Vancouver Planning Commission

0:00 Thank you. That takes us into the first item on our agenda, which is the adoption of the minutes from our April 14th meeting. The chair will entertain a motion regarding the minutes. Move to adopt the minutes as written. Moved. And is there a second? Seconded. By? Oh, Commissioner Powell seconds. Thank you. Motion has been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Any abstentions? The motion passes. Which takes us into the community forum.

0:59 Do you have anyone signed up to speak today for the community forum portion of the meeting? No we do not. Thank you. Okay. So the community forum is now closed and that takes us into the item of business we have for this evening. Public hearing on the adoption of the our Vancouver 2026 to 2045 comprehensive plan, including the preferred land use alternative map and the updated Vancouver municipal code title 20 land use and development code supported by a final environmental impact statement. Introductory remarks regarding this item. Thank you, chair. Just want to acknowledge before we jump in that this has been an extremely long process. Many folks in the community have stuck with it and been active participants throughout.

1:56 And some have just gotten involved in, you know, the last year or two. But want to just acknowledge and thank people for their participation and also thank the commission for what has been an extraordinary amount of work. With that I'll kick it off. So my name is Rebecca Kennedy, I'm the deputy community development director for the city and part of the team that has been working on the comprehensive plan for the last several years. I'm joined by mark person, senior planner and our land use team.

2:54 Mark has been a core part of the entire team and also led the code update task. So the agenda is pretty straightforward tonight. We'll walk through as we always do the legal and policy framework for the comprehensive plan work including the growth management act. We'll outline the big buckets of key tasks and processes that are required and have occurred as part of this process. We will walk through the plan and the changes that have happened since the last draft that you all saw for both the plan and the code. Finally just go over the final environmental impact statement which was issued earlier this month and represents our compliance with the state environmental policy act for a non-project action of this size and scope. And then we should have lots of time for questions and discussion.

3:52 And then we'll ask for a planning commission recommendation to council on the planning code. So the legal and policy framework for this is the growth management act which was established in 1991 in Washington state. It requires the fastest growing cities and counties and at this point it's really most of the cities and counties in the state except for with some very few exceptions, really small jurisdictions. To plan for growth we have to look at how we -- we have to look at and establish population projections and the housing and jobs associated with those and we have to have a set of elements within the comprehensive plan, outline goals for those and have policies and demonstrate how we will implement those particularly with our development code.

4:51 I think important to note is under the growth management act your development code must implement your comprehensive plan. We know and I think everybody knows that our aspirations go beyond just regulation and they are about who we want to be and what we want the community to be in the future and that takes more than just regulation, it takes programmatic and capital investment and so there are pieces of the plan that speak to that as well, including the capital facilities plan which is a requirement under the growth management act. Every ten years we all go through a process called the periodic review process. Typically that's sort of staggered around the state so not everyone in the entire state is on the exact same schedule because that would drive the staff at the Department of Commerce absolutely bananas but there's a set sort of staging or period where some jurisdictions are due this year and a group of us are due the next and so on.

5:50 So the ten-year periodic review process is where we update our projections. You have to do it every ten years. You can do an updated comp plan more frequently than ten years. We typically haven't and then of course nothing is sort of set in stone. We can amend our comprehensive plan once annually and we have to do that cumulatively with all the proposed changes and we can update our code whenever we want and we frequently bring processes through the planning commission and council process to amend the code in response to unexpected circumstances or changing technology or emerging issues. And then just want to note that a new requirement under the growth management act with this periodic review cycle is a five-year report out to commerce on how we're doing which could potentially trigger a forced update potentially no one knows because it hasn't happened yet

6:47 but we are going to be able much more we're going to be held much more accountable to the Department of Commerce and seeing where we're at and meeting our goals particularly I think on the housing and greenhouse gas reduction goals. We show this slide every time. I won't spend a ton of time here but I just want to acknowledge that beyond regulations and council policies there's also just the sort of inescapable fact of change which is a condition of kind of existing in our world so things have shifted since our last plan they change regularly we've seen rising housing costs increase houselessness greater impacts from climate change greater demand and need for new strategies on how we move people around on the transportation system new challenges related to the economy and the types of jobs

7:45 we have and the wages they pay and how that relates to what you need to pay to you know raise a family so it's not just that our council has policy goals and that there are state laws it's also just that the world has changed as we know and we have to adjust and keep up in order to you know address challenges and take advantage of opportunities and continue to evolve as a community. There are of course new state laws which you all are very familiar with but that includes HB 1220 which requires every jurisdiction to not only have a target of jobs capacity they have to demonstrate but also capacity by income band including very significant numbers below 60% of the average median income and including a set of units that are permanent include permanently supportive housing HB 1110 requires us to allow four to six residential

8:43 units per predominantly single-family lot in the city four is a minimum two if they are within a quarter mile walking distance of transit or are affordable and importantly both from a regulatory side but also a process side we cannot treat mental housing differently than we treat detached single-family homes HB 1220 also requires us to account for racially disparate impacts so to audit past policies and regulations that created those disparate impacts and develop new policies and regulations that don't continue that harm and those disparate impacts but seek to provide kind of equitable access for everyone we have to allow 280 use per residential lot we cannot require parking minimums that exceed 0.5 stalls per unit we are going beyond that we're recommending on our proposed code has no parking minimums

9:41 we wouldn't rely on development to build the parking they need we all are also required and have actually earlier than most jurisdictions implemented a single stairwell for buildings up to six stories if you have adequate what fire protection and that's actually been in place that's a builder and alternate in our code now and then we are required newly in this cycle to have a climate chapter which requires a greenhouse gas analysis like an inventory it also really requires us to look at climate vulnerability geographically and to think about how we will address that vulnerability to things like wildfire smoke intense heat and flooding so obviously this has been a pretty complex and involved process but if you have to distill it all down these are the five key tasks that we would distill it down into so the first one is community partnership and engagement a public involvement plan and

10:40 a process for the public to understand receive information and participate is a requirement of the growth management act for periodic reviews you can see in our documents that we've done very extensive engagement with many opportunities and different ways for people to participate and have had significant participation and we've summarized that as part of an overall engagement summary by phase which goes into quite a bit of detail the second task is the comprehensive plan document itself and so that is not just the the elements although those are you know the meat of it there's elements of the plan and those have goals and policies and implementation steps but it's also the analysis that goes into it that you are required to do in terms of the existing conditions that that your you know do sort of your baseline starting point and projecting out what you need to accommodate

11:37 future growth title 20 is our land use and development code you this is a key piece of the growth management act you have to show that your development code is implementing your plan it is sort of the primary though not seeing not not only by any means regulatory implementer of the plan you have to demonstrate some implementation steps particularly within the public facilities and services so there's a there's an element or a chapter on that there's also a capital facilities plan that shows planned capital investments needed to serve growth with a finance plan from the one to six year period and the seven to 20 year period we also have a lot of again information in here on programmatic and non-capital investments because we know that those will be needed in order to reach our vision for the for the future and then the final sort of key task is the environmental impact statement process

12:37 which is really meeting the requirements of the state environmental policy act or seepa it requires you to have a seepa scoping notice and a comment period you have to do in our case there are levels of work required for seepa compliance the most rigorous one is the environmental impact statement process we do that for a project of this size or a planning process of this size because of its citywide implications important to note this is a non-project action so many of you may be familiar like with the interstate bridge there's been an eis done on that that is a project action something's getting built and we're analyzing very quantifiable specific impacts of a project this is a policy and planning document and so we are analyzing broad impacts and potential mitigations for nothing that's been built but something that shapes the future of what will be built and

13:36 so we have released and published that in final environmental impact statement which is our compliance with the state environmental policy act importantly you are not making recommendations on the feis and the council doesn't vote on the feis it is just there as the thing that is required to meet the seepa requirements. So here is a graphic that outlines the process the first part of this was really socializing and educating the community on the fact that the comprehensive plan update was beginning and forthcoming and represented you know a big vision and potentially significant change in the community and it also included a lot of analysis of existing conditions and historical conditions that got us to where we are and that form the sort of foundation from which we you know build and plan for the next 20 years that included things for really foundational

