This meeting of the Kirkland Planning Commission is called to order.

Let's start with a roll call.

Reheiser.

Here?

Aaron Jacobson.

Here.

Gina Medea.

Here.

Scott Ricer.

Here.

Justin Robins.

Here.

Angela Rasman.

Here.

Redney Retroford.

Here.

With a majority of commissioners present, we have a quorum.

Now do we have any comments from the audience?

I don't see any attendees either in the audience or online.

So my assumption is no.

Seeing none, I will move on to we have no special presentations, so we'll move on to our study session on streamlining design review briefing.

Thank you, Chair Rutherford, and welcome to 2025 planning commissioners.

It's good to see you all.

Before I kick it over to Tony Levitt, just wanted to welcome a couple new planning and building department staff to our team.

So you'll see a slightly different crew supporting your planning commission meetings moving forward.

So we have Jesse Davis and Tyler Gurley here tonight handing uh taking the handoff from Brian, who supported you through most of your very hard work last year.

So welcome to them, and um you'll continue to be very well supported on that front.

Um with that, um, kicking it over to Tony Levitt, who's leading the project uh for implementation of HB 1293.

Um he's gonna walk you through the overview of that.

He's also we also have John McGala, who's the staff lead is onto the design review board and has done a lot of design review in Kirkland.

Um this is a no action item for you tonight, so we're not asking for any action, kind of doing a similar briefing to the middle housing briefing you received uh at the end of last year.

So with that, I'll hand it over to Tony.

All right, great.

Thanks, Sally.

Yeah, Tony Levitt, uh senior planner with the planning department.

Um I am actively involved with uh multiple uh design review projects and have done multiple design review projects through through the years in in the city.

Um so let me dive into my presentation.

Um first off, um we're just kind of an overview of what we're gonna discuss a little bit tonight.

So I'll go on to the next slide.

Um House Bill 1293 uh became effective in July of 2023.

Uh complete copy of the bill was included as attachment one of the staff memo for tonight's meeting.

The bill requires that the city apply only clear and objective regulations to exterior design of develop of new development per the bill for the design review process, a clear and objective regulation must include one or more ascertainable guidelines, standard or criteria by which an applicant can determine whether a given building design is permissible under the that development regulation, and may not result in a reduction in density, height, bulk, or scale below the generally applicable development regulations for a development proposal in the applicable zone.

Additionally, the uh bill requires that the design review process be conducted concurrently with a review and decision process for project permits, and also that the design review process may not include more than one public meeting.

The regulations must be implemented by the city within six months of the periodic comprehensive plan update adoption, which means a deadline of June 30th of this year.

Um since 1999, the city has had a design review board process, which has since helped foster high quality urban design and buildings within the city's design districts.

Um the process involves review by either the design review board, DRB, as part of the public discretionary review process, or by staff as part of an administrative design review process.

Um the flow chart on the right kind of shows how the shows the process that um a design response application goes through.

Uh first step is the applicants come in for a pre-submittal.

Uh then we have them submit a CDC application.

Uh the conceptual design conference, uh, the design what that intended to do is for the applicant to provide uh three concepts of the project.

They always have a preferred concept that the board can look at and provide guidance for for the applicant as they move into the next step, which is the design response conference.

Umce they move into the design response conference, uh they submit an application, and that starts actually a more formal public review process.

Um so when we've determined the application has been complete, uh we issue a public notice for that project, um, including mailings and boards and and all that stuff.

And then um we start the design review process.

Typically, a design review board meet I'm sorry, design review board review of the design response conference takes at least two meetings.

We haven't occasionally had one, some have been three.

I would I would say on average it's it's probably two.

And that's usually about a I would say on average, probably a you know, four to five month process on that.

And then ultimately once everything has been completed and completed, including the environmental review will issue a approval of that decision.

As far as administrative staff uh design review is concerned, um that is uh strictly handled by um staff, and that process is done either prior to or as part of a building permit process, and um those standards are um more prescriptive in that they um are uh they outlines specific regulations that the applicant has to meet so that staff can review it.