Good evening.

I'm calling this meeting to order.

This is a Redmond City Council study session held on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, commencing at 7 p.m.

Council members in attendance include Council Vice President Nueva Camina, Councilmember Parsi, Councilmember Forsythe, Councilmember Sony, Councilmember PROCRIA, and myself, Council President Stewart.

We are expecting our seventh council member, and I will announce her when she arrives.

There are four items on our agenda tonight, and the first is a joint meeting with our planning commission, followed by amendments to the Redmond Municipal Code 6.36 noise standards and background on city grant funding for ALPR cameras in Redmond as well as council talk time.

So for this first item, our joint meeting with the planning commission.

Thank you all so much for being here.

I'm gonna turn it over to our long-range planning manager, Jeff Churchill to kick off the conversation.

Thank you, Jeff.

All right, and good evening, Council members and planning commissioners.

Uh it's good to be with you tonight.

Each year, the city council and planning commission meet together to review the commission's work plan and to discuss policy perspectives on one or more topics that will be on the commission's work plan in the upcoming year.

So tonight I'll provide an overview of the work program and introduce the policy discussion portion of the agenda that Lauren Alpert, um, who is also here with us will lead, uh which focuses on the city's response to Senate Bill 6026.

And if you don't know what that is, by the end of the meeting, you will.

Okay.

Um, in one sentence, the commission's work program in the coming year focuses on implementing REBIN 2050.

Uh many of you will recognize this slide from the dozens of study sessions, committee meetings, and business meeting during REBIN 2050.

And we put it here to remind everybody that REBIN2050 encompasses a broad set of topics.

That's shown in the top third of the slide.

And for the planning commission, uh, which advises the city council on land use policies and regulations.

Implementation of those policies can take the form of strategic updates and revisions to the policies themselves, which would be in the top third.

Development and adoption of functional plans, strategic plans, action plans, such as for utilities, parks, transportation, and others.

That would be in the middle third.

And then uh development and adoption and adoption of updates to the Redmond Zoning Code, which is part of the bottom third of the slide.

So this slide outlines some of the key work program items for the commission in the next 12 months.

In the commission elected officers in April and also concluded its review of temporary non-commercial signs in May.

That is coming to the council in June.

Um, and the planning commission is beginning to review the 2026-2027 comprehensive plan annual amendment docket starting tomorrow evening.

Next quarter, the commission will take up the annual code cleanup, receive early briefings on updates to design standards that will then come back again in 2027, and receive early briefings on updates to the tree code, which will come back again later in the year.

In the fourth quarter, the commission will begin review of individual comprehensive plan amendment docket items that are added to the docket by the council in August and begin to take up permanent regulations for commercial drone ports and review code updates related to compliance with House Bill 2418 concerning permit review.

That's one of two uh two house bills out of the legislature in 2026 that require a city response uh that involves the planning commission.

And then in the first quarter of next year, we anticipate continued review of docket items and permanent regulations for commercial drone ports, in addition to reviewing code updates to comply with House Bill 2266 concerning step housing, which is emergency shelters.

That's the S in step, transitional housing, emergency housing, and permanent supportive housing.

And now I'm gonna turn it over to Lauren to introduce um the discussion topic for this evening, which relates to another bill from the legislature that you you that you saw on the previous slide as individual docket items because it's one of those.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this this evening.

Um so the purpose and key element of SB 6026, it's been discussed here before, is to facilitate construction of housing in commercial and mixed use zones.

Um I will start there with an overview of SB 6026.

So we all have the sort of the same basic information.

Um it's intended to facilitate the construction of housing.

Uh it's one of the one of the uh legislative um priorities uh that the state put together uh this year to address housing and affordability.

Um requires local jurisdictions to allow housing in any commercial and mixed use zones.

It limits the conditions that can be placed on the development of residential uses in such zones.

So SB 6026 does not imply in industrial zones, it does not require the demolition of historic landmarks, it doesn't apply in any of our shoreline jurisdictions or where local regulations prohibit multifamily or mixed use development, and it doesn't apply in critical area buffers.

Um the preemption condition the preemption on conditions that can be placed on residential development are also limited.

So what does that mean?

Uh cities can continue to require ground floor commercial square footage on 40% of the land area zoned for commercial and mixed use.

So we can still require some mixed use.

And when calculating the 40% figure, certain land is excluded.

So station areas, areas where buildings get can be built at least 85 feet, um, and all of the areas listed on the the previous slide.

So the ground floor area requirements uh also cannot be applied to publicly funded affordable housing.

So where does that leave Redman?

How does that apply to our area?

Uh in Redmond, right now the business park and manufacturing zones do not currently allow housing.

Um that's all that so SB6026 would require that local jurisdictions allow housing in those zones.

So that includes, for example, our southeast part of our uh Southeast Redmond Manufacturing Industrial Park.

Uh now in Redmond, the neighborhood also the neighborhood mixed use zone has a commercial requirement that does not allow 80 foot uh 80 foot tall buildings.

So therefore the city would have to limit the commercial floor area requirement to just 40 percent of the neighborhood mixed use zone.

So one of the things we wanted to discuss tonight, you know, as we look at this regulations and as we've been having this discussion about manufacturing land in Redmond and housing in Redmond, um, we wanted to ask you as we explore this docket item.

Um what sort of questions do council member and commissioners have that we can address?