14:33 documents like the housing needs assessment and economic conditions and opportunity assessment and equity atlas and community atlas. Then we worked to develop potential land use alternatives so that really looked at analyzing data, understanding again what it was going to take excuse me to hit our targets that are required under the growth management act but also and the creation sorry of new zoning districts that allow different mixes of development types at different scales and then we worked with the community you all the planning commission and the council other boards and commissions many many different working groups and community groups to map different zoning districts around the city and get a sense of where people thought different types of uses should be and why and what they wanted to be in proximity to and also you know maybe things they wanted

15:29 you know elsewhere and so that all went into the next phase which was analyzing a set of alternatives through an environment draft environmental impact statement process I think it's important to note that there was a 60-day public comment period for that July to September of last year we received 400 plus comments and then based on those comments and based on councils policies and state laws and a framework that council developed we refined those alternatives into what we call preferred alternative or a single map that included elements of both the action alternatives though very few elements of the no action alternative and the exception of that is much of our heavy industrial lands didn't change then when we got to the preferred alternative we started analyzing it that's what's in the final EIS

16:25 we also continued to refine drafts of the plan and the code and we have now are at the last phase where we're taking them through the planning commission and council review and ultimately the adoption process I do want to note that while the most sort of while like the complete drafts of the planning code were just were published in February for the first time the code framework like the concepts of the districts the scale of development have been things that have been publicly workshopped and presented on since 2024 both with council but in in public meetings at neighborhood association meetings and other locations as have the major components of the plan in fact the goals for the various plan elements were endorsed by council via resolution in early 2024 so they really have been out there for

17:17 quite a while this is a high level busy summary of some of the engagement and outreach that occurred as part of the process we have directly talked to 200 or sorry 2,000 plus people so that's direct one-on-one communication through various presentations workshops tabling events meetings we have community and this slide actually might need to be updated after last night but I believe we have actually had 26 city council workshops and 24 now or 23 planning workshops plus you all had two joint workshops together one where you talked about the collective goals and needs around equity and the other one where you did the mapping exercise together we have had a lot of input from people including I mean I think again last summer 409 specific

18:16 comments on the EIS we've had lots of folks who participated via the online story maps and pin maps in the beginning and we've done a lot of outreach that's you know I guess less more passive in the sense that we're not interacting directly back and forth with people but just distributed information through different newsletters organizations canvassing etc social media. So the first draft of the full draft of the comprehensive plan and the development code was published on February 19th the second draft was published on April 7th and the third draft which you are reviewing tonight making a recommendation on was published on April 17th so we have included in your last workshop and tonight the change logs for what have

19:10 changed between different drafts and I'm just going to go over those with you all briefly. As we always do we're starting with you know the comprehensive plan is a 20-year plan it guides the way that we manage the built and natural environment and we have a series of targets that were developed with the county and the other jurisdictions looking at a county-wide population projection and then allocating out different numbers to the jurisdictions and the urban growth areas we did also our own housing needs assessment and came up with a slightly different number than the county so we are planning for the minimum we think that we need to meet our existing deficit and provide for future growth so we're projecting 81,000 new residents the need that translates into 38,000 new housing units and our council

20:06 has expressed a desire to maintain their existing policy that there will be slightly more than one job per working age person to provide lots of employment opportunities and so they have set the job target at 43,200. So quickly just to walk through the elements the introduction element is not required but it would be kind of strange not to have one to kind of say what we're doing what's the history and context you know what is kind of this document doing for us there have been no changes to the introduction chapter since you saw it community experience as you know is not required by the growth management act but is a central piece of framing what our aspirational future communities experience as being part of Vancouver there's also been

21:00 no changes there since the last draft equity and inclusion embeds equity into city decisions and investments it's also not required but something the city opted to include I will say though that HB 1220 requires us to do an analysis of racially disparate impacts and this is where that analysis is located in addition to an appendix with a detailed analysis that we've done and there were just there's a small change between the last draft in this draft and it was making sure that we were defining disparities and inequities clearly and consistently and using those terms clearly and consistently so there's some changes in the narrative to ensure that that was in fact happening so the land use and development factor or element is a requirement we have to you know basically do zoning we have to

21:57 designate the general distribution and the location and intensity of land uses within the city establish densities sufficient to demonstrate capacity for planned growth over the 20-year planning period it includes a growth concept as well as a map of comprehensive plan designations and then the zoning designations applied that essentially gets it goes from conceptual to specific and we did change a couple things we added I think a bullet or two to the community feedback summary just to be comprehensive basically and then we also added a footnote just to clarify that the zoning code or the zoning map in here is really for understanding and but it's not does not adopted into the comprehensive plan in a way that means we couldn't change it more than once a year right zoning code could

22:56 be changed more than once a year if it doesn't require a comp plan designation change so there's just a footnote to clarify that that's the case in terms of the housing element this is a requirement as we've talked through a lot of times we have to identify existing and projected needs and again newly the cycle on income levels and demonstrate sufficient capacity and zoning to meet those needs we have to include and accommodate step housing is so it was the state called step housing which is supportive transitional emergency and permanently affordable housing which we have done we made a couple changes from the last draft we've added a footnote to talk about how our allocations have worked and how essentially we the city was always ahead of the county on this process and so we used

23:55 the commerce tool to estimate our needs in various categories and then they assigned us slightly different numbers and our so basically our footnotes show and our tables show that we meet the capacity under both methodologies so whoever's methodology of allocating things and income bands that use we are meeting it we just did it at different times and then we also added our capacity for 80 years which we needed to do to meet a state requirement even though you know in our new code with how much flexibility it has 80 years are sort of not really a thing besides for purposes of impact fees okay on economic opportunity um this is not required it's optional under the growth management act but if you do do it you have to analyze your local economy and your workforce address employment trends

24:53 and industry composition future jobs needs and opportunities and then we we just the only change here was we added a bullet or two in the community engagement summary section to be again very thorough in the climate and environment chapter this is required now for the first time under the growth management act and we've talked about this a lot but you there's things you've got to do including greenhouse gas inventories and impact vulnerability assessments you also have to look at environmental justice so this is where we meet our some of our environmental justice requirements um so there were a few changes one um we added some language to a policy around preventing an existing policy around native species pollinator habitat around including clear direction to just work to remove and prevent future invasive species so it's coming out of i believe a parks commissioner's comment um we did some

25:53 clarifying um around what climate resilient spaces versus climate like adaptive development or infrastructure and just made made sure we were using that consistently across the chapter and again we here we updated the community feedback section to be thorough in the parks and recreation element again this this is required um to be included somewhere in your plan you can do it as a standalone chapter which we have always done um or some jurisdictions do it as part of their um public facilities and services chapter um but regardless you've got to address it you've got to address level of service current demand and need and and sort of your future planned investments um and we made some uh changes to um a table that had just i think the wrong numbers and then um we clarified again in a sort of did a review for consistent uses of public space versus community space so public space is

26:52 like anywhere that's public but it's not necessarily a place a community would gather a community space would be a subset of that like you you know street corner may not be a community space but it is a public space um so on the transportation side um this is a required element um we got some comments back from um the our metropolitan planning organization so the regional transportation council which does um distributes federal transportation dollars across our region um they do a review and eventual certification of our plan and so we added um uh level of service standards for transit and highways state highways in our jurisdiction um to meet a requirement there um and we added uh additional language around regional coordination to ensure that that was consistent with the intent was always

27:51 there but the language was consistent um and then we did add some more information on the active trim potential analysis um of our preferred alternative which just talks about where we have um short trips and land use strategies that may support the conversion of those driving trips to other modes in the future um so those were the changes there and then public facilities and services um the the only change was a table adjustment to make sure our rolled up numbers were correct because capital facilities planning is challenging because you're often doing it at the same time and so like currently the department of health health was reviewing our our updated 20-year water system plan um and and when that got numbers got finalized that required us to update all our numbers to the rolled up numbers and all the tables

