I'd like to call to order the City Council study session of August 12th, 2025.

Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Councilmember Bushnell President.

Deputy Mayor Daniels, absent, Councilmember Diaz.

Councilmember Diaz.

Here.

Councilmember Heinz.

Councilmember Rumba here.

Councilmember Sidalgay absent.

Councilmember Scott.

Here.

Councilmember Walker.

Here.

Mayor Woodards.

Absent the study session material sent to you at 11.

All right.

I move to appoint Councilmember Hines as presiding officer of the city council for this meeting while the mayor attends the meeting virtually and until the deputy mayor arrives.

Second.

All right.

Are there any questions, comments, or any questions or comments?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Okay, the motion is clearly adopted.

All right.

With that.

Can we do the second item first or do we need to wait?

So I'm going to look over to city manager.

We had a question about maybe rotating the items.

Do we have the people here so we can do that or first of all?

First question.

Madam Mayor, are you online at this point in time?

It looks like she is not.

Okay.

So with that, decision's been made.

All right.

So our first Jen item is the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District Code Update Public Hearing.

And I'd like to call on uh planning and development services, senior planner Mary Marion to begin the presentation.

Oh, and they're gonna come.

I should probably just invite it to begin the presentation, but I should just invite you up to the table to join us.

There you go.

Um do we have the PowerPoint?

There we go.

Okay.

Um all right, good afternoon.

My name is Mirya Muinion.

Uh I'm the senior planner with the planning and development services department.

Uh I'm here today with uh Dana de Leon uh from Environmental Services and Glenn George from Tacoma Water to provide um a presentation on the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection Industry Code update.

We also have um Esther Boumier and Erin Dilworth from Tacoma Pierce County Health Department.

Um to help uh answer any questions you may have.

Um today's goal is to prepare you for the public hearing on the South Tacoma Ground Weather Protection Industry Code Update.

Uh we'll start with some background on the South Tacoma Ground Weather Protection District, including what the uh uh what this overlay zone does.

Um then we'll talk about why this work is so important based on the findings of the IRP update NHIA.

Uh from there, we'll go over the changes.

Um the planning commission has recommended to strengthen groundwater protection along with additional recommendations that go beyond the code update.

Um we'll also highlight the outreach we have done over the past year and a half.

Um, and finally we're gonna wrap it up with next steps in the process.

I will now hand it over to Glenn to um um talk about the background of the CGPD and uh um basically the find the key findings from the IRP update.

Okay, thank you, Mary.

I'm Glenn George with Tacoma Water.

Um I'm gonna give you a 35,000 foot view of the background regarding the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District, and then our really quick overview of what the IRP found or integrated resource plan found.

So the IR the uh South Talkoma Groundwater Protection District was established in 1988, which was before the Growth Management Act and before any of the CARE regulations in the state.

So um we were ahead of the curve on uh trying to protect our groundwater.

Uh the South uh its purpose, of course, is to protect the groundwater in the South Tacoma uh area from industrial contamination.

The overlay area prohibits incompatible land uses and establishes standards for things like hazardous substance storage, infiltration, spill prevention, and possibly most importantly, inspections, testing, and enforcement.

And there's a group of agencies that have different areas of expertise surrounding the groundwater protection district, including the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, Tacoma Water Environmental Services Group, and the Planning and Development Services.

And then moving on to you know why this area matters so much to the city of Tacoma.

It's actually part of the integrated resource planning effort that Tacoma just undertook.

The integrated resource plan is done, and I'm going to bring that to the council in the fall for your concurrence on its uh findings.

And in the meantime, I'm going to give you this 35,000-foot overview of what we found.

I'd like to point out first of all that we did a it's a long-term planning effort, and there's a typo on this page.

And so it's much longer range than you might have thought by just reading this slide.

And what the general findings are that Tacoma will increasingly rely on groundwater in the future years due to the population growth and then unknown climate change.

What will climate change do to us?

And we think it's going to cause an increased reliance on groundwater.

And the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District or the South Tacoma area is where we do receive a vast majority of our groundwater.

And so it's critical to our long-term water reliability.

The way the way the this ties together with the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District code update is it just basically reinforces the need to protect the water in South Tacoma.

And it justifies the stronger protections, and it acts as a guiding policy alignment between land use and water planning.

And during our effort in the IRP, we we did have a public advisory committee.

We met five times from May of 2024, and then we had our last meeting in January of 2025.

And we uh we discussed a variety of um uh topics that would impact uh Tacoma Water's ability to serve water, and one of those topics obviously was the South Tacoma groundwater uh aquifers.

Um people on the committee uh were from all different um uh walks of life.

We had uh other jurisdictions that are near us, we had regulators uh such as the Department of Health on our committee, and we actually had a citizen from the South Toma Neighborhood Council uh on our committee as well.

And I thought the the committee meetings were um very uh informative and very well done, and I enjoyed um hearing what they had to say.

And that's really um all I had to say today.

Thank you, Glenn.

Um we're going to talk about uh the HIA.

Um the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department conducted um an HIA to evaluate how the existing SCGPD code is affecting community health with a focus on groundwater quality, groundwater quantity, and air quality.

Uh the HIA found that residents in the SGPD area are more vulnerable to environmental health risks than others in Pierce County.

Um it emphasized that protecting the aquiferi is not just an environmental concern, it's also a critical public health priority.

Uh the findings helped shape land use regulations aimed at reducing contamination risk and highlighted the public health benefits of updating the code to ensure the community perspectives were incorporated throughout the process.

An advisory group was formed between July of 2024 and March of 2025.

Uh the HIA advisory group met five times with members representing Tacoma residents, regulated businesses, and a representative from the South Tacoma Neighborhood Council to share insights and guide the work.

Here is a high-level overview of what's um changing before we go into a few of these in more detail later.

Um these tasks were identified in the council adopted work plan, and the proposed changes come from uh the planning commission's recommendations.

Currently, the CGPD code doesn't connect to our critical areas preservation ordinance and isn't clearly aligned with the GMA's designation of critical aquifer recharge areas.

The update fixes that by formally establishing the SCGPD as a CARA under both the GMA and CAPO and recognizing it as part of the central Pierce County Swan Source Aquifer or SSA.

The boundaries of the SCGPD are being updated to include the manitou neighborhood and to reflect wellhead protection area time of travel zones.

I will cover the high impact use standards in detail later, but at a high level, the update introduces a tiered protection approach based on the vulnerability of different areas within the aquifer.

For the definition of periodic update, the current code calls for periodic updates to the high impact use list, but doesn't specify how often what criteria to use or who should be involved.

The update clarifies that reviews will happen at least once every 10 years in line with the GMA's periodic update schedule.

Best available science will be used to evaluate new or evolving threats.

The process will now involve environmental services, Tacoma Water, in addition to PDS and Tacoma Pierce County Health Department.

As for enforcement, the Toma Pierce County Health Department currently leads enforcement, starting with voluntary compliance before escalating to formal actions.

The update is strengthening this by adding tools such as stop work and stop use orders for serious or emergency violations, allowing faster action when the aquifer is at risk.

For the general program awareness, today is basically the education currently, like the education is mostly tied to enforcement and is focused on regulated businesses.

The update expands outreach to both businesses and residents, directing the city and the health department to promote best practices for protecting carers and to increase awareness for water conservation.

The update also emphasizes infiltration as a preferred stormwater management method, where it's safe and adds limits on maximum lot coverage in industrial zones to improve recharge and manage water runoff.

For landscaping, new standards are proposed for industrial zones in the CGPD, the South Tacoma Manufacturing and Industrial Center, and the Tacoma Mall Regional Growth Center.

These standards will help infiltrate stormwater, limit in previous surfaces, cool the environment, and provide wildlife habitat.

The current SGPD map had two key gaps.

It didn't include the Manitoba neighborhood annexed into the city in 2024, and it didn't show the full extent of the central Pierce County source source aquifer, even though it even though basically it underlies the SCGPD.

The planning commission's recommendation, which is now reflected in the draft code, updates the CGPD map to include manitou and adds a new map showing both the wellhead protection area time of travel zones within the district and the full source source aquifer boundary.

Currently, the overlay zone prohibits seven high impact uses with five additional uses prohibited by the underlying base zoning.

The draft code introduces a tiered protection framework that reflects the vulnerability of different areas within the aquifer.

This framework uses wellhead protection area time of travel zones, which estimate how long it takes potential contaminants to reach a well.

It includes areas where groundwater or contaminants could reach a well within one year.

The 10-year zone includes areas where water takes up to 10 years to reach a well.

These zones are most more vulnerable compared to the rest of the SDGPD.

This tiered protection system aligns with state guidance that supports protections tailored to vulnerability and travel time.

This approach clearly distinguishes between uses that are prohibited and those that may be allowed with conditions.

For example, under the draft code, auto repair shops would be prohibited in the one-year zone, but could operate with an SCGPD permit in the 10-year time of travel zone or other parts of the SDGPD.

The draft code also proposes to permanently prohibit it the users that are temporarily prohibited by the moratorium.

I would now hand it off to Dana who will walk you through the remaining items on the scope of work.

Thank you.

So first thing I'm going to talk about is stormwater infiltration.

Stormwater infiltration is actually regulated citywide under our Washington State stormwater MPDS permit and the Washington State Underground Injection Controls regulation.

And through those two requirements, we manage, we have our stormwater management manual where stormwater infiltration is the preferred management method with standards built in to protect groundwater from contamination.

So the current status for the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District regarding this stormwater infiltration, it's in the existing code, but it primarily focuses on protecting groundwater from contamination and does not emphasize the importance of recharge in the CARAS.

So the recommendation from the planning commission is to affirm that infiltration as the preferred stormwater management method in CARAs and provided that the infiltrated water meets quality standards to protect the groundwater infrastructure infrastructure or groundwater resources and in addition to require soil contamination assessments to evaluate infiltration feasibility and potential risk.

These recommendations can be found on exhibit A, page 13 of 13.

Next slide.

So we have the management of impervious surfaces and its effect is currently regulated under by city policies and Tacoma Municipal Code.

