Okay.

Recording in progress.

Good evening.

I'd like to call to order the June 1st, 2023 Planning Commission regular meeting.

We'll start with roll call, Ms.

Hoxman.

Commissioner Brinson.

Here.

Commissioner Callahan.

Here.

Commissioner Galusca.

Present.

Commissioner Lynn.

Here.

Vice Chair Wama Shonja?

Present.

And Chair Sager?

Here.

Thank you.

Oh, how did I miss you?

Oh, hey, Commissioner Mosier.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next item is approval of the agenda.

Does anybody wish to make any changes to the agenda?

No.

Great.

Approval of the minutes from May 18th, 2023.

Does anybody have anything they want to amend with the amendments?

No.

Thank you.

That brings us to general public comment.

Ms.

Hoaxman, is there anybody signed up for general public comment tonight?

We have no uh public comment this evening.

Very well, thank you.

All right, that brings us to our study item transfer of development rights program development code amendment.

All right, thank you, Steve Saffron, Senior Planner.

And I'm back to kind of follow up what we spoke about a couple weeks ago about uh a potential TDR program.

So uh quickly going over uh what it is, it's uh unit of development that's saved in the uh or uh placed in the urban area while saving those uh developments in um our rural farm and forest lands and um why are we doing this?

Um well really uh we've had comprehensive plan policies in uh the city's comprehensive plan since the incorporation of the city that spoke in some way to establishing and supporting the state's uh transfer and development development rights program, which um furthers the regional climate goals.

Uh the timing of light rail could lend itself to actually taking um advantage of the program.

Um it does uh help the city fund those public amenities that additional density brings into the city.

So the TDR program is really simply a set of development code regulations that encourage the sale of uh the TDRs.

Um this is typically done through incentives.

Um the uh the counties uh establish uh price for those TDRs to save those farm and um forest lands, and then that allows the city to uh keep a portion of the King County taxes that we may use for things street uh frontage infrastructure, um it was expanded to potentially fund affordable housing and other things that the city needs for this additional density that comes in.

So the um the proposal is to allow TDRs and these incentives to imply in these areas outlined in the map.

So really it's the within these designations, the R48 neighborhood business, community business, um, and the um 45 and 70 zones.

Um the height incentives are are proposed in the zones on your screen, um R48, neighborhood business and community business potentially going up to 70 feet, um, and the MUR70 potentially going to 140 feet with the sale of TDRs.

Uh the two zones that parking incentives uh would apply to is the MUR 45 and 70 um zones as the commission's aware um staff did uh give you a list of existing incentives that we already have in our development code.

Um we have parking incentives, we already have height incentives with different programs like the deep green incentive program or the retention of significant trees would all get you uh, for example on the screen, uh additional heights.

Um the commission did have some concerns and questions uh from the last time we met on this topic, and these are addressed in more detail in your staff report, but one of the uh first question was how does the purchase of TDRs translate into additional building height?

And those kind of examples were um shown in the staff report, but that one TDR equals a certain amount of building square footage, so we wouldn't have to know the footprint of the building, and then we just add that onto the next story, and that's how many TDRs you would have to buy.

Um the second question was uh you know, what will the increase heights look like, and does allowing the additional height interfere with the city's vision?

And um I think the uh the staff report kind of explained that the mixed use residential zones and the commercial zones kind of anticipated more um intense development and additional heights, but in perhaps the R 48 zone where those act as a tr transition between the lower height single family and the um commercial zones, that's more of a uh of an impact when you go from 40 feet to perhaps 70 feet.

So um that may be more of an impact to those people that live around those areas.

Um then the the third question was how much money does the city expect to receive um you know, breaking it down on a yearly um basis anywhere between four and seven hundred thousand dollars a year uh potentially to um fund the city's um programs uh most likely probably street and sidewalk meeting that's with those kind of funds is um kind of the desire there if this goes forward.

Um looking forward to the commission's public hearing on this topic, um there's um some different options the planning commission could um look at recommending to council um option one would just be to recommend the proposed amendments, how they are shown in in the attachment.

Um option two, you could recommend that the council uh not adopt the proposed amendments.