28:44 were correct um we i think at the direction of this group updated the labels on the annexation city boundary versus uga map to show major roads to be clearer important to note that annexation element is not required under the growth management act it's optional but it is required under our jointly adopted county-wide planning policies given the size of our ugas in this region and then we made a few additional changes adding some of those clarity clarifications on descriptions to the glossary we added a closing page again we we added an additional appendix on the multimodal evaluation and active trip potential analyses and then we did clean ups for formatting spelling grammar and accessibility so chair i don't know if

29:39 you want to pause there for questions on the or just keep going at the end okay great well i will now turn it over to my colleague mark person who's going to talk about the zoning code thank you rebecca commission has seen this slide before but i'll go over it for anyone uh joining us tonight uh maybe for the first time um as rebecca mentioned a major element of the comprehensive plan is that our title 20 that's our uh zoning code and our development codes for uh building out our city all parcels in the city currently have a zoning district base district i'll use those words interchangeably and they will have a new one once this plan and code is adopted those base districts will include minimum density and maximum height and really

30:36 that's about it and and allowed uses as we have now a lot of the development standards that currently live within our 17 zoning districts will be moving to building types that's one of the major changes that this code is incorporating those standards that currently live in our our our current zoning include things you know like lot size parking and building placement lot coverage the frontage landscaping and public space some areas will also have an overlay council excuse me commission and the public may recall we have many existing overlays we have our transit overlay we have our noise overlay we have our downtown overlay we're keeping those except the transit and we're adding some new ones we'll have station station

31:35 overlays around our station areas we'll have some ground floor active use overlays and we'll have ground floor ready overlay among others the table on the right here is showing some major differences and similarities between our existing and new code again our existing code as was mentioned early in the process and i think it bears re-mentioning is that nearly 50 percent of the land in the city right now is zoned exclusively for single family or duplex homes nearly every other use is prohibited by our zoning code our new the draft zoning code that will be adopted as part of this process allows much more mixing of those uses and that's critical we believe for accessible connected communities for livability

32:34 for reducing vehicle miles traveled so really every zone with the exception of our heavy industrial and employment zones are essentially mixed use as far as density right now our current code has minimums and maximums the new code will focus on on minimums we'll let our height maximums and other site standards really dictate what can be built on that site building heights again this is remaining the same those will be by the zone in our existing code and new code parking as rebecca mentioned right now we have minimums it's widely understood at this time that those have been copied from city to city to jurisdiction to jurisdiction

33:26 and are based on very few data points and drive up the cost of development we are going to let the folks that build in this city let us know how much parking they need so there'll be no no minimums for most uses in the new code and building placement again we have right now for the most part we have minimum setbacks we're going to include build two lines which is essentially a minimum and a maximum you know we don't want someone with a house with a 50-foot 100-foot setback we're looking for that relationship to the street we think that's important for our transportation network this slide is showing our comprehensive plan designations across the top those are the residential neighborhoods the urban mixed-use neighborhoods our employment and industry

34:25 designation and then our green space under those comp plan comprehensive plan designations are nested our our base districts under the residential neighborhoods we'll have our mobile home designation that will cover our 16 existing mobile home parks in the city to in an attempt to protect those from development pressures of being developed and we have a option for folks to file for a rezone if at some point in the future those those mobile home parks become unfeasible to continue operations we've also built in at council's direction and think shared with this commission that we will allow obviously the replacement repair and expansion of mobile homes and manufactured dwellings in those parks but will also allow other development

35:25 provided it's permanently affordable then we have our low scale and medium scale neighborhoods the to round out the residential neighborhood plan districts our urban mixed-use plan district includes a mixed-use neighborhood and a regional activity district and then employment and industry includes our institutional campus zone industrial employment zone and then heavy industrial and as we continue to say throughout this process heavy industrials pretty much stay in the same in geography and standard we haven't made a lot of changes to that we've had some minor revisions to our heavy industrial code based on our stakeholder involvement and then working with our parks folks we have two green space districts will have our parks for for developed parks and then our natural areas for those more naturally naturally natural

36:19 areas it's in the name okay I'm gonna pass this back to Rebecca Kennedy for this slide great thanks mark this is Rebecca Kennedy deputy director of the community development department for the city so walking through the the preferred alternative process this has been a something we've been receiving quite a bit of questions on from folks how did X get X donating and so we thought it would be important to talk kind of remind everybody what the process for getting to the preferred alternative was so we we developed land use alternatives and we analyzed those you all as well as the city council and many other people were part of that process we we worked with council to develop a framework that would help us essentially combine and apply different elements of those options

37:15 around the city and and so we'd got to that preferred alternative and it was endorsed by council at the end of last year but how did we get to it why is it applied the way it is so this is the framework we we incorporated comments we received through the draft environmental impact statement where they aligned with council policy we looked at our centers and corridors growth concept and ensured that on those major centers and corridors we were allowing an appropriate scale of development typically a higher intensity of use particularly around transit corridors and other transportation corridors we did coordinate with schools to look at where they had existing capacity issues we just did not want to exacerbate very bad existing capacity issues and there was one area that we went one direction on because

38:13 they said they had quite serious capacity issues that they didn't anticipate to go away in the short term I think important to note that all the schools are focused facing declining enrollment so they're not really concerned about capacity broadly at this point we looked at tree canopy so our urban forestry team did an analysis of where we have existing privately owned significant from an ecological or species benefit perspective tree stands and we looked at applying typically low-scale neighborhood in those significant areas because that would allow for greater tree preservation because of that lower density of development we looked at we have a essentially a map that you know shows where our parks infrastructure are in our recreation centers and we added increase so medium scale housing typically

39:09 a neighborhood typically around those areas same with schools we heard over and over and over again from so many people that parks and schools are essential places that they need access to every day and that we should put more housing in the near those assets we looked carefully at our industrial lands specifically our light industrial lands and how we manage those I did important to recognize that you know Columbia Business Center which is a heavy industrial zoned area approached the city during the you know sort of alternatives development process and asked to be rezoned a regional activity center but as a really a long-term signal that they would plan for redevelopment after their existing industrial users would no longer viable we put an industrial holding over there that so until that is lifted they it's it's the same as heavy industrial those uses can continue they can expand they

40:06 can grow you can't build housing there because there's a lot of work that needs to be done to plan for the redevelopment over time but also how to serve that redevelopment their infrastructure issues in that area we we looked at our service deserts map so that's essentially we have a map of essential services and we can look at where places are better or worse served and we tried to locate growth in areas that were served well to an extent because those were already places with at least some of the components of a connected and accessible neighborhood we looked at land use strategies again that reduced vehicle miles traveled in the associated greenhouse gas emissions and that was really looking at where do we have transit corridors particular enhanced transit corridors where do we have active trip potential where do we have some components of those again those essential services that

41:04 allow people to take near housing that allow people to take different trip types we looked at our capital facilities plans and where we have made or are planning to make infrastructure investments largely the city is built out and has it you know we I was explaining to someone today that you know we don't have we don't make like in some some more rural areas you would make decisions about where growth is versus where you have public sewer we have public sewer everywhere right and so it's we have and we have so it's really about where are we making transportation investments where there are other critical investments that would really serve growth talked about transportation we used our modal networks so that's our pedestrian network our transit networks our bike and small mobility networks and even our freight networks in informed industrial land decisions and then we did

42:02 look at our health and climate vulnerability assessments and didn't necessarily not locate certain things near in in those areas because a lot of times where you have like for instance the greatest air quality issues are your busiest corridors but those are also where you have like the best transit service and so we looked at other strategies through implementation and policy that we could use to mitigate those impacts in large part though they didn't inform the final map that is how we got to the preferred alternative so we just thought it was important to put this in there because we've gotten a lot of questions about it and here is the preferred alternative again it maps those new zoning districts that mark described to you and we do still have an interactive map online that people can go to to look at what their current zoning is and what their future zoning proposed is as well as a story map