In Tacoma Code 1208D and the Stormwater Management Manual, if a new or redevelopment project site is 2,000 square feet or greater, it must apply what we call minimum requirement number five, which is low impact development methods.

And if a project area is 5,000 square feet or greater, it must meet what we call minimum requirement number seven in the Tacoma Municipal Code for stormwater flow control, and both of these conditions must meet minimum requirement number six, which is stormwater treatment.

The one Tacoma plan also includes policies that support the preservation of open space and of open space to for infiltration and recharge.

But the recommendation of the planning commission for additional impervious surface standards are adding language to Tacoma Municipal Code 13, including developing the new landscape standards in South Tacoma Industrial District and Tacoma Mall Regional Facility Regal Center, and also establishing a maximum lot coverage for industrial districts.

Again, these recommendations can be found on exhibits B, C, and D.

Next slide.

So the planning commission's recommendations were unanimous to adopt proposed code amendments using best available science, aligning with the one Tacoma plan, the Pugistound Regional Council Vision 2050, and all state mandates.

And this is to be done while balancing economic development and environmental protection.

Additional requirements are listed on the slide above here, including prioritizing contaminated site remediation, exploring renaming South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District Overlay Zone to reflect its citywide water significance, reinforcing infiltration as the preferred stormwater management method in the CARAS and apply stricter infiltration and LID best management practices within the groundwater protection district.

Is fully within the Flat Creek watershed, and then coordinate with the regional partners to develop consistent protections from central Pierce County sole source aquifer and finally ensure future updates to reflect health equity priorities from the HIA and address disparities from environmental exposure.

Next slide.

So throughout this process, starting in March of 2024 through today, PDS has reached out and engaged the public in at over 13 events, and we've had two advisory committees, including those listed here on the slide.

ES Tacoma Pierce County Health Department and Tacoma Water have supported PDS and attended many of these events to answer questions and inform the public on each of our elements associated with this with the groundwater protection district code update.

Next slide.

And the next steps for the code update are shown here on the slide.

And so August 12th tonight, public hearing, and then August 19th study session again with the public hearing debrief for all of you.

And then August 26, the first reading of the ordinance, September 9th, the final reading of the ordinance.

And this schedule will approve the or ordinance before our current moratorium expires, which is on September 20th.

Thank you.

And back to Mary.

Thank you, Dana.

This concludes our presentation, and we welcome any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mary Ann.

Are there thank you for the presentation?

Are there any questions?

And I'll kick it over to Councilmember Bush now.

Thank you, presiding officer Hines.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

I know this has been a really long time coming, so really appreciate all the work that you guys have done, as well as everybody else in the community that's taken part of this.

It's been a really long endeavor, and there's been a lot of engagement.

So just it's I'm glad we're finally kind of getting towards the end here.

Um one of the questions I had and specifically is um uh during the planning commission recommendations, they talk about use of best available science.

It's my understanding that we already do that.

So I I'm just trying to understand that definition.

What what's what's different about this than what my understanding of it is currently, or is it just kind of more of a we're gonna continue doing what we need to do?

So um basically we use the best available science to update the code.

And that was done through the IRP, the consultant that uh we hired um or Tacoma Water hired.

Um they did basically uh an extensive review of the state regulations and compared our code against basically the um state regulations to identify the gaps.

Um they uh uh reviewed other jurisdictions regulations, um, and uh there is like a um critical and um um aquiferial recharge areas manual that ecology has that uh basically provides guidance uh for jurisdictions to use when they are updating their code.

And uh um HDR also uh used basically this um guidance to um do this study and uh they made some recommendations um that we presented to the IPS committee on um January of this year.

Um and uh the technical memo that they produced is available um on the website if you're interested to um know more about it.

But uh that's basically um study informed uh was one of the basically uh tools that informed uh the code updates in addition to the IRP update, in addition to the HIA.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

And then the other question I have is on the um what's changing in the code.

Um you had talked about the high impact standards uh changes.

Uh is my understanding that um even though it's uh prohibited currently under the moratorium underground storage and auto-wrecking facilities after the passage of this uh in the future is gonna allow those uses again, um, but with under different standards.

Is that is that my understanding that correctly?

So the existing uses, they can for basically the underground storage tanks and specifically for these two uses that are prohibited by the moratorium.

Um they the existing uses can continue operating and in case of basically um failure or if they need to make improvements like for the underground surge tanks, for example, like they can make those changes and they can continue under the uh non-conforming um use like regulations that we have in the code.

Okay, so um any new ones, yes, new you uh any new permits of this type would not be allowed.

Yes, that's correct.

Yeah.

Got it.

Um, and then just to clarify also for um uh metal recycling and auto-wrecking facilities.

Um uh one of the things that we changed during the moratorium was if there uh is improvements to be made for like environmental standards and things of that nature, or if there's uh shown to be an environmental benefit for um uh the existing use is that was allowed.

Is that still gonna be allowed under the the new code?

Yes, yes, that's correct.

Because um again, like we are allowing like basically the current but the change of code doesn't prohibit operating like the existing uses.

So they can continue if they need to make any improvements, they can definitely do it.

Um and uh uh if there's like any expansion that they want to do, they have to follow the regulations that we have under the non-conforming use.

Um but um basically like the the code allows them like to continue operating, and that means like they can make improvements um um to the facility.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair Hines.

All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Um Bushnell.

Uh Councilmember Walker.

Um thank you.

Just um really quick, thank you for all this work.

I know how much you all have been doing over the past couple years on here and I uh on this project, and uh it's it's so important.

Um I had a similar question to Councilmember Bushnell on that best available science, so thank you for answering that.

Um can you give me the date of when the planning commission passed this?

I believe it was June 18.

Okay, great.

I just want to go back and look at for the public comments.

Um, and then also um underground storage tanks.

I know you know some of them are working, need updating.

It sounds like those will be allowed, but there are a lot that have been decommissioned.

There used to be a lot of money in Brownfield cleanup.

Is does that still exist?

Maybe that's a health department question, I don't know.

It does still exist, yes.

Okay, yeah.

So this relates to that and potentially other um you know parts of the changes of the code.

Is the city have capacity to help people find that money to update their site to figure out how to develop their site in a way that matches the code?

How much assistance are we able to give, and is it any different than any other site throughout the city?

We don't have any money to actually give them, but we can provide through um I hit the environmental programs group, and we can assist them finding their who they need to talk to and basically work with the part department of ecology and the um health department.

So okay, great.

Um, and I think maybe that's kind of maybe part of a further conversation, and maybe this is I should talk to Deputy Mayor Daniels about EDC and how we support businesses as we make these changes.

Because I think there's you know lots of good changes in here, important things that maybe are complicated to a business that doesn't work in this space and helping support them get to the answer we all want to get to, I think would be really valuable.

So maybe that's a future discussion, but appreciate the work and then I'm looking forward to hearing from the public today.

Thanks.

All right, thank you, Councilman Walker.

Uh Councilmember Rama.

Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank you for all of this work.

I'm really um excited to see.

I just looked at the letter from the planning commission to understand what they wanted.

Um, I just um based on what council member Bushnell asked about, that was one of my questions.

I was just curious of the uses that are already located there that are non-conforming.

How many of them are in an area that you consider a one-year TOT?

Um, we haven't done a count of like these uses to see how many um are in one-year time of travel zone.

Yeah, because that that would be interesting to know, just because those would be like I assume we'd want to be paying attention to those ones.

Um just thinking about the recycling metal recycling place that I know has had violations before and they've had to remove soil and stuff like that.

And so I'm just curious about what it looks like long term for this area, if you know, since we're allowing these businesses to stay there.

I just I'm just curious what we're gonna how we will move from what we're saying are non-conforming to making sure that they are following our new standards.

So um if I'm understanding your question correctly, like are you specifically referring to the metal recycling use or or I'm referring to like that one and then some of the other ones that would be would not be allowed any longer.

They'd be prohibited.

And if they're in a one the one year travel zone, I would I would think we'd be paying it more attention to them, possibly.

Is that true or not?

So seeing some of those uses are basically, I mean, they're visit, they're already established uses, um, they can continue operating.

The change of code doesn't basically prohibit them from continuing their business.

But we have besides the CGPD code, we have uh other regulations and uh monitoring like basically mechanisms that Tacoma Pierce County Health Department uses.

Um stormwater has like Stormwater Group like has some regulations, so we're still enforcing those, and if there's like any um So you'll notice that as well as okay, that's great.

Thank you so much.

That's helpful.

Yeah, they have um the stormwater source control group, uh they have annual business inspections, and so they they note something, and if they're permitted by the health department, the health department also has inspections.

So they are currently regulated for how they operate and how their umities affect stormwater and infiltration.

I always learn a new thing, City.

Yeah, okay.

And then the other question I had was about the added language to TMC Title 13 to limit impervious service.

So it says develop new landscaping standards for the South Tacoma industrial districts and Tacoma Ma R GC.

What I mean, that's pretty broad.

What does that mean?

So we added some um lot maximum load coverage standards for uh this specific basically um Tacoma Mall Regional Growth Center and industrial zones.

Because I know in this area there there was a school that was opened and then it was closed, and I think it's been sold, and that was the open space for this area, and there's no park in this area.

Really, there's no open space.

I'm just curious, does this is that is that is a plan that there might be a park there or yeah, I'm not sure.

Okay, because that's I mean, when I think about landscaping, I was thinking more broad than just landscaping.

But so this basically um new regulations that um planning commission like um added or recommended to add to the code.

Um those are for um new developments, new developments.

Yes, okay.

Yeah, all right.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Right, big council.

Councilmember Scott.

Thank you.

Um thank you for this update.

Um I think a few of my questions have already been uh asked and answered.

I guess so with the like the critical area ordinance, does that will that have any impact on how like permitting decisions are made?

Does it impact the considered the critical years preservation ordinance?

So that is actually being done separately from uh the SCGPD code update.

And uh it's actually they um they are having their public hearing like um August 20th.

