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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Planning and Economic Development Committee - 08/28/1989 (3) KENT PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES August 28, 1989 The meeting of the Kent Planning Commission was called to order by Acting Chair Stoner at 7 : 30 p.m. Monday, August 28, 1989 in the Kent City Hall, City Council Chambers. COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Carol Stoner, Acting Chair Anne Biteman Elmira Forner Greg Greenstreet Leona Orr Raymond Ward COMMISSION MEMBERS ABSENT: Linda Martinez, excused Elmira Forner, excused Gabriella Uhlar-Heffner, excused PLANNING STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT: James P. Harris, Planning Director Fred Satterstrom, Planning. Manager Dan Stroh, Senior Planner Lauri Anderson, Planner Stephen Clifton, Planner Janet Shull, Planner Scott Williams, Planner Lois Ricketts, Recording Secretary FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS OF AREA HOUSING STUDY - WEST HILL Commissioner Greenstreet MOVED and Commissioner Ward SECONDED a motion to approve the Findings and Conclusions of the Planning Commission for the City of Kent Area Housing Study -- West Hill. Motion carried unanimously. Mr. Harris explained that the findings will go to Council and that the Comprehensive Plan is open for amendment at any time the Council chooses to assign study or when the Planning Commission desires to reopen the issue. It is permanent only until further study is requested. Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 EAST HILL ZONING IMPLEMENTATION CPZ 89-3 (Verbatim Transcript) Acting Chair Stoner: We will now open the public hearing on the East Hill Housing Study. Because there is such a large group this evening, I 'd like to be very clear about our procedures and how we need to do this. First of all, we are going to have about a 15- minute staff presentation so that we are all current and know what the information is, and this may answer many of your questions if you have questions about what is going on. Then I will be interested in hearing testimony from you. There is a sign up sheet circulating, and I will call people off that sheet until 10: 00. At 10 o'clock if we have not heard from everyone, we will make a decision. . . if there are just a couple of people left, we will finish. If there are more people left, then I think we will move to continue the meeting, and we will give you the date at that point when the next meeting on this issue will be. I want to make it clear that we are operating under Appearance of Fairness guidelines for this set of hearings. What that means is that we need everybody's comment as part of the record. We need your comments and your testimony on the record, so we want you to come to the podium, use the microphone so we make sure we have a clear record and a tape of what has happened and we know what your concerns and questions are. The other thing I would ask you to do, if you have questions, if you have items you want clarified, would you please direct your questions to the chair. We then will ask staff to clarify for you, but that is another matter that will make things go more smoothly. At this point. . .I assume the signup sheet is circulating. We will circulate that and we have some people on it and we will start with the staff presentation. James Harris: Madam Chair, before we get into the staff presentation I 'd like to have the Commission enter into the record three letters we have received. I will quickly go through these. The first letter is from James C. Tracy, Acting Director of King County Planning and Community Development Division of the Parks, Planning and Resources Department of King County. He simply has a letter discussing this matter and would like the opportunity to more fully respond by September 15, 1989 after reviewing the area housing studies. The next letter is from Donna D. Sampson. The subject matter is in response to your letter dated 15 August 1989 PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE CITY OF KENT ZONING CODE. The next letter is from John Meinzinger, and that is a letter concerning the East Hill Sub Plan and zoning changes. Commissioner Ward: I don't have the second one. We're supposed to have all three of them. 2 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 James Harris: Which one didn't you have? Commissioner Orr MOVED and Commissioner Greenstreet SECONDED a motion to accept these letters into the record. Motion carried. Dan Stroh: I 'd like to say just a few words about where this study came from and some of the history behind this issue. And that will be followed up with Lauri Anderson also with the Planning Department who will lay out the specifics of the staff proposal. This is old hat to a lot of people here, but the mix of single family and multifamily housing in the city has changed radically in the last several decades. In 1960 the city had about 2, 700 units of single family and just under 250 units of multifamily. We were about 92 percent single family housing. By April 1989 when we did our annual census the figures were very, very different. We had about 5,400 units of single family, but about 10,450 units of multifamily. This is about 62 percent. The balance of what was not single family was in the mobile homes. So about 62 percent multifamily, 32 percent single family, and about 5 percent mobile homes. Rapid increase in multifamily units has been reflected in recent building permit activity. The last two years are indicative of the kind of growth we've seen. 1987 saw almost 900 units of multifamily permitted in the city. At the same time there were only 34 units of single family housing permitted in the city. In 1988 we saw almost 1, 600 units of multifamily permitted within the city, and only 27 units of single family. So there has been quite an