42:59 that kind of walks you through the zoning districts and what they mean gonna turn it back over to mark thanks rebecca mark person again development review planner this slide is showing our densities and heights associated with those base districts that I described earlier our manufactured home base district does not have a minimum residential density again that's was created to protect those 16 existing manufactured home parks within the city maximum height in those would be 45 feet our low-scale develop our low-scale neighborhood has a minimum density of 8 units per acre you'll see floors here just for low scale we don't regulate by floors except in the low-scale neighborhood that's the one where we'll limit development to three floors above grade median scale neighborhood is is

43:59 one higher up that's 16 units per acre 75 feet maximum height and then our mixed use it would be 32 units an acre 110 feet and then our regional activity center steps up again 64 units an acre and no maximum height in that zone and then we get into our institute and employment and industrial uses the institutional campus has no minimum residential density and no maximum height and that our employment and industrial does not allow any residential and has a max height of 150 and then our heavy industrial does not allow any residential and does not have a maximum height we have a few draft code changes since the last publish

44:54 we wanted to bring to the Commission's attention as you may recall not sure if we had this conversation last time originally we built in a one-year exemption for medium scale parcels that they didn't have to meet minimum density this was you know for larger parcels where they wanted to replace their home or if something catastrophic happens they could rebuild that home and not meet minimum density heard from the community that sometimes it takes quite a while to work through this the process of with insurance companies to get settled on a value and get the funds needed to rebuild that so we have since changed that to a three year within three years and then also built in a one-year extension if an applicant can

45:50 show us that they're you know making a good faith effort to work through the system we've had exemption to ground floor active use and ground floor ready for emergency service uses and then heard from our industrial stakeholders I think the Port of Vancouver particularly that has some unique sites where there are no public roads that front some of their parcels and having a large sign does not make sense for some of those so we we've exempted site posting of sites for if you don't have public frontage along the along the street there back to Rebecca Kennedy deputy director CDD thanks mark yeah this is Rebecca again I just

46:44 again want to emphasize that the state environmental policy act requires a process of analyzing potential impacts avoiding impacts where possible and mitigating them when they exist we there are kind of two types of things that go through the seatbelt process there are projects again those are things that are getting built with pretty quantifiable impacts and then there are what we call non project actions that's what the comp plan is it's not building anything in and of itself but it is setting the stage for new types and scales of uses and different places and we need to also analyze the impacts of these policy and regulatory changes I think it's just important to note on a high level the preferred alternative is a combination and sort of the impacts fall generally in between alternatives one and two that we analyze

47:42 to the draft environmental impact statement that's not a coincidence that's on purpose when we do draft environment when we go through this process we try to ensure that the no action and the alternative about the highest in range represents the full spectrum of things we should be analyzing and typically if you do it I think in a way that that makes sense and you've sort of thought it out well where you land is going to fall within that spectrum and so your draft will have analyzed those potential impacts avoidance and mitigation and then your final will fall within that so the new the final environmental impact statement analyzes the preferred alternative and generally the impacts of that preferred alternative fall within the range that we analyze during the draft environmental impact statement process I think it's important to note that the we do we are exceeding the very

48:35 minimum that we are required to plan for for housing and that's something that the council basically told us to add more medium scale when we were going through the preferred alternative process and the idea is that we are allowing you know a little flexibility beyond the minimum to try to meet our housing goals and again we will be reassessing this periodically on the five-year mark going forward and we we have slightly exceed our jobs as well and I another thing I just think important to note that the preferred alternative and the FEIS analysis supports it spread growth more evenly around the city than than alternatives one and two which concentrated things in different ways I guess but but but it is more evenly

49:30 spread out. So this is the end of a potentially the end of a long process as you know the Planning Commission's core task is to review and advise on land use matters including and particularly the comprehensive plan and the zoning code and make recommendations formal recommendations to the City Council via a public hearing and public vote. So we are at that process after approximately three and a half years and 20 some workshops and we are as a staff recommending that based on all the information in the staff report the process to date as well as the the draft plan itself and the code and the underlying appendices and analyses that support it that Planning Commission recommend Council adopt

50:27 the updated comprehensive plan and zoning code as outlined here tonight and in the materials and assuming or if that happens tonight the next steps are it'll go to Council for first reading on May 11th and that's where they'll read the ordinance adoption ordinance into the code and vote to advance it to a final hearing and then that final hearing is scheduled for June 1. I want to note that the new planning code won't based on our current drafting of the ordinance won't go into effect for 60 days and that's really to give us plenty of time to make sure our processes work. Middle housing is a new thing in terms of the way we take in and process development applications we want to get that right and we also understand and want to be clear that we will not get everything right in an overhaul of the code

51:23 of this scale and size and so our commitment is that we will be ready to educate people and facilitate development applications and help them move through the new code as they get used to it and that we will be taking in information from development community and others about the code where the code may not be working we may there may be conflicts we need to address and we will do that quickly we will we will not get it perfect but it has been very thoroughly vetted by a variety of people who care about this stuff and so I just want to say we appreciate their help it is a better code because of the working groups and the development community affordable housing providers the builders the community members the neighborhoods that participated in this process and that's that's what we've got for you tonight chair thank you before we dive into the rest of it just a quick preamble the role of the planning commission is to review and to analyze proposed ordinances

52:21 comprehensive plan amendments zoning changes and other land use related issues we follow a public process including holding hearings during which the public has an opportunity to provide additional perspectives and information and legislative matters the role of the commission is advisory city council will hold separate hearings consider our recommendations and make a final determination the planning commission will conduct a hearing tonight and take public testimony community members may register online or submit a speaker request form in person the chair will call upon you during the public testimony portion of the hearing if you are in person when you were called please come to the microphone if you've joined remotely you'll be promoted to a panelist and when you are called unmute your phone or microphone for all those testifying please state your name for the record if you're providing the formal recommendation of a neighborhood association or other group tell us when the association voted on the matter as well as how many people were for and against we ask you to keep your

53:18 remarks brief and to the point and direct them to the planning commission as a body not the audience or staff please do not repeat testimony that has already been provided in print or verbally as a reminder to my colleagues please indicate to the chair when you want to be recognized at the conclusion of public testimony the commission will deliberate and make a recommendation to council would anyone on the planning commission like to disclose any conflicts of interest please show respect for the people testifying tonight whether you agree with their comments or not so flow wise i believe we're into questions from the commission yes commissioner beck thank you patrick sandra beck planning commissioner rebecca and team mark i see you wore a tie tonight very impressive um brian dominique

54:13 anyone else many people mariska who i've missed and rebecca thank you thank you very much for the presentation and for all of your efforts i've been on the planning commission a little over three years or a little under three years and um have been very impressed with the depth and um thoroughness of um of the data analysis research outreach and visioning most certainly visioning that has gone into the effort to pull all of this together and and lastly but not least the um the materials that have been created for the presentations as well as the final product um at this point i think are outstanding

55:11 um just as a reminder for us all a comprehensive plan is a herculean effort i've been personally and professionally involved in a number of different long-range master plans for different owners across the country and um looking to vision out how we all want to grow and who we want to be as a community in the next 20 years is not taken lightly by anyone who is involved in those efforts these are these are huge questions that require a lot of guidance i appreciate that uh all the times that your team has come here and um presented to the planning commission and gotten our feedback gotten the public's feedback received a lot of feedback and input from city council and so on because how does one create a vision without a lot of input and it's a vision for the community not a vision for me personally

56:08 i have my personal little tweaky items that i would love to see as part of the comp plan but aren't necessarily in there but a vision for our community for who we want to be and and how we want to be in the future um i really believe that comprehensive plans are uh are intended to coordinate sustain and reflect the community's needs they are not the agenda of one person or one committee they are reflective of the community i wanted to commend you for a thorough process a plan with vision that is aspirational as well as reality based and for full involvement of the community i do have a few follow-up questions from the public comments i'd like to understand a little bit more around the exemption to medium scale minimum density the three years the person who applies to rebuild does it have to be