So they're there are new basically um um changes being made to uh the CAPO ordinance or the critical preservation ordinance, uh and that's basically part of it is like the CARA outside or the critical lack of reject areas outside of the STGPD that is gonna basically go before the planning commission and they release the the draft for public review right now and there is a public hearing, and then hopefully we can have a um basically planning commission recommendation in September and it's gonna come back um to council.

Um but for this uh process, the CGPD code update after um the council adopts this, then um basically for any new development that would want to basically come to the SGPD area, um they have to follow the new um regulations.

Um and so how will are we gonna be able to like track and verify like compliance like of all the various things how how do we keep an eye on it and then if we're is there any changes to like if we're finding anybody's out of compliance, is there um what's our enforcement look like for violation?

So through the um stormwater inspection and wastewater inspection program that the environmental services does, they have records of every time they visit the properties, and if there's anything out of compliance, they send them a letter first to recommend certain changes, and so they go all the way from recommending and working with them, educating them on the changes they need to protect the stormwater and wastewater, and then you know it uh we're allowed uh in code enforcement if we have if we need to.

And then you know, it uh we're allowed uh in code enforcement if we have if we need to.

And then I the health department has the same procedure where they um go and inspect and then give back recommendations to the businesses on what they need to do to um correct things that they found that were wrong.

Is there like a specific timeline on um I mean it maybe it's based on the type of issue, but is there a period between like we notify you about the the issue, these are the recommended fixes, and you have to do that.

Depending on the fixes, it's 30 days or 60 days.

Okay, and if it's a large capital commitment, I think it goes out to 90 days.

So okay.

Um and I think I read one of the um recommendations from the planning commission was to have like site remediation be mandatory before redevelopment.

Did that I don't know if I I might have missed it, trying to keep up with it, but it did that make it into these code updates?

So that's basically the planning commission recommendation that goes beyond the code update.

Okay.

That we can do in addition to this um code editing's frontal few.

Where would where would that be addressed?

If not in the uh I'm not sure.

Um anybody on the theme?

Isn't there a CEPA?

Sorry.

All right, I'll turn the microphone on.

Um, I think uh that that's something we'd be happy to to look into.

I think the current recommendations, and you can correct me if I'm if I'm wrong, or generally that uh the commission is really in support of trying to accelerate and make available more funding to be able to support businesses to do proactive uh cleanup in terms of requiring that as something we could certainly talk about and and get back to you on that question.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I think those are all my questions for the moment.

Thank you, guys.

All right, thank you, Councilman Scott.

Are there any other questions?

Um all right.

Well, seeing that I have one question, which is um the well head protection area travel time zones.

Um I guess my question, this is probably more weedsy and then I like to get here, but you know how are those a sta is there a code that has that anywhere in anywhere we know that uses that to generate kind of land use decisions?

Um those times of travel are generated at the state department of ecology, I believe generates those.

And they are um they are all done by equations.

Um and that's why if you look at some maps, they're perfect circles.

Um Tacoma Waters uh in the process right now of updating our well head protection program, and in that update, we're gonna um improve those circles into um actual calculated um, it'll be more blob shaped because of the all the subsurface differences in different areas and uh things like that.

So Tacoma Water is working on a well head protection, well head protection program update, and that'll be out soon.

Okay.

I that's good to hear because I this is one of those I the question I ask is just around does this open up for interpretation, right?

Where I want to do something, and so I find a hydrologist who says that actually your calculations are incorrect, and I'm not in that area, and so I'm just curious are there other examples of other codes incorporating this, or are we is this could potentially be a source of ongoing conversation with you property owners, users, neighbors?

I don't know.

So um I know there are other jurisdictions that basically uh use the same method, um, Thurston County being one of them, Pierce County is um another one that they use the same uh practice basically.

Um but yeah, um we actually um have these maps, um the layers ready um and they're parcel based, and we are gonna uh upon basically council adoption, we are gonna um add it to the city's um GIS system, and uh public can know from then that basically if their properties between one year time of travel zone, if it's between 10 year time of travel zone, they just have to turn on the layer and it shows.

Okay.

Then my only other question, so that I I think that makes good sense, and and we it'll be good to be able to see it.

Um, you know, I just there have been I've been doing this long enough to know that whenever we say, like, here's a standard based on science, someone can find someone else who has a different set of crap calculations or science, and and it becomes a source of kind of back and forth.

So that's just something I I want to make sure we're trying to avoid as much as we can.

I think my other question would be, you know, so we're creating kind of two layers, right?

Where there's a one-year time of travel zone that you can't do any of this stuff, and then there's a broader one that's outside.

And so my question would be if I own a but parcels aren't circles.

Like my parcel line doesn't end where the edge of the travel timeline is.

So, what if I have a parcel that's kind of half in and half out?

Can I just do these uses outside the line versus inside the line, or maybe say the whole parcel can't be used for that purpose?

I guess maybe that's not a question for this, maybe overrefining the policy.

But I think that's I just see another area where that's gonna maybe come up against it because we're talking about a circle or a rough circle of a travel time area.

But parcels aren't circle shaped, they're squares or rectangles or different right angle shapes.

Yeah, thank you.

That's a that's a great question.

Um I will need to talk to the team and get back to you next week.

But I mean, we need to make those clarifications, yeah.

Uh maybe in the in the basically um process um and we can definitely do those things.

But uh thank you, that's a really good question.

But I would say, like, for for for the parcels that like the majority would be inside the zek home, that is very obvious, like what would happen.

But for those that there are half and half, uh, we need to come up with basically provisions or something.

Yeah, or I mean, if if a chunk of it is there, right?

Do because I know we we do this in land use development code all the time where we say, like, okay, so much your lot has to be this, and so much your lot has to be this.

So, would this create a uh another kind of chunk in land use to say, well, this lot itself, this part can't have any of that, but it can be over here.

Um I don't expect an answer right now, but that's something I've I've been thinking about.

So, Mary Ann, I'm glad to hear that you all kind of come back and talk about that.

So thank you.

Any other questions?

All right, well, the geometry lesson is over between the shapes and circles.

I'm sorry, I apologize for all the questions there.

Um, so you will be back tonight for the public hearing, correct?

Yes.

Okay, and then we will be back here after that to discuss what we heard from the public comment.

Okay.

Well, if there are no further questions, thank you very much for your presentation.

Looking forward to this evening.

All right.

Okay.

Okay.

And with that, we'll move on to our second agenda items, which is the Tide Flats sub-area plan, planning commission's findings of fact and recommendations.

Um, and before I call on planning development services division manager Brian Boudet to begin the presentation, I thought I'd take a moment just to and and allow Council Walker to take a moment, but but um recognize a tremendous amount of work that's brought us this point.

Um this process started long before Councilmember Walker and I even joined the council.

Um, so it predates us.

Um so it's been a lot of work.

And I just want to say for more than five years, our dedicated city staff and multiple agency steering committee led by Mayor Woodards, have invested countless hours, deep expertise, and genuine collaboration into crafting a plan that reflects the needs and priorities of our community.

And so with that, I'm going to kick it over to Councilmember Walker, and then I am going to re uh pass the chairing duties this meeting on to the deputy mayor who is here right now.

Or I give her a minute or two.

Council Walker.

Um great, thank you, Councilmember Hines.

Um, I just on behalf of Mayor Woodards and I um in the steering committee, just wanted to add a couple comments.

I know we've talked about this as a council at length, so a lot of this is repetitive, but this has really been a complex process, and it has been one that has shown how important it is that staff and uh electeds work together.

So another big thank you to staff who have put in a ton of work.

And I also wanted to specifically thank all my colleagues at our on our steering committee, um, elected officials from the tribe from the port from the city of Fife and from Pierce County that have been coming to the table for seven, eight years.

I've been part of this for the last five years, and I so I as council member hine said predates me.

Um, but it has been an amazing volume of work, but it has also been really meaningful work.

So um when we came together last fall to put the package forward to the city as a steering committee, um, we knew that there was um there was always gonna be something that somebody wanted, but we worked together as a group um and really latched on to the idea that we can't let per perfection be the enemy of a good policy, and we all really feel like we came to a good place.

So we now have the opportunity.

But we have the opportunity now to adopt a strong forward-looking plan that sets a clear direction, and we all have heard from the businesses and anyone operating at port how important that clear direction is now.

Um and also understanding the future adjustments and improvements will always be possible.

Um staff is here today, obviously, to present the timeline, the process, and all of the pieces of this plan.

And Mayor Woodards, and I just want to encourage council colleagues to reach out to us so that we can stick to our timeline that I know they're gonna talk more about, because it's a little bit more complicated than other planning processes.

And I want to thank those of you who have already reached out with questions and comments, and um happy to dig in anywhere I pulled out 300 page stack of papers this morning with Councilmember Rumba to figure out um a very specific thing, but um I'm here for it.

So if you have questions, comments, please bring them forward.

Um so really excited to get this presentation to get it out to the public and um get this through the end of the process this year.

Um we know that the community has been waiting and is ready to go.

So thank you, staff.

Go ahead.

Thanks.

Staff.

Yeah, Brian Boudet with Planning and Development Services, and really excited to be here with Steve Adginson and our friends from the from the health department, um, Chantel Harmon Reed, the health director, and Aaron Dilrif, uh, healthy community planner.

Um, and in part excited because I think this uh maybe informally, I guess, in some ways, launches the what should be the final phase of the Tide Flats sub area plan process that, as you mentioned, going on now for um seven plus years.

And after the steering committee's long work and providing a recommendation to uh the city council and the planning commission, the planning commission has spent uh a significant amount of time walking through that, holding a public hearing, gathering community input, and providing their recommendations to you.

And at the same time, the health department has been working hard on uh the health impact assessment that the council uh um requested and is also here to present the findings from that and some of those recommendations.

So the the purpose here really is to set council up for um the upcoming public hearing process that will lead you to the finalization of this subway plan.

Um this one is somewhat unique, and I think that's really important to point out and rem and remind everyone about in part because of the the four governments that the steering committee worked with uh or that comprised the steering committee and helped the city get to this point and put together uh the steering committee's um draft of the subway plan.

