy by policy, um, thinking that if you have the motion on the table for the full element, we can then walk through each policy, and if the commission, anyone on the commission wants to offer an amendment, we can do it while we're talking about that policy as we walk through.

7:36

So the slides we have queued up cover all the policies that have been revised since the last public hearing on the housing element.

7:45

Um if planning commissioners had any additional policies they wanted to offer amendments on, um I would suggest maybe we we look at that uh after we make it through the slides.

7:55

So that that's our recommendation if uh that's how planning commission wants to go.

7:59

Sounds reasonable to me, uh Commissioner Heiser.

8:04

Are we done before it's um before we're starting on this?

8:07

Are we done with staff presentation then?

8:10

Yes.

8:11

Okay.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Affordable Housing████████████████████████24%
Planning And Zoning███████████████████████23%
Housing████████████████████20%
Procedural██████6%
Transportation██████6%
Homelessness█████5%
Zoning Regulations█████5%
Community Engagement████4%
Public Engagement██2%
Summary of Proceedings

Kirkland Planning Commission Meeting - October 10, 2024

The Kirkland Planning Commission held a continued public hearing on the Housing Element of the 2044 Comprehensive Plan. After extensive deliberation and numerous amendments, the Commission voted 6-1 to approve the Housing Element as amended. The Commission also approved the minutes from June 27, 2024.

Consent Calendar

  • Approval of Minutes (June 27, 2024): Motion carried 7-0.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • Ken MacKenzie (Kirkland): Emphasized that neighborhoods are what make Kirkland special, noting that every homeowner, renter, and business belongs to one of 13 designated neighborhoods.
  • Margaret Bull (Kirkland): Expressed concern that the Cross Kirkland Corridor trail might eventually be replaced with transit, as was the original intent.
  • Landyn Knipp (Kirkland): Described her family's 10-year effort to afford a home in a single-family neighborhood and expressed fear that proposed policies would erode the character and safety of neighborhoods she worked hard to join.

Discussion Items

  • No Confidence Motion: Vice Chair Heiser moved a vote of no confidence in the Comprehensive Plan process, requesting a middle-growth alternative. The motion failed 1-6 (Heiser in favor; Rutherford, Allen, Jacobson, Madeya, Reusser, Rozmyn opposed).
  • Main Motion: Commissioner Jacobson moved to approve the Housing Element as presented in the packet, with administrative edits. The motion was seconded and then amended through a series of policy-by-policy changes.
  • Key Amendments and Votes:
    • H-1.2 (Strike): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.4 (Strike): Carried 4-3 (Rutherford, Allen, Jacobson, Rozmyn yes; Heiser, Madeya, Reusser no).
    • H-1.5 (Amend): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.6 (Amend – replace “increasing” with “building”): Carried 7-0; further amend to strike “capacity”: Carried 7-0.
    • Deeply Affordable & Emergency Housing (H-1.8 & H-1.9): After withdrawn motions, adopted a combined policy using “explore removal of regulatory barriers” and siting language. Carried 6-1 (Heiser no).
    • H-1.10 (Amend – strike location language, add context-sensitive direction): Carried 6-1 (Heiser no).
    • H-1.XA (ADU/DADU – strike owner-occupancy requirement): Carried 6-1 (Heiser no).
    • H-1.XB (Middle housing – amended to include all forms and avoid adding costs): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.XD (Short-term rentals – “help preserve housing stock by evaluating and managing the inventory”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.12 (Amend – replace “in areas that have potential to be” with “in 10-minute neighborhoods”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.14 (Amend – adopted alternate policy with location language from H-1.15): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.15 (Amend – adopted alternate policy with location language): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.20 (Amend – add “surplus property not designated for parks or open space”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-1.11 (Amend – adopt alternate policy on no net loss): Carried 7-0.
    • Goal H.2 & Alternate Goal H.3 (Amend – adopt as shown): Carried 6-1 (Heiser no).
    • H-2.2 (Strike – redundancy): Carried 7-0.
    • H-2.3 (Amend – focus on disproportionately impacted populations): Carried 7-0.
    • H-2.9 (Amend – community suggestion): Carried 7-0.
    • H-2.10 (Amend – add “context-sensitive”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-2.XB (Amend – replace “Washington State Building Code” with “building codes”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-2.19 (Amend – strike “all” and add “and future residents”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-2.22 (Reinsert – “ensure equitable distribution… by removing exclusionary regulations and review processes”): Carried 6-1 (Heiser no).
    • H-3.4 (Amend – “aim to make homelessness rare and brief when it occurs”): Carried 7-0.
    • H-3.XA (Amend – “explore a resident subsidy program… especially for residents who provide vital hands-on services”): Carried 6-1 (Rutherford no).
    • New Policy H-X.XB (Amend – adopt staff recommendation with substitutions: “nurture,” “in all neighborhoods,” “equitable”): Carried 4-3 (Rutherford, Allen, Jacobson, Rozmyn yes; Heiser, Madeya, Reusser no).
    • H-2.13 (Amend – replace “prohibit any unlawful activity that results in discrimination” with “support programs that deter discrimination”): Carried 6-1 (Heiser no).
  • Final Vote on Housing Element as Amended: Motion carried 6-1 (Heiser opposed; all others in favor).