57:07 the owner of the parcel when uh when it was demolished or when the catastrophe occurred or could a new owner come in and submit for that exemption to the minimum density that that i'm not sure what the clarification is on that but it may need to be clarified could you answer that i don't mark person um senior planner community development department commissioner beck we don't speak to the ownership so we wouldn't be checking that it wouldn't matter it would just be from time of the demolition or catastrophic event to rebuilding or building permits excuse me that is what we say in the draft you'd have three years and can i just say one of the reasons that as we were talking to people about extending this was actually

58:06 like a state resolution issues so zoning runs with the land of rules associated with zoning run with the land agreed and i was curious um having lived in northern california and had neighbors who lived in paradise and went through the campfire and uh appreciate that you've extended the time frame for the exemption because it's it really took some of our friends quite a long time to resolve issues with their property um can i just one follows to that um i just want to be clear that um the language in our zoning code applies to regular circumstances if we had a paradise if we had a earthquake right we would the council would take emergency action that allowed us to suspend or extend or do different things with our local land use regulation so this is really just our everyday stuff but like if if this is not

59:02 we don't craft our zoning code to respond to a paradise or an earthquake we that's why we have the council has the ability to enact emergency declarations and emergency powers that suspend various regulations to account for those like non-typical things okay thank you for that clarity um my other question is uh around middle housing density one of the public comments that was submitted referred to an owner-occupied project off of broadway in uptown not meeting um the density requirements that's a recent project i i'm wondering um on a constrained lot how would a project for middle housing proceed under the new comp plan if they were unable to meet the density what's the process for that this is mark person senior planner community development department commissioner beck i

59:59 guess i would ask what the constraint being the parcel is small it could be irregular shaped could be access from different different points of access around the lot that is needed for other for other means could be anything i'm just curious what happens when someone runs into an issue where they can't meet a minimum density well i thank you for the question we do allow folks to back out many things from the net net our density i should say isn't that based on the net side area so if there are critical areas if there's right-of-way dedicated if they're you have to put a public street in obviously that that wouldn't be in your net so all that is taken out of the net density critical root zone this is rebecca

1:00:55 yes a critical root zone of a tree to be retained so all things all those things are backed out i guess i would just say some sites aren't zoned for middle housing or maybe aren't candidates for middle housing we have lots of building typologies that can be built to higher densities and i think that is um what we are looking at as rebecca mentioned in this preferred alternative is really having those higher densities in those strategic areas those nodes and corridors so i think um it would be unlikely that in a place where we intend for middle housing as a scale of development to be unachievable it may be unachievable because we intend for a higher scale of development because we are looking to leverage say existing public investments

1:01:53 in transit and in that case it is not that no development is feasible it is that that only some development is feasible and we are requesting that you build that because we want to put more housing near those in those areas where we have made investments and leverage those investments to improve access etc um i do also want to say we have a variance process um and so there is administrative so mark can you speak to the administrative variance process this is mark person's planner with cdd um variances wouldn't be able to be used for that so our two carve outs on variances are any numerical standard can be varied except for density and lot size and it's interesting right like in 20 years ago we we didn't want folks to go under now it's 2026 and we're asking folks not to go over so that that wouldn't

1:02:50 be an option under the draft good to know i appreciate the thoughtful response i mean the fact is we have to go one way or the other and we'll see how it lands we'll see how it works out um areas that for my two cents that might require future tweaking um i think a little bit uh probably some better alignment of our alternative transit like bicycle parking with our transportation plans for the city um perhaps consideration and discussion more around any kind of buffer zone between the low-rise residential and medium rise i continue to be concerned about the disparity between 45 feet and 75 feet even with the reduced height that you have put in for buffer zone it's fairly minimal so i i am concerned about

1:03:47 that and and of course um the urban growth area um annexation density how will density be um planned in that area uh what will occur and how does our community grow and i think consolidate into the urban entity but um that's it for me and uh you have my gratitude your leadership in planning for our community's future has been outstanding thank you commissioner wheeler i don't have any questions um mostly also just kind of want to echo the gratitude i think as we as we saw in the presentation land use affects so many things i mean there are so many chapters about so many different things you know from the individual level of how land use affects our health and our sense of community our choices and how we get around our ability to afford a roof over our heads to the finances of our city are

1:04:43 we building in a way that's financially sustainable and where we can continue to provide services our environmental sustainability are we sprawling or are we densifying and protecting our green space are we building in a way that allows us to minimize emissions from transportation and from buildings so both like individually and systemically this matters a lot and so i'm really grateful for how much effort and thought has put into this how much outreach has been put into this um this was a real exercise in balancing competing priorities and i think that was that was done really well um with all of the outreach of course this you're not going to be able to make everyone 100 happy but this did a really good job of listening and incorporating feedback where it was feasible um i think overall the the most important thing about this plan is that it's a step in the right direction when it comes to adaptability i think when it comes to cities the most important thing is that we're able to adapt to changing conditions like we said earlier change is a condition

1:05:39 of existing in this world and this plan allows us to have more freedom to build a city that that works for all of us so thank you so much for all of the effort commissioner jay thank you chair mr jay here i'll start with a quick question so at the beginning of the presentation there's a mention of the department of commerce tracking progress and i was just curious how do they hold municipalities accountable or what if you exceed are there any grants or anything like that or just curious sticks or carrots of how the department of commerce operates um so i is i'll tell you what my understanding is and to apologies to our colleagues at the department of commerce i may not get all of it exactly right but typically what happens is is is in terms of sticks is if you're not meeting requirements if you're

1:06:35 you know your plan gets thrown out by the growth management hearings board or something like that you you're on a non-compliance list and it impacts your ability to get state funding we've already had one grant agreement held up and it won't be processed until we come into compliance with the periodic review process so and that's it's not unexpected frankly we get it we took longer than they gave us for we think justifiable reasons the the it's unclear what the five-year reporting looks like yet commerce hasn't made rules around that mostly because i think they've had to make rules around like so many other things just continuously through the legislative cycles and trying to keep up but we will obviously be talking to you all about comprehensive plan implementation we have workshops scheduled in the for on your you know your work plan is we've been trying to build it out but in

1:07:34 the fall to come back to you and talk about what we're seeing we'll keep you apprised of what we hear from commerce too but but i can't i can tell you what the sticks are and i mean the stick is no money and the carrot is money but um you know there's there and then there's increasing penalties if you're doing really bad things but we've never gotten there so i'm not an expert on it perfect thank you very much and i guess i'll share some of my thoughts i think commissioner beck said it extremely well when she said it's a vision for the community not my vision obviously i'm only one member of this community and one member of this commission and i have my my personal viewpoints but i think when it comes to following the direction policy direction at both the state and the city council i've given you as well as the feedback that you've incorporated both from myself from other members of this commission city council all the boards and commissions that you've talked to as well

1:08:28 as community members that i i think with that that in mind i think that already has informed my my how i intend to vote on this but i wanted to share some of my thoughts on some of the pros as well of it is that i'm really excited about the single staircase apartments i think uh up zoning gives a ton of opportunities for property owners for more flexibility with adus duplexes triplexers triplexes all these different opportunities for housing i think already said it but amazing public outreach that really sets the standard that i don't think other cities or communities or counties can follow um so great job there and i wanted to shout out as well as the mobile home protections i know i've asked about that a fair amount of times and i think it's really exciting to see the work that you all have done related to that and mixed-use development i think that's something that we should aspire to i'll share some of my cons as well as that i do think that sometimes environmental policy i know that comes in a lot of that comes from the state but also from city council may come