Part of that was the working together, the collaboration obviously embedded in that partnership.

Part of it was a commitment on the city's part um to really make sure that those partners were involved all the way through and to the end of the process.

Uh and that's one of the important reminders, I think, that the council is aware of, but I think will is an important message here again as we start and continue through this presentation, is one of those commitments was really to make sure that as we got to the end of the process, and it's the city's plan at the end of the day, and the city count city council's prerogative to adopt the city's plan, obviously.

Um, but those partners really want to make sure that they have the opportunity up until the end to provide meaningful input.

And so a piece of that was really to say that as the council considers potential amendments, uh adjustments here at the end of the process, um, that the city is committed to ensuring that they have the time, uh, and that was uh was embodied in a in a 45-day time period basically from when amendments get uh introduced to when any final decisions would be made on those amendments.

So you'll see as we work forward and get to the end of this and we talk a little bit about the schedule.

You will notice that there is longer time periods in here than you um commonly see.

That's to make sure that we encapsulate that 45 days and that commitment to our partners to to ensure that they have the time really to look at and provide their recommendations to you, the city council before you make a final decision.

Um and then the the other piece of this is um in order to facilitate that and make sure that we get done by the end of the year, which has been a very common goal of of the city as well as all of our partners, the tribe, the port, Pierce County, and Fife is um that somewhat unique from normal processes again is the setting of the hearing is a more significant item than it normally is.

What you usually see is a recommendation will come from come from the planning commission sort of fully formed, and that's what goes out for public review.

You take public input and then you make modifications after the public hearing.

You take public input and then you make modifications after the public hearing, similar to what you just saw through the and what will happen through the South Tacoma groundwater code update.

In this case, in order to ensure that we meet those commitments, it's really critical that the city council here before the hearing.

So as we build up to the moment of setting the public hearing, which is scheduled for September 9th, that this is the time for which the council really needs to identify any potential adjustments that you are interested in considering so that those can go out for that public review process.

The community can focus on which items that the council is really looking at, making adjustments for, and provide direct input on that, as well as the four partners.

So again, that will you will see that here a couple of times as we walk through the recommendations and definitely in the schedule.

But my last message before I turn it over for the meat of the presentation is really just I think echoing what was just said.

But we're here to support you, so please reach out.

Again, we're, you know, staff's gonna walk through some of the recommendations.

If there's things on here that you're seeing that you're interested in or things that you're not seeing that you're interested in, really over the next um two or three weeks is going to be a really critical time period to reach out to staff, uh, myself, Steve Atkinson, Steve Victor.

Let us know if there's things that you're interested in working on and bringing forward because when we get into September and we get to that point of setting the public hearing, council's gonna have a really significant discussion in early September, and we got to be on board with what's going to go out for public review.

So we want to make sure we can help help you all flesh that out and be supportive as possible to keep this process moving forward and again keep those commitments to our partners.

So uh with that, I will turn it over to Steve.

Great.

Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon to the city council.

I'm Stephen Atkinson, Principal Planer with City of Tacoma Planning and Development Services.

Um I will go ahead and transition to the next slide.

Uh but generally a few of the next slides will be uh likely very familiar to the city council.

Um but these uh background slides are just a brief reminder of some of the process uh that the steering committee went through to arrive at the recommendations, um, and really starting with just a reminder of the area that we are talking about when we talk about the Tide Flats area itself.

And so the map here on the left uh shows the current boundaries of the manufacturing and industrial center that is currently designated within our comprehensive plan in Vision 2050.

Uh the plan boundaries are based on that designated uh MIC boundary, um, and there are currently no proposed modifications to that boundary as part of the subway planning package.

Um and then just a quick reminder that this area, part of the significance of it and part of the the factors that have really driven the kind of process that we've conducted as a city and the partnership with the other governments uh are some of the basic facts here that when we talk about the Tide Flats area, we are talking about an area that is really significant as part of the ancestral lands for the Piallop tribe of Indians.

We are talking about an area that is home to the Port of Tacoma.

Around 50% of the land area of the Tide Flats is currently owned and managed by the Port of Tacoma.

There are approximately 10,000 current jobs directly within the Tide Flats sub-area in this area also help support much broader economic impacts throughout the region.

Um then finally, uh, as the council is aware, uh, this is an area that's also home to some of our critical saltwater and freshwater habitats.

Um so often when uh this planning effort was really started, uh, a lot of the public conversation, community dialogue was really, I think, stuck in some degree of sort of zero-sum competition between the idea of environmental protection and support for economic development within this area.

And a lot of the impetus of the planning work and the way that we've gone around that uh planning work has been to try to find uh the ways that we can identify shared values and shared wins uh across all of these different themes.

Um as I mentioned, that led to um a really unique uh and innovative uh process that we've gone through with our partners that we think uh was really established at the beginning to to really co-produce a plan and to really try to embody a collaborative planning process.

Um so typically in uh you know a planning process that the city would go through.

What you might have is a draft proposal from the planning commission and public comments from our partners advocating for specific changes that they might want to see.

In this case, what was really unique about this was centering those partnerships at the beginning, developing a plan that really uh was uh created out of that collaboration with our partners, uh, and it represents some of those hard and difficult conversations that our partners had.

So to begin with, just as a reminder, the steering committee was established really as a body to help guide the overall planning process and to develop the initial draft plan.

The steering committee was comprised of two elected representatives from each of the governments here in the city of Tacoma, P.

Help Tribe of Indians, Port of Tacoma, Pierce County and City of Fife.

And that steering committee initially developed a work plan that provided the template for the kind of goals and outcomes that we were hoping to achieve through this planning effort, as well as the process and procedures we would follow.

There are a couple of key things that were incorporated into that work plan.

One, the establishment of a Tide Flats advisory group, which incorporated different community perspectives and interests to maintain an ongoing sounding board for all policy development as well as a project management team among staff.

So that really all throughout this process, there were ongoing staff communications really from day one.

Sometimes I joke, but not an exaggeration that for sometimes for multiple years, staff were meeting every two weeks at a minimum, working through all the day-to-day management and development of the plan and process.

And that was part of the focus of the planning commission's review and recommendations.

And once adopted by the city council, the plan actually formally becomes a chapter of our local comprehensive plan.

And then this slide just characterizes some of the background on the planning process.

As I mentioned, the well, there was a significant lead up to the project launch in early 2021.

So our partners had kind of preceded that project launch with a lot of the prep on how we were going to do this work together.

And then initially brought on the Tide Flats Advisory Group to help advise on the public outreach and engagement efforts that we would conduct as part of this process.

But that really then led into the community kickoff and an extensive community visioning process in the first half of 2021.

And then throughout the process, we've had multiple public formal public comment and public hearing opportunities for community members, the ongoing meetings of the steering committee and tide flats advisory group, as well as some formal opportunities for check-ins with the city council to confirm the direction that we were taking throughout the planning process.

In all, I would I would say the advisory group and steering committee met on approximately 24 occasions each throughout this process and developing the recommendations before you today.

And then the planning commission also conducted their review process in the next few slides will characterize the work of the planning commission to help bring us uh here today.

Oh but first, sorry, the actual substance of the recommendations from the steering committee.

Um in general, the uh steering committee as noted earlier uh formally uh voted on and forwarded a unanimous recommendation to adopt the draft plan in December of 2024.

Uh the draft plan includes seven chapters.

Uh the first chapter, the introduction includes an overview of the plan and the engagement that was done to develop the plan.

Uh, in terms of the overall kind of goals and policies and identified actions, those are incorporated into chapters three, four, five, and six based on the subject matter of those chapters.

Um, and then chapter seven is a uh consolidated chapter on the implementation.

So uh if you are interested in some of the specific actions that are identified, for example, uh, where it comes to air quality or water quality, those are in the environment and health chapter.

Uh but then chapter seven implementation also provides the consolidated list of all of the actions and investments that are proposed in the plan.

Uh so depending on how you want to define that information, there's a couple of different pathways.

Um, and then in their recommendation, the steering committee highlighted uh certain themes from the plan that they wanted to make sure were uh kind of front and center in the recommendation and top of mind for their work.

And that included uh, as I mentioned, I think trying to identify uh not zero sum, but really win-win solutions here to look at how we can support industrial success in the tide flats while also achieving uh protection and restoration of environmental functions within the area, uh, an emphasis throughout the plan.

I think one of the really unique aspects of this, a chapter that focuses on centering indigenous values and uh really trying to incorporate that sense of indigenous values throughout the plan itself.

Uh the plan uh really throughout all of the chapters identifies ways to comprehensively address climate action, uh both mitigating uh air quality impacts as well as adapting to our vulnerabilities and risks from climate change.

Um and then a few other things I'll just note here in terms of uh transportation infrastructure innovations.

The plan does propose uh multimodal transportation systems and investments to support uh not just freight movement and access into and out of the tide flats area, but also uh improvements for bike pedestrian and transit access into the tide flats area, both to serve uh commute trip reduction but also uh broader public access and recreation goals within the area.

And the plan also continues to envision ongoing collaboration and stakeholder engagement over time as we uh begin to implement the plan and to help ensure that we are adapting the plan over time as we get new information.

The uh steering committee's recommended plan uh was forwarded uh to the city council and planning commission in early 2025 following the uh the committee's recommendations.

Uh one thing I want to note about the planning commission's review is uh as the planning commission took up this work in early uh 2025, uh they were asked to review both the plan as recommended by the steering committee and to conduct a public hearing on that plan.

Uh but similarly, there are some additional elements to the public review package that the planning commission released and is forwarding to the city council for consideration.

Uh these include some additional proposed revisions to the comprehensive plan, uh Title 13 of the municipal code, our land use regulatory code, uh revisions to our shoreline master program, as well as a draft planned action ordinance.

And generally uh these revisions are intended to implement some of the initial recommendations of the plan.

So one of the things that the uh steering committee's recommendations include is a new zoning and land use framework for the tide flats area.

So the intent here is for concurrent council adoption or consideration of those code changes so that uh once the plan is adopted, uh, we have a zoning and land use code in place, so we are not permitting new uses that are not consistent with the plan.