Key Outcomes

  • Housing Element Approved: The Planning Commission approved the Housing Element chapter of the 2044 Comprehensive Plan with numerous amendments, by a vote of 6-1.
  • No Confidence Motion Rejected: The motion for a vote of no confidence in the process and to request a middle-growth alternative failed 1-6.
  • Minutes Approved: The minutes from June 27, 2024, were approved 7-0.
  • Next Steps: The Commission will present its recommendations to the City Council at a joint meeting on October 15, 2024. Staff will prepare a memo and slides highlighting key themes and split votes.

Meeting Transcript

I open this uh meeting of the Clinton Planning Commission. I call this to order. Uh let's start out with roll call. Gotcha, Alan. Yes. Bree High Sir. Here. Aaron Jacobson. Here. Gina Medea. Here. Scott Racer. Here. Angela Rosman. Here. Ronnie Rutherford. Here. And with the majority of commissioners present, we have a quorum. We are not holding comments from the audience at the start, so that we of this meeting will have it at the end so as to allow us to dive straight into public hearing deliberations on the housing element of the comprehensive plan. Other items on the agenda that are empty include uh special presentations, and I don't believe there are any study session, and so we are going straight into the public hearing. So I will uh hereby open this continuance of the public hearing on the proposed amendments to the draft housing element of the comprehensive plan for deliberation. And uh let's go ahead with the staff presentation on this if we're ready. Great. Uh we have a go ahead. Can you make a point of clarification for the um agenda tonate? Are we going through the staff presentation? Is going to go through all of the amendments right now? So we have a very short staff presentation for you, and then we'll ask the commission to open your deliberations. Okay. Um and did I'm so sorry, I was walking someone to another room. Did we open the hearing? Yes. Great, thank you. Okay, so um good evening, commissioners. Um we are gonna give you a short presentation about four-ish slides that are guy outline um how staff uh digested and assimilated the updates uh receive uh that we received from both commissioners and uh community feedback. Um if you have any questions related to that, then um if uh you can uh present that at the time or if not, we'll just move right into deliberations and then you can move to recommendation. So staff um incorporated the findings from the inventory analysis in our previous uh previous iteration. Um we updated that a little bit based on um the the findings that we presented at the um the planning commission via slide, the the slides that were the um uh outcomes of our housing and uh housing um land capacity analysis. Um we also responded to planning commission uh and uh community feedback that was received at that um uh September 26th meeting. They included these kind of broad themes that there was concerns uh about the impact on the location of additional housing and affordable housing, the use of public and uh open space, uh concerns over life uh uh uh environmental and life safety adjust uh of adjusted development standards and the cost of all of this towards uh taxpayers. Um so how did this look in your meeting in in your actual meeting packet? So uh we included an attachment uh that kind of showed how all of the commissioner feedback and community feedback was incorporated together with some staff recommendations. Um we also uh in circumstances where uh there might have been um multiple you know a lot of feedback or alternative policy uh recommendations uh coming from um either um staff or uh commissioners we added an alternative policy in your in your packet and showed you how those uh edits were incorporated in uh attachment two. Uh for note for tonight, um some additional edits, generally uh editorial uh for uh readability and some uh minor policy amendments that were added since the meeting that didn't appear in your packet will be highlighted in red. Um and those will um be up for um uh uh discussion and deliberation and making and and uh the possibility of making motions to either accept or um reject those. Um there are a couple of uh universal edits that staff employed as are as a related to some of the edits and uh community feedback when it came to policies that touched on surplus or uh city owned property, uh we uh staff uh added some additional text uh that would um address the public feedback that we and and and planning commissioner feedback that we heard uh related to um how uh we should treat parks and open spaces as it relates to housing. And um when discussing um areas where we were plan where we're where there is planned or uh planned um existing or planned transit, we wanted to incorporate this um additional um phrase that would um incorporate pedestrian and frequent transit uh service infrastructure as a as a um as a um kind of a an existing or a kind of an underlying in infrastructure that we're trying to um uh encourage um um or at least at least have an uh as an underlying infrastructure that is um desired when putting any kind of uh housing additional housing uh next to that uh next to services like transit. So frequency meaning uh a level of service standard. Um so here uh I will let Alison kind of talk you through the motion exercise. Right, thanks, Scott.

SUMMARIZED BY OPENPUBLICA AI
TRANSCRIPT VIA PUBLIC VIDEO
openpublica.com