1:09:24 in conflict with some of our development goals and perhaps that um perhaps an over emphasis on pushing for density as opposed to following what a lot of the market does want which is single-family homes and i wouldn't be opposed to seeing the urban growth area grow myself to give more opportunities for land tracks but i know that these aren't the directions that you're given by some of our policy makers and but um i would be remiss if i didn't share my own thoughts on it but that won't inform my vote on it but i wanted to say you guys did a great job i know this is a herculean task and i'm excited also to see that you know with the department of commerce as well that it's not just a plan that we'll put on a shelf for us to look back at 20 years and go oh yeah um so i'm glad to see that we'll be remaining accountable to it as well so great job and um to also allude to what commissioner wheeler said about you know not necessarily making everybody happy and i think that's that might be a good thing that not everybody is happy but hopefully you will all be happy

1:10:20 with us being over with soon um that's that that matters there so i hope great work and thank you very much for keeping us informed and hearing our feedback thank you commissioner castensen like to begin just by reiterating that thanks to um everyone who's worked on this and that includes everyone who's provided public comment i know we have several folks here in the room today but also everyone who provided comment throughout the many many years of this plan development um a few reflections i wanted to share that i feel like um you know especially those who maybe have evolved the the processes closely you know might just benefit from from hearing what stood out you know to each one of us and and for me it's very clear the plan meets a real need for housing so every single um meeting that we have city staff reminds us there's several pieces of legislation um at the state level that require cities to plan for more growth um not just in terms of number of units but

1:11:19 also the different income bands as we've been talking about for some time and i i feel like this plan and the code really provides a pathway to achieve that goal and i know we've heard from community members who agree with the current approach and and people who have concerns real concerns about higher density in their neighborhoods and um one thing i was was heartened to to read which i wanted to point out from the the city staff um report for today and i'm just quoting this it was in the materials that replacement of existing homes in single family zones on standard side lots um with new donors or housing is likely to be infrequent so i think it's important just to acknowledge that projection i know we've heard several times about any of the the market deciding what is going to happen and and also that staff are being committed to reviewing how this is implemented so i know there's been a lot of concern there and i just want to acknowledge that while at the same time pointing

1:12:12 out um some projections that have been highlighted um second for me what's actually most exciting about the plan is that it looks at many different aspects of land use beyond housing that are really important to residents um that's probably what struck me the most when i read the plan um in its entirety i know that housings is top of mind for many of us but i really appreciate that the plan also looks at things beyond housing so you know community gathering spaces and facilities where people can experience the art green spaces all of those aspects of this plan are so important to creating a community where you know it's livable and and people want to come here and people want to stay here and lastly and this really speaks to the the community feedback piece which everyone has highlighted i feel like the plan really considers the diverse needs and hopes of our city's residents and again i know some

1:13:10 of us may still have questions or concerns and i hope that that this body and city staff um as well as city council can continue to listen to these concerns um as we use the plan to guide our decisions and and then make adjustments as as we determine what's working and and what isn't during implementation i appreciate the humility that the staff has has demonstrated by saying they know they won't get it 100 right and i think we can all give implementers some grace with this and just realize that um we will all be attuned to any adjustments that need to be made um but my hope really for everyone that that reads this um is that you walk away with something that's exciting for you i know i know that i did um there's the concepts of neighborhood centers that bring services closer to where people live improve transit options um also the commitment to protecting our natural resources

1:14:07 and i hope that when you look at this plan um you see all these different sections you can be excited about this vision for a shared future so that's um just a few things i want to share based on my reading of the plan and look forward to continued discussions as we move towards implementation um after after this evening thank you commissioner cavill um i thinking i'm thinking today of a famous quote about politics is that it is the strong and slow boring of hard boards i think we're all feeling the meaning of that today after many years many meetings and much effort we've arrived at a comprehensive plan that we can be proud of i'd like to thank my fellow commissioners for their perseverance and the staff for their guidance i believe the comp plan before us will lead vancouver into what is possible tomorrow

1:14:58 thank you all vice chair powell i do have a question um it's uh i've received this question from a few folks out in the community it's about adding incremental density in low-scale and medium-scale neighborhoods to existing single-family parcels um so mark and rebecca could you touch base and i'll just give an example a quarter acre lot with an existing single-family home would like to add an adu um if that was in a medium-scale neighborhood that quarter acre lot plus the adu or single-family home plus an adu would not meet the minimum density requirement would adding an adu be an allowable thing to do mark person planner with cdd uh yes vice chair pile thank you for that question uh we're looking for incremental change and not looking to scale up immediately so our draft indicates

1:15:57 similar to our existing code is that those minimum densities only kick in on complete redevelopment and you know if you take that house down if it's a medium scale you'll have three years to build you know to build one two whatever it is and not meet the minimum density but beyond that we would be looking for site you know if you're doing complete redevelopment to meet the minimum density but yes adding one or two or three units over time i think is is the the hope that happens in the community as folks slowly um change and with the with this new development code great thank you thank you okay there being no further questions for this portion i believe that takes us into the public testimony thank you do we have anyone signed up for public testimony this evening yes we do we have one

1:16:54 person online and several members in the audience let's go online first and then we'll call those two people okay so tom paulu thank you can you hear me yes we can hear you okay yeah sorry i had a problem with the uh the video here but you can hear me that's great so anyway uh my name is tom paul i live in the lincoln neighborhood and uh i certainly appreciate all the hard work that's gone into this plan i became aware of this about a year ago and i was frankly quite surprised to learn that a five-story apartment building would be allowed next to my house and um with all due respect i think a lot of other people in this community

1:17:51 uh would also be surprised and despite all your outreach a lot of people are not aware of this um it obviously this this is you're about to pass this so it's kind of too late to uh change anyone's mind um i'll note that you're going above what the state law requires for density um you know just personally you know there's a lot of people like me who've spent a lot of years living in apartments uh finally got a house that we like we fix it up we have a nice yard and we're saying oh okay you know our next door neighbor could have a a multiple family thing staring down into our backyard that's kind of the reality or for me despite all the facts and figures that's what kind of comes out to me um so

1:18:48 anyway you know i appreciate that people say this can be revised and i think you know maybe you'll need to do that when um when more people in the community become aware of what this does you know i i came down to a meeting um oh about a month ago down at the city hall and i walked all the way down from well lincoln neighborhood down the city hall in the past like hundreds and hundreds of single family homes i thought these are really pretty nice places um one thing i've not heard a single word tonight uh giving value to the uh older neighborhoods with single family homes it's all about the necessity for more density and i i hope that you do respect that a community can benefit by having some places with single

1:19:42 family homes with um lower density which is about you know 50 of the community according to your statistics so anyway um i quoted i wrote down that one of you said we won't get everything right and um maybe you haven't but um so anyway that's my feelings and i really feel that our hundreds if not thousands of other people who are in my position who may share those feelings who um are not participating in this process right now so anyway thank you very much for the uh ability to comment on your plan thank you please call the first

1:20:30 two people in the room mary keltz and brian watson are you able to mute them thank you please state your name for the record before beginning your testimony my name is mary keltz here once again as a long-term resident of vancouver to be concise i prepared and submitted written comments this morning and i'm hopeful that you will have had some opportunity to read them and consider them so moving on i think it's important to note that um there is a meaningful disconnect between the city and the county uh in our long-range planning particularly since we're considering another 20-year horizon i'd like to see that redress

1:21:27 somehow because if it's not there will continue to be a lot of issues related to the differences between the city and the urban growth area responding to some other comments i'd like to note that i am not advocating an expansion of the urban growth area i am advocating better use of the urban growth area that already exists and with extreme cooperation between the city and the county that is absolutely crucial so that's that's what i'll say for now and i'll hope that people in positions to make decisions will read some of the things that i've previously written um the urban growth area i don't mean to belabor it but it's been a problem for many years i've been here for many years and i've seen the problems

1:22:25 and i'd like to see some real progress in redressing those problems without having to wait another 20 years thank you please state your name for the record before beginning your comments my name is brian watson and thank you for this time and i appreciate the work you've done on the comprehensive plan i'm a member of clark county's bicycle pedestrian advisory committee though i bring nothing in directly from them i'm simply here to represent myself as a citizen of the county uh out in salmon creek um i would like to see the comprehensive plan approved and move forward because it does help um the county plan itself i'm excited about the high density

