Margaret Bunyall, Aaron Jacobson.

Here.

Gina Medea.

Julia Nolan.

Here.

Scott Ricer?

Here.

Angela Rosman.

Here.

Rodney Rutherford.

Here.

All right.

Do we have anyone who would like to make public comment to start out the meeting?

Good evening.

Planning commissioners and staff.

I wanted to make some comment about the discussion around reducing parking requirements with Senate Bill 5184, your primary topic for the evening.

I do applaud the goals of increasing economic development, yes.

Reducing the cost of housing, yes.

A plug for please can we spend some time planning how we're going to accommodate more people and more vehicles due to those changes.

It's interesting, the memo mentions that we have empty parking lots around town, and that is that's correct.

I tend to see those empty parking lots in older developments, uh, where there's not very many businesses or some of the businesses are closed, or there's not a lot of housing.

Um yes, there's a big surface lot and not very busy.

Um, with the new newer developments that have gone in, I'm seeing full parking lots.

Um the uh village at Totem Lake, uh, the uh Google offices at Kirkland Urban.

Now that there's a back to office mandate, those parking lots are those parking garage spots are full and they're spilling over into the retail lots.

Uh and another interesting issue.

I have a good friend who lives at the Pine apartments, the new apartments up off Forbes Creek, and she has she's a single mom, works two jobs, has young kids, and she often can't get her kids and groceries out of the car because the spaces are so small that they can't open their doors.

Um so they have some parking spaces, but they're small.

Um, so and all those developments I just mentioned were built with the current rules and the HB SB 5184, that would decrease the requirements for parking quite significantly.

Uh that would have been a whole different story beyond what we're even seeing today with these developments under the old rules.

So we are going to reduce the requirements because that's the state law.

Um, and we just have to get really serious about finding ways that we can accommodate more people, more vehicles.

It can be walkable neighborhoods, it can be multimodal transportation, it can be more transit.

All of those are great.

Uh they take time and they take money.

Our transportation strategic plan and future plan is full of unfunded projects that we'd all we'd love to have them.

Um, but somehow we have to figure out how we're gonna accommodate the the density and the increase.

So thank you so much.

Look forward to the evening.

Thank you.

Anyone else like to speak?

If you're online, you can raise your hand.

Otherwise, um, I think we're good to head on into the study session.

All right, thank you, Chair Rosman.

Um, so tonight we have a study session for you on our implementation task to um implement the state parking bill.

Um we did talk to council about this last week, and we're gonna talk to you about what direction council gave us.

Not asking for any decisions from the planning commission tonight, but we do have a few questions for you to help us finalize the draft code amendments.

Um, with you tonight to walk you through it all is our senior planner Martha Rhubar.

Great, thank you.

Good evening, commissioners.

Um I'll be presenting tonight on the parking requirements under Senate Bill 5184 that the city is required to comply with.

Um feel free to interrupt me with any questions, and I will have some questions in the slides as we go, so I'll pause for discussion on each topic.

Um just one moment here.

Great, thank you.

Okay, here we go.

So tonight I'll go, I'll start with an overview of the Senate Bill 5184 requirements, and then I'll go into covering what we currently require for parking and the project scope and timeline of this, and then the topics that we are seeking feedback from planning commission on tonight, which is the station area, commercial space, ADU, and bicycle parking.

And then I'll touch on the topics needing more research, the public outreach plan, and I'll end with staff's questions.

So starting with the bill itself, this was passed in 2025, and it limits the on-site parking that cities may require for commercial and residential uses.

This is the first set of requirements, limiting the spaces for single family and multifamily developments and the spaces for all commercial spaces.

And here's the list of uses that the bill says that cities may not require any minimum parking for.