The Planning Commission held a study session to receive a presentation from Blox Hub, a Danish urban sustainability organization, on the first phase of visioning work for the Totem Lake Southern Industrial Sub-area (CIS). The session focused on ideas for transforming the area while retaining existing businesses, improving connectivity, and exploring context-sensitive housing opportunities. Commissioners discussed implementation challenges, funding, and alignment with existing policy TL33.1, which requires a sub-area plan before zoning changes.
I'll go to comments from the audience. If you would like to speak, this is your time. You'll have three minutes. Please either approach the podium or raise your hand on Zoom if you would like to give public comment. We don't have anyone signed up in person, Chair. Cool. Anyone on Zoom? This is the last call for this public comment period. No. All right. We will move right along. We have no special presentations. We have just a study session. I'll let staff take it from here. Thank you, Chair Jacobson. And good evening, Commission. So exciting opportunity tonight to do something a little different for both commissioners and staff and our guests here tonight from Denmark. So very thrilled to welcome the block sub team here to Planning Commission tonight. We've been working with this team for the past several months in the Totem Lake Southern Industrial Sub-area. And this really came about through a unique opportunity that we got through a scan design foundation grant to help fund them to come over a couple times and really immerse themselves in the area, get to know the community a bit. We we want to share a little bit of the expertise that these different folks bring and the perspective that they've offered us into the area. So this is a great opportunity for the commission to be curious and ask questions. She's gonna give you a bit of an introduction of how we got here, and then we'll hear a lot from BlockSub tonight. So Martha? Thank you. Good evening. I'll present some background information about the area and the policies that we have in the comprehensive plan for the area. And then I'll pass it over to the Danish experts to present on our work and the inspiration that they've brought to us. And it kind of creates this green spine and opportunity for access to the rest of the Totem Lake neighborhood as well as down south to Central Kirkland. Forbes Creek also runs through the area on the southern end, but it is tucked away behind parking lots and buildings today. So this work and study was prompted by a request that the city received a couple years ago from the Parmac property owner to rezone multiple parcels to allow for a mixed-use high density residential development. And this request was put on pause, but it was the impetus of city council adopting new policy in the comprehensive plan to study the area and to explore how it could become more connected, safe, sustainable, and livable while still respecting the character uses and businesses that make it unique today. So I've summarized the applicable comprehensive plan policies here for some context. The first is the newer policy to develop a sub-area plan that meets these key objectives to retain businesses and the important buildings for the local economy and foster trail-oriented development and increase affordable housing supply. The policy is very specific in how this process will play out and this visioning work that we are presenting on today, phase one of that plan. So the existing zoning has limitations on where housing can be located within the housing incentive area shown in this map with the number four. And so it can be located there as well as other properties as long as they are of a certain size and as long as the development includes other uses. So there's restrictions on housing. So this work that we have been doing with Blocks Hub, as I as we've all been mentioning, is phase one of the sub-area planning process. And it's really focused on understanding the area and talking to businesses and really getting to know what's going on out there and how people view it. And as Alison mentioned, this work has been funded by a grant with the Scan Design Foundation and is the first step in this process. So with our friends here, we've gone out to the area and knocked on doors of all the businesses and talked to folks, and really have heard that there's this whole kind of synergistic network of businesses. There's a lot of construction suppliers where they, you know, they have one customer and then they say, Oh, you need a door, go down to my neighbor down the way. And so there's numerous businesses like that. Um, there's indoor recreation businesses and other uses that really require these large warehouse spaces that is at uh at a relatively affordable rent rate. Um we also learned that they're they're generally happy with the way things are. They enjoy the accessibility to the CKC and to the village at Totem Lake and to the freeway. Um recreation businesses. Um with our work with Blocks Hub, um, we've kind of we've we've had some workshops and developed these ideas with the community and then kind of sorted them out, and I'll let you explain all of it. Um to preface it, these ideas really help advance the sub-area policy goals because they are you know exploring the identity of the area.