1:23:19 housing um the doing away with the uh looking at the minimums instead of the maximums focusing on that um for the nodes and the corridors because that greatly helps me as a non-driving resident in the county where the county wants to align with the infrastructure there on focusing um its its infrastructure built out along those corridors um that's all i have to say thank you thank you please call the next two people taber kelly and gabriella ewing please state your name for the record before beginning your comments uh taber kelly uh

1:24:14 good evening commission nurse um as some of you are already aware there are some things that made it into this comp plan that i wish weren't in there among them are open space minimums and impervious surface maximums which include residential structures and the buffering between zones there's also um far more overlay districts than than uh ab well than necessary i would say um all of this will increase housing prices during a housing emergency with that said this comp plan is uh much better than the status quo and i encourage this uh this commission to to vote to um to advance it uh especially since it is essentially five years late at this point um uh with that said thank you for your time thank you please state

1:25:12 your name for the record before beginning your comments and there's a little button that looks like a person if you just want to press that perfect thank you thank you good evening my name is gabriella ewing i am the executive director for hispanic disability support of south was washington pass it to see jantes i am one of those cbo members working along with dominic meredith and rebecca thank you so much for all your hard work to fulfill our wishes and wants of what we wanted to do to be able to work in this comprehensive plan and i'm here obviously to give my full support to this comp plan and to ask you to make that recommendation to our city council representatives and um i just want to say

1:26:04 that i'm so happy to see that the outreach was very inclusive i can speak for the families that i support in clark county this plant will help with the cost of living you know everybody knows that the growth that we are experiencing here in clark county is extremely high so this will allow for multi-generational families to have um better opportunities to find housing and also to provide for their loved ones as you know people with intellectual developmental disabilities have a harder time finding a home for their loved ones and we don't have many options here in the county so um i just want to say please um do what

1:26:59 is necessary to to pass this plan and hopefully it will be like yes after five five years well i have worked in this for almost three years so um thank you so much for the work that you do and also for the staff thank you thank you for everything you've done to bring us all together and to collaborate in this comp plan that's all i have to say thank you thank you please call the next two people tom knappenberg and ben mccarty please state your name for the record before beginning your comments and there's a little button with a person on it right there thank you so much all right thank you tom knappenberger

1:27:53 1713 northwest 75th street vancouver thank you for this opportunity to address the planning zoning commission i have four overarching points i'd like to make and the address process the process is important because as you all know it determines outcomes first of all i'd ask you to please delay adoption of this update in order to give people more time to understand and comment while the city's been engaged in this for three years most people excuse me have not had the opportunity to tune into this there are all important details of lot sizes building heights other increased density issues that have been public only since february 19th and have been tweaked since then as we heard tonight even up till uh april 7th the

1:28:48 plan's complexity and scope require time to absorb and understand you could ask a thousand people on the streets around town and i'll wager that fewer than 50 of them are aware of this process and only a handful would know what it means for their neighborhood fears that the city will lose state grant funding appear overstated are not a good reason to rush through such momentous changes the county and some of the smaller cities are moving slower and don't seem concerned about this so please give us all time excuse me please give all us the time that this far-reaching redesign of our city needs and deserves number two i'd like to ask why the city is requiring more density than is required by the population estimates given it by the state and county meeting the increased density of the county provided population forecast adding more people and cars while reducing parking along with

1:29:45 infrastructure demands will be difficult enough thirdly the city should cooperate closely with the county and designing density for the city's urban growth area there are nearly as many people 171 000 in the uga as there are in the city of vancouver it makes no sense to me to require increased density in the city without concomitant density in the areas expected to be a part of our city and lastly the draft plan speaks at length to creating a positive quote community experience for all residents please consider ways to mitigate the impact of increased population and density in our existing neighborhoods for longtime citizens as well as newcomers in my last 24 seconds i'd like to commend roberta she's been hard working very patient an example of just exemplary city employees so thank

1:30:39 you rebecca wherever you are thank you please state your name for the record before beginning your comments uh good evening my name is ben mccarty i'm the vice president of northwest neighborhood association i live at 906 northwest 51st street in vancouver i'm here tonight on my own behalf to encourage you to recommend the placement of northwest neighborhood entirely within the low scale neighborhood designation the environmental impact statement for the proposed comprehensive update states that intense development is focused in specific areas like urban centers and corridors however when the misnamed medium scale is applied to previously low density areas we're no longer looking at simple increased densification is intended by the new state requirements we're looking at the encouragement of intense development and maximum infill with intense impacts on the environment on infrastructure and in the ability of the public and wildlife to access critical green spaces that are now walled off behind wood concrete and glass the is hand waves these concerned away by saying that all changes will be quote incremental but the pace of change is something beyond

1:31:37 the city's control and external forces don't just disappear because they want them to the preferred alternative the city projects that this designated zones will yield 44 000 housing units over the life of the plan city's target is 38 000 moving the northwest neighborhood entirely in the low scale would have minimal to no impact on the city's goals instead of embracing the use of potentially destructive medium scale zoning in neighborhoods such as northwest the can logistically handle growth at that level i would encourage you to embrace smart growth and the true middle housing intended by the legislature and return the northwest neighborhood to the low scale designation i received mixed messages from the city on why the neighborhood has been placed mostly in the medium scale and the preferred alternative after being almost entirely low scale on alternative one and two on one hand compromises to medium scale zoning have been rejected because they would quote be too restrictive to what developers could do i've been told that the neighborhood had to be included in medium scale due to equity concerns and because quote developers do not take down new 1.5 million dollar homes to make multi-family housing they take down older homes end quote in areas where the residents

1:32:37 don't have the wealth or resources to fight maximum infill projects on the other hand i'm told intense development probably won't happen in our neighborhood anyway that's true then moving the neighborhood to low scale will have no practical impact on equity or the city's projected yields or targets however if the hope is to encourage investment groups and large developers to bid for land and homes against first-time home buyers and senior citizens and to cut the middle out of middle housing then by all means leave the plan as is because that's what would happen i share the city's desire to see to increase density as it grows and also to increase density and growth in my own neighborhood but it should be done in a way that is pro people pro housing accessibility and pro upward mobility i would encourage you to choose people over profits equitable solutions over private equity middle housing over the mega rich and smart development over wealthy developers and to recommend the placement of the northwest neighborhood entirely in the low scale neighborhood designation thank you for your time your consideration tonight for your efforts thank you please

1:33:33 call the next two people that's all we have signed up for tonight okay i believe that takes us back into deliberation if we can welcome back our presenters to the table there commissioner cal any further comments for three and a half years i don't think i have any more thank you okay vice chair pile further comments i just want to address a couple of the um the public's comments tonight because i i'm also intrigued and some of this is i think within the scope of the comprehensive plan some of it is out but rebecca could you

1:34:27 briefly address the city and county cooperation comments because i think they're valid and i'm curious as well absolutely um i think um and i hope that's as clear in the annexation chapter um as well as some of the additions we made on the at the recommendation of you all about talking about the experience of living in a different jurisdiction when everything's all connected um but so i think there's should there's a recognition by the city um that it is connected right for us to achieve our climate goals housing goals um employment jobs housing balance goals you know we we do need to work together um not just with the county but also with smaller cities and and our partners to the south the jobs market the housing market right these are regional things and no one can solve some of the issues

1:35:24 we are going to encounter on their own without without collaboration um and that being said we are we are sort of we are constrained by jurisdictional authority and and so the county is planning for more intense development in the urban growth area than the current is currently allowed um they held a hearing last night and this morning on the adoption of their preferred alternative um the other jurisdictions in the county are also proposing um more intense development capacity to meet the requirements of 12 20 in particular but also for canvas moshe 11 10 and we do coordinate regularly there's a monthly meeting between representatives from all the cities and the county to coordinate on the county's process um so that that is ongoing but the county and the council as as any legislative body would have their they