Um so that is one of the um recommendations here from the commission is to consider this concurrent package of both plan and code amendments.

Um in support of the planning commission's public review process, um, we issued around 6,000 direct mailings to all uh taxpayers and occupants, both within the tide flats and surrounding communities.

Uh we have uh a list of interested parties, it's uh over 800 uh uh interested uh community members, agencies, organizations, and community groups.

Um, and then you can see here we also have notifications that we provide to the state to commerce and ecology as well as JBLM.

Um, and then we provided notification again in ongoing uh coordination with our partners at the Piap Tribe, uh, the other steering committee members and Tide Flats advisory group members.

And for the planning commission process, we also conducted two public informational meetings to help support community members in their review of the package of materials and their comments.

Um in general, we received uh approximately 35 written comments through the planning commission process and had eight people testify at the public hearing.

Um just as a reminder, when we started this process, uh the city council's uh initial public hearing on the uh interim regulations back in 2017 uh had to be conducted at the Rialto because of the extensive crowds and engagement that we had at that time.

Um so I think from a staff perspective, I think this has been pretty indicative that a lot of the concerns that we've heard initially with the subway planning process we think have been uh really well addressed in the recommendations from the steering committee.

Um and I'll talk a little bit about some of the themes in the public comments, but generally we think that the comments that have been submitted have been uh really focused on kind of refinements to both plan and code uh rather than sort of more wholesale or uh significant uh concerns with the approach that's been taken by the steering committee and planning commission.

Um I'm not gonna go through all of these themes here, but um, in general, as I mentioned, um the uh comments that we received have been pretty focused on kind of a shorter list of community interests.

Uh there are a few here that I'll highlight in particular that I think were most extensively uh discussed by community members to the commission in their public comments.

So the first of those that we heard really extensively was concerned about monitoring and enforcement, and that was a part of the conversation you just had about the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District.

Generally, our enforcement mechanisms are complaint-based.

The STGPD conversation you've just heard is one of the exceptions where we do proactive annual inspections and have opportunities for code enforcement.

That's been something that has been very significant in terms of public input, is a request for the council to consider similar kinds of proactive monitoring enforcement as we look at the implementation of the subway plan.

I think the planning commission was very, I think, receptive to those concerns, but generally felt that that's not a code or policy issue.

That's really a question for the city council on resourcing and the costs and fiscal impacts of supporting that kind of proactive monitoring and enforcement.

There were similar themes from community members about non-conforming uses.

Now again, these are comments that have been mostly directed at our implementing code.

The plan identified generally the desire to support existing businesses would become prohibited to be able to continue their operations, maintain their businesses, potentially have limited opportunities for expansion, but some opportunity for expansion of those businesses.

So many community members were evaluating and reviewing that non-conforming code and providing input on changes that they're requesting in terms of how much expansion can be allowed or permitted through our current non-conforming code.

So as I mentioned, I think this is a good example of two areas where the input that we're getting have been primarily on how we would implement recommendations from the plan through our municipal code and the implementing standards and regulations.

One of the other uh public themes here that we'll mention, in part because it came from one of our partners at the Port of Tacoma, was a request for some additional consideration for flexibility for tree canopy and landscaping for other public agencies to be able to develop their own urban forestry plans to implement city requirements to provide some additional uh flexibility to address some of the unique circumstances that they uh encounter uh in an industrial area and with in particular in an area that is focused on container and cargo operations.

Uh those were uh a request that the port submitted to the planning commission to consider uh the commission ultimately opted not to make a recommendation and felt that the uh code uh provided some pathways uh in the existing regulations for flexibility for existing uses uh within the tide flats area.

But just wanted to note that given it was from one of our partners.

Um the commission in reviewing public testimony and reviewing uh the sub area plan uh did arrive and forward certain conclusions to the city council.

Um so the commit the commission did conclude in their review that they felt that the plan substantially complied with and fulfilled the requirements of the Growth Management Act, Shoreline Management Act Envision 2050, that it maintained the status of the area as a regionally designated manufacturing and industrial center.

Um they felt that the draft plan and code uh would support improved public health outcomes for workers in the Tide Flats and nearby communities, that it would promote shared economic benefits, climate resilience, and greenhouse gas reduction, and promote effective transitions between heavy industry and nearby communities.

Along with those conclusions, the commission also forwarded certain amendments uh for consideration by the city council.

Um I have two slides here summarizing the proposed amendments, um, but I wanted to make note at this point that again, as Brian mentioned at the beginning, uh the difference here in approach that we're taking for this process versus a typical planning commission and city council processes rather than integrating these uh amendments into the code and the plan that's coming forward to the council is really we are asking for the council's direction on September 9th to identify which of these amendments would move forward for consideration in the city council public hearing process.

Um so again, part of the direction that we're looking for is uh the identification of these amendments and responders from the city council.

Um so I'll go through these very quickly, and then we are uh happy over the next few weeks to meet with council members if you are interested in any follow-up discussions on these proposed amendments.

Uh, first, uh the commission uh did recommend um uh a series of four plan amendments, um, in some cases plan and code.

Uh but the first of these would be a plan amendment to expand the seaport conservancy zoning to include the Little Marsh Restoration site for the council's awareness.

What one of the things that is recommended in the Tide Flats plan is a seaport conservancy zone that would apply to some of the significant restoration sites that we have in the Tide Flats area.

Um the Little Marsh site is a uh little over one acre restoration site that is located on the Blair Waterway, uh, currently owned by City of Tacoma.

So it is a publicly owned property.

Um it is currently proposed in the plan and code to be part of the Seaport Core Primary Zoning District.

Um but the commission is recommending that the council consider an alternative to that in applying that seaport conservancy zone uh to that site.

Um the second proposed plan amendment from the planning commission was to consider um a uh an update to the employment targets in particular.

So the plan includes an employment target uh for 17,250 jobs in the tide flats area by 2044.

Uh currently there are around 10,000 jobs in the tide flats area, so a significant increase in employment within the tide flats area.

Uh the commission is recommending that the council consider increasing that employment target to 20,000 jobs by 2050 and an increase in uh policy focus on the quality of jobs in the tide flats area.

So they were concerned not just with the number of jobs but also quality of jobs and employment opportunities.

Uh the commission uh in uh in their recommendations uh incorporated a proposal for a new action uh similar to the sort of pre-approved plans for ADUs that's been part of uh home and Tacoma conversations.

So this would be a concept for pre-approved plans for things like critical area buffer restorations and landscaping plans that businesses could utilize uh for voluntary restoration or voluntary uh low impact development BMPs within the tide flats area.

So generally uh the the commission is interested in how we can better support people to do good things uh uh you know rather than being uh compelled through code to do those things.

Um and then the fourth uh amendment proposed here from the planning commission is to uh incorporate um a plan uh a project description associated with the Vision Zero uh high risk networks uh in the TOD area along the um uh Portland Avenue station location for the Tacoma Dome Link extension in association with those Vision Zero corridors and the light rail station proposed at that location.

Uh these amendments would uh enact requirements uh for pedestrian overpasses for the construction of any new light rail station uh within that uh TOD area.

The uh second uh slide here are proposed amendments from the planning commission that are uh strictly focused on some of the uh code proposals, not plan.

Um so the first two both relate to our non-conforming code.

Uh the first, the commission was proposing to uh or recommending to the city council to modify our non-conforming uh regulations in the Tacoma Municipal Code uh to limit new residential or institutional expansions of non-conforming uses in the Seaport Core zoning district.

So generally, what this would impact is if there were uh existing residential or institutional uses that are in the areas proposed for heavy industrial use, um, those are generally going to be non-conforming and that there would be a stricter limitation on the expansion of those uses.

So this is something that the commission considered to be a significant public health issue that they felt was worthy of uh further uh refinement to the code.

Uh the second of these is a non-conforming proposal from the commission to limit the expansion of nonconforming heavy industrial uses in the seaport transition areas.

So these are the areas closest to residential communities outside the tide flats area.

Again, the commission felt that the current non-conforming uh code was too uh permissive in terms of the kinds of expansions that could occur for those heavy industrial uses uh in that closest proximity to nearby communities.

Uh the third uh number seven here on the table uh amendment from the commission uh relates to the uh seaport transition TOD district again in association with the light rail extension.

Um and these are a series of uh updates to the land use and uh zoning standards for that area that the commission felt would better align with and implement the direction from the steering committee uh to support transit oriented development in that district.

And then finally, there are a number of minor code cleanups that the commission has forwarded for consideration by the council that were really based on public comments and smaller refinements to the code to address code clarifications.

And with that, I will go ahead and kind of wrap up the slide here, but just as a reminder to the council.

If you have a further follow-up or questions about these, we're happy to answer those today.

And again, over the coming weeks to meet with any of the council members if you have additional questions on this work.

And then at this time, I would like to hand the microphone over.

Oh we lost the PowerPoint to uh Chantel Harmon Reed of the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department, uh public health director, and Aaron Dilworth, healthy community planner.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

First, I want to say, like, we're really excited to be a part of this planning.

Um, there was a lot of planning and preparation and collaboration from several different partners all around this area that gave focus in Lynn to uh what we do with this TIFLAT sub-area.

Um we uh heard, right?

You heard the community in elevating health as a part of this plan and not just really focusing on just the economic components, but really truly like how do we look at this from a long-term perspective.

Um HIAs, the health impact assessment that uh Erin is going to be talking about here today, is a part of a national movement in order to make sure that we address health in all policies.

Um, making sure that we center health in critical decision making and making sure that uh we are not only just uh highlighting some of the you know industrial components, the manufacturing components, uh, but truly like the people who are gonna uh live and work in these areas.

Um a lot of time went into this assessment, and I'm really proud of the work that Aaron has done.

Uh, she's put a tremendous amount of effort in the research and understanding the critical public health components of what this plan needed to be.

Um we have addressed the social determinants of health, the environmental health, as well as the economic development portion of this uh health impact assessment to make sure that it not only just fits into the city's plan, but also gives citizens uh health and wealth uh a strong component of where they sit into um where this goes in the in the coming years, especially from a 2050 perspective.

