Thank you.

All right, everyone, welcome to the Wednesday, January 7th meeting of the City Council Business and Community Affairs Committee.

This meeting is actually rescheduled from New Year's Day last week, so that's why we're having it on a Wednesday this week.

But uh we excited we have one item on our agenda today, uh being a discussion for determining direction for future development code regulations, chapter 30 and 36, previously minimum lot size discussion.

I believe that Ms.

Jane Hudson has a short presentation for us.

I do, thank you.

So you summed it up pretty well with the agenda item title there, but just for those uh watching as a staff, they did they we uh presented the findings uh regarding the minimum lot size back in December.

Um we've had multiple discussions about this, you know, and and we also have that grant coming in, so that's always been something that we've you know been concerned with making a lot of changes before we do that.

But um, between the December 5th and today, we went back and we uh looked at some of our PUDs that have come through, and so I just wanted to have some of those guidelines that we could kind of outline today as well, and um just give us a basis of you know where we might go.

But um the PUDs that we've seen, and and I I mean it's probably been the last 20 years, so we went back pretty far, but we went back far because I wanted everybody to understand that this has been going on for a long time.

Uh but just on average, the front yard setbacks have been zero up to 20.

Uh 14 and 15 being the most common, and then of course the additional required setbacks for the garages currently, and I put in forens here that we know what our current setbacks are, front yards 25.

Uh but through these PUDs that have come forward, you know, they've varied.

The side yard setbacks, those have typically stayed at five feet.

Some of them have had a zero lot line when they've done the design and they know they're gonna skip a lot and they've continued on with that zero lot line, but for the most part, we've had five foot setbacks.

The most common rear yard setback within these PUTs, it is 10 feet.

Some of them even have an allowance to go uh back to the back property line with uncovered paved areas, and then our standard currently is is the 20 feet.

The overall coverage that we've seen through the PUTs uh has gone up to about 75 percent.

There may be some that are at 80, but for the most part, I think 75 is what we've what we've seen.

Currently we have uh 65 as our requirement.

We talked about this as well a couple times, the opportunities for creative development.

We've talked about the short form plat process, uh allowing the larger lots within, and we see those within the core area uh already having uh infrastructure provided to it, but we've seen some of those opportunities where they can uh process a short form plat and create two lots, uh three lots out of a larger lot that's been left over, and then also we included the the PUTs and the spUDs because that is our opportunity for creative development that we have right now, right?

Um we have some initial legal considerations, and this really goes back to what we had been talking about when we were talking about zero setbacks or zero uh side yards and the coverage requirements, and I'm going to let Beth Muckala with legal go over this slide for you because you can have questions about yeah.

So I was asked just kind of spotlight the discrete legal issues that appeared to me.

And this was following the December presentation where the minimum lot size discussion kind of evolved, and it became clear we're not just talking about the area of the lot, we're talking about other development standards like setbacks.

Um the first thing, uh and it's really what I put in the staff report, is really summarized well here.

The first biggest thing I noticed was hey, those numbers that we're talking about are all the numbers that literally the BOA is charged to enforce and vary.

So if we don't have numbers, what are they doing?

So we need to think about how we're impacting that process and how they would function in a situation if we were to move to a recommendation only standard.

So that's the first one.

Um the second is just a matter of zoning enforcibility, and I the word zoning is very um important here because we talked about administrative only processes.

Well, city staff isn't empowered to give statutory notice and a public hearing to enact a zoning change.

So if people are determining their own numbers and they're bringing it through that process, we don't have something that can be enforced through zoning.

It doesn't become zoning.

So that's another thing to think about.

And the third thing is, and this is actually probably the one that's on everyone's radar to some extent.

If we make it recommendation only and we make it administrative, what is staff using to evaluate?

What are the parameters we're going to give them to know?

This is when they can say to an applicant, we need you to do this in order to protect the city's interests here or this commercial buffer there.

So there's a lot of those little things.

I just wanted to summarize them quickly.

Well, I think you highlighted the reason why it's come back today, is as we kind of I used the analogy last night, pulling threads.

You know, as we start to pull a thread, it's like you know, you start to unravel more threads come out, more things you've got to chase down.

So we kind of had Miss Hudson, Ms.

Michael, um she's over there.

We had a brief call over the break, um, just talking about you know what's the real world applicability of what we're trying to do here.

And so I think you know, taking a couple steps back looking at all the issues and all the potential pitfalls is uh kind of why we're back here today.

So thank you.

So moving forward uh and identifying the priorities that as we uh establish the um scope, establish the contract with Clarion for the updates that they're going to be looking at, the priorities that we will reinforce to them is what we've been talking about, you know, the lot size, setbacks, street frontage, coverage, uh, you know, and and I think it'll be really good to have that platform while there's no numbers here, it really reinforces to them and what they can reinforce to the community as we move forward that this is something that matters to council, and and as it's you know, we say here that you know you will be briefed throughout this process as they work on the rewrite, but we will continue to go back to these priorities that we've established here.

So um yeah, just to let everybody know that's kind of what we landed on in that discussion is that instead of trying to create the rules, the you know, all the legalese, flush it all out ourselves.

Why not instead we identify what the priorities are for us as a council, give those to the consultant and let them go put the puzzle together?

Um, you know, for me it's not just residential properties.

The more I thought about this, like we should be talking about commercial properties as well, which is a whole nother set, a whole other bucket of worms that could potentially take five, six, seven of these meetings, and it's just seems counterproductive to just sit here and rehash the thing over and over when we're hiring a consultant that is tasked with doing exactly what we're trying to do here today.

So identify priorities, make sure that it's caught codified is not the right word, make sure it's um established given to the consultant and then cut them loose.

Councilmember Brennan.

Um I was gonna ask for the technical committee.

What might be the timeline uh for assembling them?

Like we have to do the contract with Clarion.

Is that like a month-long process just to get uh that contract?