1:36:20 have differences in their policy priorities our responsibility is to reflect and implement our council's policy priorities um and to work with our colleagues at the county as they try to implement their council's policy priorities and ensure that we can be as aligned as possible and and i do believe we do that we work very closely and and collaboratively with staff at the county and have throughout this process thank you that's it commissioner beck further comments no further comments thank you commissioner wheeler nothing more for me commissioner j no further comments thank you chair commissioner castlinson just wondering if you could reflect a bit on what some of the public comments we've heard tonight and i think you presented this already with respect to the differences in numbers um and i think there might be the perception that we're going above and beyond what's required

1:37:18 when what you were stating was that there's the direction that we do want to overshoot that a little bit and there just are some different numbers that i think there might be a little bit of confusion on the part of the public about why that is so if you touch on this in the beginning a little bit but if you'd like to expand on that i think it could be helpful yeah i think that um the the 38 000 new units from the base planning year is the minimum we have to achieve um there's nothing that says um that we shouldn't um provide a little bit of a buffer to apply for more and in fact this this came up when we were talking to our council about getting to a preferred alternative and they directed us to add more medium scale um to ensure we had enough space for housing given that we know there's lots of reasons um people won't change anything on their property and in fact that's that that's what we expect is most people won't do anything differently um and

1:38:17 that it will take time um and so that is why we have we have planned for more um i also if it's okay because it's related i think want to just clarify that um hb 1110 said that we had to allow four to six units on every lot in predominantly single family zones it did not say that that was the maximum we had to allow and in fact hb 12 20 requires us to just to do accommodate units but also income bands and smaller units tend to be less expensive and so um i think there's a feeling that folks think well when you applied medium scale to these predominantly single family zones you've gone way above and beyond and i just want to clarify that that some of that is not about just meeting the minimum required in hb 1110 but it is also about requiring about meeting the minimums and the targets

1:39:16 of hb 12 20 um so just wanted to clarify that as well thank you very much i hope that's helpful for folks that had some questions about that a couple of questions for my part this is chair adegwemi thank you for touching earlier on the collaboration between the city and the county i think that was helpful to hear i'd also like to know a bit more about the density alignment with the uga if there are any more concrete statements to share in that regard and then moving on from that just wondering what are the mechanisms for feedback and any corrections after adoption in a more general sense um there's not like a direct alignment between up stoning proposed in the urban growth area and and the city um i think again this is one reason why contemplating and planning for annexation to have one jurisdiction

1:40:15 with one set of rules and development standards that are coordinated right makes some sense i also want to note that the county is not subject to hb 1110 it only applies to cities um so there's just going to be some differences for us um what was the second part of your question thank you the second part of the question was a completely different question okay that being what are the mechanisms for feedback and any corrections after adoption of the complaint assuming that it is adopted great thank you for repeating that get rebecca kennedy deputy director of community development um there are many mechanisms for feedback and we will get feedback mark will get feedback at the counter and from people who are using the code our implementers get this all the time and a lot of our code changes and cleanups originate with problems identified by private sector developers or builders or our land

1:41:15 use planners during the implementation of the application of the code to specific projects we will continue and we're having a conversation right now about continuing to engage people um we we've we've done a lot to build up people familiar with land use planning through this process in ways that i find like kind of amazing so there's there's enhanced education and understanding among some folks in the community and how do we keep that going so we're talking about a communication strategy which would involve continuing to have our listserv and email and solicit feedback that people are seeing um of course there's always planning commission and council community forums um community communications um the ability to write in and then staff are available um people people should get in touch with us um i know for instance ben mccarty tonight i responded to his email today which was a little slow

1:42:12 but i did respond and we always try to respond you know um so staff are available um and then we can change the we change the comprehensive plan um we can change it annually we update it um we can change our code anytime so i mean it's the people can provide feedback in lots of ways and we'll continue to not just be like available to receive it but we'll be asking for it um and we'll be talking to you all in the community about implementation thank you i think that's helpful and then just a couple of comments from my side it is quite incredible to think that such a long and drawn out process is nearing its end i just want to highlight personally the work that i've seen from staff and community organizations and honestly even the general public i don't think engaging with the comprehensive plan

1:43:08 is the easiest thing in the world to do given how long of a document it is and how big of an effort it is so even to all the people who have given competent any way shape or form i have to give some level of kudos to because it is a lot to wade through um what's before us today represents a lot of time energy consideration and the culmination of those concerted efforts to bring forth this update and so the feedback from the residents of the city has been considered weighed and more importantly valued and that to me is meaningful the planning commission has seen the plan moved from visioning to concrete concepts to draft code to what's before us today over years um and i also appreciate that city staff and the presenters of course today in particular have been so transparent and vocal about the

1:44:03 fact that the plan won't be 100 perfect at adoption and another meeting that i was in recently you know someone said no plan survives first contact i don't know that it'll go that far but i do think that it's it's important that we recognize that and i'm happy to hear that as part of the the presentation and the presentations i've observed over the last several years but what it will do is create the blueprint for the city that we want to see tomorrow for the vibrant and welcoming city that we strive to be and hope to become so it's been an honor to take part in this process with you all and to be chair at the time of its conclusion so do we need any other deliberation to get to a vote okay then the chair will entertain a motion i move that the planning commission recommend uh adoption

1:45:01 of the comprehensive plan motion has been offered is there a second commissioner jay second moved and seconded roll call vote please cara de guami vice chair pile yes commissioner beck yes commissioner castinson yes commissioner cabell yes commissioner jay aye commissioner wheeler yes by my account all eyes the motion passes yes thank you do we need to redo that could we clarify for the record that the motion included the recommendation to adopt the comprehensive plan as well as the zoning code is that yes the intent of your motion that was the intent

1:46:01 of my motion that the motion include the adoption of both the comprehensive plan and the zoning code hearing that does that change anyone's okay so then that is the intent of the motion as passed by the planning commission that's okay thank you the legal voice is still all around us at all times okay i think that takes us out of this item it's it's quite strange to say but is that the last we'll see of the this part of the effort at the planning commission unless it is remanded to you by council then the the establishment of the new planning code um will not come back to you again unless it's remanded for some reason um the you were

1:46:57 never out of it and it is never the end because it is an evolving document and um as in fact as we've been working on the planning commission's work plan for the remainder this year we've been thinking about things that we would normally have brought to you context pieces commissioner pile voted brought it up at the last meeting about the recent council workshop on our production numbers and wanting to bring you that information we've got updates on things coming but also the implementation step so um the the of this long involved phase um this is likely not for sure the end but you will never escape it okay with such great words the public hearing item is now closed and that takes us into staff and commissioner communications any communications from staff today just want to confirm with the commission so earlier

1:47:55 this year in lieu of our typical retreat that we have at the beginning of the year we did a pretty in-depth training on open public meetings conflict of interest gma the land use review like development review process but we committed to a retreat and so just want to recommit and sort of remind um everyone that that that's happening and i'll be working with the chair and vice chair to figure out when to schedule that um so we will we will we will retreat at some time this year likely during this pause hopefully sometime and and then we can in the fall we start sort of regular meetings in a more typical um typical agenda and cadence okay thank you very much communications from the commission commissioner cavil um no further comments okay vice chair paul no commissioner beck commissioner wheeler commissioner

1:48:53 jay commissioner castenson there being no further communications from the planning commission we are officially sorry one comment okay commissioner cavil i guess i just thought i'd um bring it up again because it was actually your suggestion in the last meeting that we deputize you and vice chair pile to present our commissions um well obviously they have what we recommended but our thoughts um in person at the next meeting of the city council yes and that will occur okay however that will not be at the next meeting but at the meetings that are germane to the comprehensive plan correct the next one in may i believe may 11th and june 1 is what you have we've discussed correct yes for the record if anyone wants to come

1:49:46 see excellent thank you for that call out are there communications okay we are hereby adjourned