Um I'm gonna turn it over now to Erin uh so that she can really talk about the substance of the um assessment, uh, and then we can answer any questions you may have.

All right, thank you.

Um hi council, good to see you all.

So we're gonna start here with just a reminder of what health impact assessments or HIAs are and what they are not.

Um, but big picture.

This report is meant to be a tool for you all to aid in your decision making, and it's also a tool for the public just to be better informed about their environment and their health and the the health of their communities.

Um this HIA process began in the spring of 2024.

Uh, as you all know, the sub-area plan itself was not out at that time, so we relied on a lot of existing documentation, um, conversations with subject matter experts.

We used a lot of the community engagement and public comment processes that the city has done to better um understand community concerns, and we did our own community engagement.

So a lot of work went into selecting the assessment topics, um, which ended up being air quality and water quality and how those things affect uh public health.

And if you're interested in learning more about the full community engagement process that we went through, there is an appendix in the report for that.

And so uh knowing these two assessment topics, air quality and water quality and public health, we wanted to answer a few questions to help us conduct this assessment.

So those questions are how could people in our community um be affected differently by the plan?

What priority actions should be um prioritized to best promote public health, what investment projects should be prioritized to promote public health, and could changes be made to the land use zoning map and the regulations that would better protect public health.

Next slide.

So very basic component of HIA work is to characterize the current health conditions of the community or communities that uh maybe most impacted by the policy or plan.

Um while we know this plan is gonna have far-reaching effects beyond Tacoma and Pierce County, we needed to create a study area to help us with these health characterizations.

So on this map, you see kind of this pink shaded area, is all of the census tracks that we use to collect health data from.

And then we also wanted to make some comparisons just to give us a better idea of how these folks doing compared to their neighbors.

And so we also made collected all of the same health data for the entirety of Pierce County, and then just made some comparisons here.

And the tables here are just highlights of the data collected.

We collected a lot of other health data, and that all of the health data we collected is also in the appendix of the report, but I wanted to highlight these pieces for you all today.

So the first table there shows a couple social determinants of health and social determinants of health, in other words, are just the conditions and the systems that people are born and live in that impact their health.

So as you can see compared to the larger Pierce County, folks that live in our HIA study area do experience some barriers to health just because of who they are and the resources that they have access to.

And just to add on to that, we also know from Tacoma's Equity Index, folks living in this study area rank disproportionately lower than their neighbors in Tacoma.

And then we also know that the Washington Department of Ecology has identified Eastside Tacoma as a community overburdened by air pollution.

And then moving on to these more traditional measures of health.

Again, as you can see, compared to the larger Pierce County, folks living in this area do experience some worthened health outcomes compared to their neighbors.

And so of these significantly higher rates of certain adverse health outcomes compared to the larger Pierce County population.

People that live here can be more vulnerable to their environment.

They can be more sensitive to certain environmental exposures, which could exacerbate their symptoms or increase their vulnerability to worsened health outcomes.

But I want to be really clear, these findings do not imply that the environmental conditions in the Tide Flats sub-area caused these health outcomes.

Really, these findings can help support decision makers, you all, in making decisions about this plan through a health and equity and all policies lens.

Next slide, thank you.

So again, how we did this assessment, we looked at the action items and the transportation projects, all with you know quite an extensive assessment and evaluation of literature on air quality and water quality in the area and how that affects our health.

So the plan has 106 action items.

We went through every single one of them, pulled out the ones that were in scope for this assessment, and then we kind of compared them against this list of public health criteria here.

So we were looking for action items that would reduce air pollution, that would lessen contaminants entering commencement bay that would promote healthy housing, et cetera.

Ultimately went through and we were able to identify 28 action items that we recommend for prioritization because of their potential to promote better public health outcomes.

So a lot of really good stuff in there, and we just there's a few things that we want to see prioritized.

And then again, kind of a similar approach with the transportation projects that are in the plan.

There's 36 transportation projects recommended for prioritization.

We went through and looked at them and kind of assess them for their ability to do one of these three things to reduce traffic congestion, freight idling, to move heavy freight routes away from city centers and to increase access to public transit.

And through that assessment, we found uh nine of these projects that we would recommend for prioritization and funding.

Um, next slide.

So then the last thing that we looked at was the land use zoning map and the associated uh regulations from the plan.

Um big picture conclusion is that for any city that has an industrialized area, the most protective public health approach is to limit sensitive receptors near industrial and traffic related air pollution.

And what I mean by sensitive receptors, that includes folks with chronic health conditions, um, seniors, children, pregnant people, um, and people that just have prolonged exposure to those emissions for whatever reason.

So we want to see those limiting sensitive receptors near that, and then we also would limit new facilities or expansions that would add to that cumulative health risk.

And so overall, we found that the proposed land use zoning and regulations have the ability to promote to promote but better public health because it's it is limiting a lot of high intensity uses, concentrating some of those high intensity uses closer to the core of the sub-area, limiting residential development.

So we found a lot of good things.

If those uses are permitted.

And I'm gonna go through those on the next slide.

So these are some of our recommendations that are essentially special um use standards that we would want to see in our land use uh regulations.

So if new residential is going to be allowed in the sub-area, we want to see an adoption of air filtration standards essentially, HVAC.

We know that outdoor quality greatly impacts indoor air quality.

So we'd like to see some protections for folks living near the tide flats.

Um we would recommend establishing a residential use buffer.

So if you have, if you're going to permit new residential uses, have them be a certain distance away from heavily trafficked roadways in particular.

Um we're seeing we've found a lot of studies that um showed that certain air pollutants um decay at a certain rate away from where they're first admitted.

And so our recommendation is a 500-foot use residential use buffer.

Uh we'd like to see some of the prohibitions that are already um proposed in the plan, expanded those prohibitions on certain industrial discharges to surface water.

Uh we'd like to see or we recommend covering and closing certain uses and stockpiles of bulk raw materials and paving roads and driveways for certain uses, and really this these last two recommendations here protections are to reduce dust track out and dispersion so that we're not having as much particulate matter in our environment.

Um then we would recommend implementing source testing for certain air pollutants, particularly uh heavy metals and particulate matter at facilities, and then we would recommend implementing leak detection systems for certain uses, just so these areas can make sure that their containment operations are operating correctly, and we're not having fugitive emissions for certain pollutants.

Um we make we make these recommendations kind of based on three criteria, their ability to improve health for vulnerable populations, the root um their ability to reduce pollution that is associated with the most severe public health outcomes, and then their ability to reduce pollution that is associated with multiple adverse health outcomes.

And that is all I have for you today, in addition to the report that we submitted.

Um, and so we're really like Chantal said, we're really proud to submit the HIA for your consideration.

Um we know that using the information in the report would really show councils and cities um continued commitment to using equitable processes and decision making.

And um we know we've been working on it for a really long time, so we appreciate the opportunity to add a little bit more information.

So thank you all.

All right.

Great, thank you, Aaron.

And we just have uh two more slides, and then we'll wrap up our presentation.

Happy to answer any questions from the council.

Um so, first of all, just wanted to kind of revisit now just a little bit of kind of the reminder of what the overall uh package of materials will look like, and then the schedule for the city council's review.

Um so I just wanted to note for the council that what we are, I think anticipating to move forward as part of the public review package would be four primary exhibits.

One would be the draft sub-plan itself as recommended by the steering committee.

Um another would be the proposed revisions to the one Tacoma Comprehensive Plan, um, and then similarly proposed revisions to the land use code and shoreline master program.

And those would be the four primary documents comprising the public review package.

The intent here is as we come back to first reading of ordinance later in the year is that each of these would be drafted as a separate ordinance adopting these pieces for the city council.

So if there are any amendments that the council is considering for these individual pieces, it's clear kind of which of these elements and which of these documents the amendments are pertaining to.

Um so we think that will better uh kind of address clarity of what actions the council is taking and help support better uh any amendments that the council is considering uh in this draft uh process.

Um and then the last thing I'll just mention here is again as as Brian mentioned at the beginning, uh just the reminder that we what we currently have now are uh these documents plus recommended amendments from the planning commission um and recommendations from the Tacoma Pierce County Health Department through the health impact assessment.

What we are asking for from the city council through uh the resolution is at the public hearing is to identify the list and description of potential amendments that you would like to uh release for public review and comment as part of this comment period.

So again, this is the difference between a typical process and what we're requesting here.

Um, and that way what you will be getting uh through the remainder of the process is public comment, both from our broader community and our partners, specifically about the potential amendments before you take action, so that as we come back to first reading, what you will have is before you take any formal actions uh to approve those amendments is that you will have the opportunity to hear from the community and our partners first.

Um and we also think that this helps support the community process by daylighting and making it easier for community members to see what potential modifications are really under uh consideration by the city council.

Now, what does this look like in terms of kind of the next steps uh and timeline for the city council?

Uh first um September 9th, we expect will be a busy day for the city council.

Um so on that day we are kind of working towards the resolution to set the public hearing on September 9th.

So the intent for that day is to start with a committee of the whole meeting, um, which would be the opportunity for the council to provide staff with both the amendments that you are interested in sponsoring or introducing for full council consideration.

So, what we would ask the council is to have uh be working with staff um to help draft any potential amendments to submit as part of the agenda for the committee of the whole uh generally on September 3rd is I think when that agenda packet would go out.

Um, so those can be then shared with your fellow council members and then discussed at the committee of the whole meeting.

Um staff will be looking to the council at that meeting for your indication as to which of those amendments you want to uh advance for the resolution that evening setting the public hearing.

Um and then the decision uh as we've mentioned is more significant that night because it really is more of a decision on what amendments you want to uh maintain for consideration throughout the rest of the process.

Um the public hearing we're requesting will be set on October 28th, uh, which would then fulfill the uh commitment that we've made to our partners to have a 45-day public comment period that provides our partners and their elected bodies with the opportunity to review those amendments and then consider as elected bodies their comments to the city council and then provides council with time to consider those before you take any final actions.

Um and we are generally working towards uh first and final reading in November and December.

Um, and with that we will conclude our presentation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Um, and thank you all for being so thorough.

Um I've got a couple questions about dates, but I want to uh open it up for my colleagues to ask questions about all of the material that was just presented to us just now.

Okay, it looks like council member Bushnell, you're first.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and uh thank you all for the presentation.

And just like last time, even longer of a time period of working together uh with all the different jurisdictions, all the different staff all across different agencies, like this has been years and years and years and years and years in the making.

So I'm really happy to see we're at this point finally.

I remember talking about this even before I was ever on council, that's how long it's been.

Um, and um just really excited to see where we're at.

I had a couple of questions on um on the planning side, but then also a couple of questions on the HIS side, but I'll start with you guys first.

Um, the first question is in regards to some of the public comment themes.

Um, you mentioned earlier that um uh the commission did not concur with like the request to incorporate flexibility for public agencies to develop their own forestry plans.

Did you kind of expand on what that means exactly?

Is that um there is a request to do their own forestry, like outside I'm just I'm just a little confused on that.

Yeah, certainly.

So the um request from the port of comment.

So generally, I'll I guess I'll just start with in the code recommendations.

Um there are some prescriptive requirements for uh overall site landscaping, tree canopy, you know, things like street trees, um parking lot landscaping.

Um so generally, I think what the port has been requesting is some consideration that uh those prescriptive standards can sometimes be challenging to meet in the kind of environment in which the port operates in an industrial area and specifically with the cargo and container operations.

So what they were asking is for the ability in the code to provide an alternative urban forestry plan that would not affect overall um requirements.

So, for example, if you're required to provide you know, X percent of tree canopy on your site, that they would still meet that goal, but it would be to give them flexibility for the prescriptive locational standards so that they could kind of move or adjust those landscaping and tree canopy requirements across their development sites and operations in a way that best works with the kinds of operations that they're managing in that area.

So those are things that I think the you know the commission was uh I think somewhat concerned about the idea of um kind of shifting away from some of the prescribed standards, uh but generally I think staff um is uh I think understands and is somewhat supportive of the idea that the port operates in a very different environment than the rest of even our industrial areas in South Tacoma because of the kinds of cargo and container operations that they have.

There are some really unique circumstances that they deal with that are very different than other parts of the city.

Great.

Thank you for that context.

Um would that would that be per parcel, or would that be just within the entirety of the property that the Portland owns?

Yeah, I think what the part of the intent would be that you would be able to, or so if you're in the context of say putting the port of Tacoma hat on, um I think I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation the port currently owns and operates uh around 50% of the land area in the tide flat.

So the the idea here is you know, a parcel for the port is sometimes you know, one container site may have many parcels associated with it.

Um so the idea here is that they would really be able to take a big picture looking at the entirety of the lands that they own and maintain throughout the Tide Flats area, and then be able to identify the ways that they think they could best meet the permit requirements across that property and then submit that plan to the city.

So as they are doing development projects, they would be showing how they are implementing and meeting their own urban forestry plan.

Um so I think that was sort of the concept.

It would not necessarily be a site by by site uh plan, but give them flexibility to maybe shift from one property to another.

Great, thank you.

I appreciate that context because I was trying to struggling to understand uh the concept you were talking about earlier, but that that makes a lot of sense.

Um, you know, it's not necessarily what's happening at the port's not necessarily the same as what's happening in our neighborhoods or in in different even industrial areas.

They have cherry pickers, they have you know, they have trains coming in and out of places, they have um you know big cranes.

And I know that they also shift uh depending on what the the needs of the port are, they might shift whether it's like vehicle storage like for the roll-on roll-offs as opposed to container storage, and those needs are gonna be a little bit different.

Uh or maybe it's industrial equipment that they're staging, you know.

So there's a lot of different things and sizes that it'd be really hard to find one specific standard that fits everything.

Uh so I think providing that flexibility makes a lot of sense while still trying to maintain the tree canopy and forestry management overall within the footprint is makes a lot of sense.

Um and then the other question I had was on the um uh clean fuel production.

Um the request to remove uh conditional use permits.

Um, what what are we talking about when we're thinking about clean fuel production?

I am I immediately go to hydrogen, but maybe there's other things out there as well.

No, great.

Thank you for that question, uh, Councilman Bushnell.

So I I would say the uh I guess first thing to note on this is that the uh definitions for clean fuel infrastructure were uh developed by the city council as part of the interim and then non-interim regulations that were um adopted a few years ago.

Uh the steering committee is not recommended modifying those definitions.

Um so generally, I mean, hydrogen fuel would be one, uh, but generally there are uh I believe references in the code to other state and EPA sort of sanctioned clean fuels uh that are uh part of that definition.

So generally what the steering committee was recommending here was uh permitting those clean fuel production facilities through a conditional use permit that would allow greater flexibility to determine uh any specific impacts or risks attendant to the particular site in which that facility is being located.

So I think this is part of the recognition that you know citing a facility in one location versus another may have some different attendant risks or impacts associated with that.

And the conditional use permit provides an opportunity to be a little bit more um uh specific about how that review or those impacts are potentially addressed through the permit process.

Great.

Thank you for that.

Um and then appreciate the answers.

That's all I have on that side.

I'm gonna shift over here.

Uh just well, thank you, the health department.

I've had the honor of chairing the the health board.

I really appreciate all the work that everybody does, Aaron.

You've done a phenomenal job here.

Thank you.

Um, and um one of the questions I had was on the recommended protections that we have here.

Um, how much of this is already regulated?

For example, I see that we have like um prohibitions on certain industrial uh you know, just charges, but I also do know that the city requires on-site you know treatment of of water that might hit the property.

Um so I'm just kind of and and then we obviously have emission standards that that have to be met through the PGS and clean air agency, and they have to pull permits and they have to follow certain uh things for that.

So I'm just curious of like how many of these recommendations are like kind of already established in like state or local code, and what other recommendations might I'm trying to where are the gaps that we might see might kind of take take more of an active role in.

Yeah, thanks for the question.

Um so specifically on the expanding prohibitions on certain industrial discharges to surface water.

This came um this is largely showing support for something that was drafted in the um in the land use table, and we just felt like there were other uses that because of the contaminants that they potentially discharge in their wastewater um even treated could could pose harm.

Um so this is adding on to a standard or or a condition that the city proposed.

And you know, all of these or most of these facilities do have permits already, Clean Water Act permits, um, that that say you know, this is what you're allowed to discharge and how much.

And so this is um really just an additional protection that we're recommending.

Um of these uh like covering and enclosing and uh you know certain uses and stockpiles, a lot of these things and paving roadways.

Um, some of these are um regulations that we pulled from other clean air agencies from other states.

Um and then um just showing support, you know, because there are some proposed covering and enclosures in our in the draft.

Um so again, there were other uses that we felt like would they would serve public health better if the use was enclosed.

Um but those are not necessarily standards that are required as part of Clean Air Act permits.

Got it.

But these facilities do have, you know, a lot of them do have the Title Five operating air operating permits.

So these are really just additional protections on top of regulations that already exist.

Great.

Thank you so much.

That's all I got.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

You got it.

Okay, Councilmember Walker.

Thank you.

Um, just wanted to quickly follow up on Councilmember Bushnell's question.

So um the bulleted list on slide 18 obviously is high level.

So getting into the details of that, is that what's in the plan?

Does it do like a comparison?

Like here's where we are, here's where you recommend we go.

So in the in the HIA report, we have um, thank you for asking.

There is a table, uh, I think it's table 15 that basically shows, you know, here is what um is currently in the code, here's what's being proposed.

Okay, and then here's the HIA reflection recommendation on that.

And it so it does get very detailed by use type.

Okay, um, yeah, great.

And then um one other question on while we're on the HAHIA.

Um, each section, I'm just looking through it on my phone, so not in great detail, but each section looks like it has public health criteria.

Are those public health criteria ones that you all developed for this plan, or is that like a statewide standard?

Where did those come from?

We developed those for this assessment in particular.

Yeah, gotcha.

Um I don't think I have any other questions.

Thank you, all of you for all this work and um just really excited to sort of dig into the recommendations and um get moving on this quickly so we can meet that 45 day period.

So thank you.

Okay, any other questions for my colleagues.

Okay.

Um I only had a question about uh the time period, and I'm looking at the tentative schedule here.

Um, and I I'm just always trying to plan ahead for when we have uh public hearings and things like that, and I'm curious if there's any flexibility on the October 28th, if we could do it on a first or a third Tuesday, so that we don't have uh community forum, public comment, and public hearing, especially on a topic that I imagine the community will really want to show up for that.

Um, and I'm wondering if it doesn't suit us best to do it on a day we don't have community forum.

Yeah, no, I I appreciate that question.

Um certainly we try to avoid I think that confluence of having both public hearing and community forum on the same night.

Um I think the challenge we've just run into with the scheduling is if we move it back earlier in October, um, then we're generally not within the sort of 45-day public comment period that we've committed to, uh at least prior to the public hearing.

Um, and if we push it out further into November, I believe the first two meetings in November are currently canceled.

Um so the uh meeting that we have scheduled is the first meeting in November that's available.

So, part of that, I think if uh if there were anything to change to that council schedule, we might have a little bit of additional flexibility now that that timeline works, but right now it's uh a little bit of a rock and a hard place on that scheduling.

Okay, I just wanted to see how tight it was because I knew that there was a reason why.

Um, but maybe there's some things that we can get creative about in other ways to maybe work around that one since we actually can't change that one.

So okay, very helpful.

I'll um maybe chat with the mayor about it and see what she thinks.

Um if there's no other questions or comments, um, I want to thank you all again for the presentation.

Thank you all for coming out.

Um, and we will move on to other items of interest.

Um, thank you all.

And our third item on the agenda today is a council consideration request, a proposed ordinance to align all committee, board, and youth commission seats into an emerging leader seat.

And for that, I would like to call on Council Member Rombach to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and I want to say thank you to our council for sitting through all of this.

And I know that we've been sitting here a long time.

Um, so I will get through this and take your questions.

All right.

I'm excited today to bring forward a policy focused on youth leadership in Tacoma.

As you all know, especially my fellow council committee chairs.

As chairs, we're responsible for reviewing candidates and coordinating interviews for committee, board, and commissions that report to our committee.

When I stepped into the role of chair of CBS, it opened my eyes to all the work the city does to recruit applicants as well as where we have historically struggled to recruit candidates.

What was most noticeable to me was how frequently we we did not have any candidates to consider for youth seat position.

That is what inspired me to review policies around CBC youth seats.

My work has centered hearing feedback directly from CBC members and staff and working to incorporate what I heard in this um into this emerging leader proposal.

I want to extend my appreciation to everyone who took the time to review and respond to policy proposals, attend a listening session, and share their thoughts on the purpose and value of this proposal.

This proposal seeks to engage youth and young adults early in life to encourage lifelong community service.

This was a point emphasized by the mayor's youth commission.

It benefits our entire community to engage people early in life.

My proposal record records this as pure um cure core purpose for this emerging leader seats.

It also acknowledges a broader range of youth and sets the age range to 16 to 24 years old.

While engaging high school age youth is encouraged, and this policy recognizes the long-term value and high school of high school civic engagement.

I heard over and over again that people don't want youth seats left unoccupied, and they'd rather have a slightly older person in the seat than see it unfilled.

This proposal creates opportunities for youth professional development and leadership opportunities.

CBC volunteers continuously stress the need for the program to be a meaningful and educational professional development and leadership experience for youth and young adults, and I incorporated that into the purpose of the program.

More than that, to align the name of the program to this purpose, I took the suggestion to rename youth seats to emerging leader seats.

The emerging leader name is one we envision youth being proud to have and proud to list on a resume or application.

It also makes clear the purpose of the individual to be a leader, not just a youth in the CBC discussions and deliberations.

While the resolution does not allocate additional resources to programs, it does direct the city manager to explore how we might use existing partnerships and service to emerging leaders.

This includes the potential for partnership with the mayor's youth commission to organize cohort events to connect all emerging leaders and working with CBC chairs and leadership teams to mentor emerging leaders.

This proposal centers the value youth specific feedback and city council policy development.

Youth seats were created via resolution in 2013 for the purpose of including youth in policy discussions in Tacoma.

Council members recognize them, but we know now.

There is great value in hearing from the people we who live who will live the rest of their lives with the policy decisions we make today.

We all know engagement at the youth demographic has been historically challenged for all CBCs, and I believe the burden is on us to do more to overcome the barriers of youth engagement.

To make recruitment across emerging leader seats clearer and more accessible, the proposal also standardizes the process for these seats so expect expectations are clearer.

Emerging leaders are appointed to a one-year term.

Individuals may apply for subsequent terms.

Applicants would follow the standard appointment process for emerging leader applications, including interview by a council committee, which recommends appointment to full council.

While this policy doesn't direct additional resources, it does direct the city manager to explore how we can leverage youth targeted recruitment efforts.

In conclusion, it has been tremendously heartening to hear such positive feedback from our most engaged residents, the one who give their time and expertise to the city by serving on CBCs universally.

I have to say I have heard a desire for this work to move forward and for the city to enhance our efforts to engage and activate youth and CBC work.

This proposal is being brought forward on an unusual timeline.

While I'm introducing it today, I do not intend to bring it for vote until late September.

That's because I'm asking one of the eight identified CBCs to make a recommendation on whether or not they would like to be included in the program.

While the Tacoma Arts Commission was included in the original 2013 resolution to create youth seat positions, this direction was never codified due to the challenge filling the position the Tacoma Arts Commission sunset implement implementation of their youth seat position.

I'm asking them if they would like to repurpose and existing art at large seat to an emerging leader seat, or if they'd like council to formally sunset the previous legislative direction.

We will receive a recommendation from the Tacoma Arts Commission at their September 8th meeting.

Finally, I would like to thank this community vitality and safety committee for unanimously recommending approval of this proposal to the full council.

And I welcome any questions.

All right.

Do we have any questions?

Councilmember Walker.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Um, thank you, Councilmember Rumba, uh, for all this work.

I'm excited about all of this and always excited to hear from more youth.

Um, you mentioned at the end of your um comments about the fiscal impact that um there's not an amount attached to this, but that it is asking staff to do more.

Um and this is in no means uh uh something that would change my my support of this.

So just to be clear, I support all of this.

But one thing I really love is the idea that the there might be a cohort of the emerging leaders across committees, and I've heard that from folks I've casually talked to that that would be valuable, but that I think would take a significant amount of staff time to make sure that that happened.

Um, and I'm curious, and this may be more of a question for a city manager than for you, but how do we make sure that this isn't just a one-time yes?

Because I think the code pieces are the relatively easy part now that you've done all the heavy lifting.

It's an easy yes, let's get the people in the seats, but then how do we continue that energy and continue to get the feedback loop back to the council so that we know what the youth are saying when we're making decisions?

Thank you very much.

Um, from a staff perspective, I'm fairly confident the staff could support this effort in terms of outside the box thinking in terms of not just going to um TPS.

I see the superintendents of the crowd, I don't want to call them out here.

Um, but as we work with TPS as well as our universities, I do like the parameters of this emerging leader age group from 16 to 24.

I'm confident that we can activate staff that are doing efforts.

You know, we have a myriad of amazing staff that are supporting our CBCs.

It's just a matter of just focusing on our efforts.

We may come back to council with the standpoint of how we can refocus those staff that are doing other things in support of CBCs for this effort if this is a priority for city council.

Great, thank you.

Um again, thank you, Councilmember Rumba, for your leadership.

Really excited to support this.

Did you have questions?

I can't answer.

Okay.

All right.

Um I don't see any other questions.

Umber Diaz.

Thank you.

I was waiting to reach my okay.

Anyway, um I welcome um follow-up later if this is a little too in the weeds.

But I was curious if any of the code changes to create this position for folks.

Also addresses if anyone happens um to move out of the city because I know some commissions require folks to live in the city, others are permissive outside, and I'm just wondering um how that might impact, just because I know when I was under 24, I tended to move a little bit more, even though I stayed in the city of Tacoma.

So I was just curious if that is something that you all have considered, talked about if it's not relevant.

Um you can tell me you can get back to me later.

Can I get back to you later?

Can I because I'll phone my friend later?

Okay, because it might be different depending on which commission is a good question.

Yeah, positive as you're doing the work.

Thank you.

Okay, great.

And then I just had a question um just about uh the naming because I know that we also have an emerging leader um award that we typically give out, and I know that those awards typically go to for the last five or so years, they've gone to folks that are over 30.

And I'm curious how we how you see folks um distinguishing between emerging and youth or emerging in under 25, and if people over the age of 25 are applying to the emerging seat, like how do how do we want people to um understand this seat?

So I you know, I know that there's a I thought there might be a question about the name naming of emerging leader, and and I'm not I don't really have an answer for that right now for the difference between what you're talking about.

Um, but I do know that people when when we called it youth, it felt like limited to people that were younger.

And so when I picked the date the at the 16 to 24, that just seemed the most relevant.

I also went off what the sustainability committee had already said was their age group was 16 to 24.

So that's how I kind of identified that.

So the conversation about 16 to 30, I don't I don't have an answer for you right now.

Is that your question?

No, my question is just if we uh if we begin to attract people that are 30 and over to the emerging leader seat, how do we expect them to distinguish between what what your it sounds like your intent is to do 16 to 24, which is young people, right?

How do we communicate to them that this seat is for people that are kind of under 25?

That's what I'm thinking about, not like trying to extend the age.

I guess yeah, I guess we're just gonna have to do more education on that, then that would be what our job would be is to educate 16 to 24.

Is that is the emerging leader?

So I don't think that they see themselves.

I guess the thing is youth means one thing to some people, and I'm looking for the seat to be more of a movement for people to get the experience to feel like this is something that helps them move on in their profession.

So maybe say it's someone who's 19 or 20 who doesn't isn't in college.

This is an opportunity for them to get a leadership thing that they can use to like help promote them as they move forward in their jobs, that kind of stuff is what I was thinking.

Okay, so trying to use it in that way.

So when we when they do apply, if we do get people over the age, do we tell them no or do we?

Well, we can they can apply, they can still apply to the other positions that would be available on the CBCs.

So there will be like a strict age limit under the seat.

Yeah, so they will when they apply, they'll say, like this is for it will have the title, but it will also say if you're over 25, this is not like yeah, and this is not your bucket.

Yeah, you can apply for the other positions.

Okay that makes sense.

Yeah, just like if we had more than one person and they were really great, apply for the 16 to 24, and there was another opening somewhere else on the commission.

They could have that commission, they could be considered for that.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, having those, I think uh clear rules are will be helpful so that when people apply, they know exactly where they fit or what they what is actually what is actually open to them.

I don't think I have any more questions.

Um let's see.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, are there any other items to share?

Okay, well, with that, we'll head on to committee reports.

Do we have any committee reports to share?

Seeing none, I'll pass it over to uh interim city manager Kim to begin the presentation.

Thank you, uh Deputy Mayor.

Um, council for tonight.

We have no ceremonials or any modifications proposed for the agenda.

Um, just a note for the council of the public.

We do have three opportunities for the public to comment tonight.

First is public comment regarding motions and resolutions and other ordinances, a public hearing also for uh what you just received for the South Tacoma Groundwater Protection District Code and a community forum at the end of the meeting.

Um at the end of the meeting.

Uh well, with that, I will entertain a motion to convene uh to an executive session.

Uh, RCW four two point three zero one one zero one I I and I to discuss pending litigation not to exceed thirty minutes.

All right, all those in favor to convene to an executive set session, signify by saying I.

All those opposed signify by saying nay.

All right, the motion is declared adopted.

Uh, we will um I don't there is no other uh items of this is to handle after this, only to a turn.

So I can't.

All right.

Executive session has concluded and we stand adjourned.