imbalance in recent years in the rate of development of multifamily versus single family. This rapid growth is also reflected in the projections by the Puget Sound Council of Governments. They do regional growth forecasts for all the localities in this area. They are showing for the year 2000 for the Kent area, which is roughly the same as the city limits, 11, 217 units of multifamily. But with the existing units we've got, plus the units that have been permitted and are in the pipeline, we've already reached that figure which the COG said we'd have by the year 2000. City Council has become concerned about some of these residential development trends. In December of 1986 they passed a resolution which actually called for a 20 percent reduction in multifamily. They cited that this was the overcrowding and profusion of apartments as the main housing problem by Kent residents. They also cited the problems of uncontrolled growth on the city's infrastructure and its ability to deliver efficient services to residents. And they also said they were concerned about the projected proportion of multifamily to single family residential development, about environmental suitability and neighborhood preservation. This was followed up by a resolution that actually launched the study that we are engaged in now. The 3 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Planning Department was given the task, you might say a rather difficult task by the City Council, of doing area-by-area studies of multifamily densities throughout the city. This was in Resolution 1172 which was passed last summer. The Council cited the increasing imbalance between multifamily and single family. They cited a concern about the city's ability to provide in a timely manner the public facilities and services necessary to support this increase in multifamily development. Then they went on to direct the Planning Department to conduct the study that is before you tonight. They asked us to do it in three steps, first with each of the planning areas. We started with West Hill, then East Hill, and we will finish up with the Valley Floor. They also asked us to do an update of the City-wide Housing Element of the Comprehensive Plan which, of course, is the general document that guides growth within the city. That was accomplished, and there is an updated housing element of the Comprehensive Plan, and various policies in that updated housing element are reflected in the document that is before you tonight. This has been a very public process as we have gone through trying to implement Council Resolution 1172 in both updating the housing element. The citizen committee we worked with in that process, series of workshops and open houses that we've had in dealing with these area housing studies. This is where we are tonight. We've been through this. We have on the table here a series of draft recommendations for actually accomplishing the Council 's intented 20 percent reduction. We appreciate the people who have come out to the meeting tonight. This is a very long, involved and drawn-out process. It is very difficult when you get into talking about rezoning property to the scale that we are working with tonight, but we do appreciate you bearing with us as we go through these hearings. The Planning commission will be getting a lot of the public testimony, making a recommendation to the City Council, and then later be heard by the City Council as this goes through the process. I do thank everyone for coming out tonight. That's my brief summary of this process and I 'd like to be followed up with Lauri Anderson who is going to provide the specifics of the staff proposal. Lauri Anderson: Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. I 'll try to speak louder. My name is Lauri Anderson. I am representing the Planning Department. Now that Dan has given you a general introduction to the study, 1 am going into a little bit more of the specifics. I am going to talk about the process we use to identify the potential rezone areas, the criteria that we used as we were going through our review, the alternatives that were devised to achieve the City Council 's 20 percent reduction, the general East Hill impact over the whole East Hill, the staff recommended option and then the staff recommended actions that are before you tonight in this hearing. I am going to start by talking about the process that the Planning Department went through to get 4 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 to this point. This is Phase II of the housing study. It was launched with a public meeting that we held in February at Kent- Meridian High School. And at that meeting we gave citizens the opportunity to give us their concerns to tell us what the issues on East Hill were in terms of residential densities and the housing areas. We then, taking those concerns, went to the next step which was to determine where the vacant and underdeveloped land was on East Hill and determine what the density potential was. Now I want to clarify when I am talking about. . .underdeveloped land, I 'm talking about land that is not built out to its potential under existing zoning. This doesn't mean that an individual would ever change the use of their land, but under existing zoning they could potentially put more units on their property. For example if you had a single family residence on two acres of multifamily-zoned land, we would consider that underdeveloped, and that if you chose you could put multifamily development on that property. So using the city's computerized mapping system and some land use data that was collected and then entered into the system in 1987, we targeted these parcels. Since the information changes constantly, we next looked at the maps which showed building footprints. In other words if you could look at this map, it would show these little squares. . .actually where the buildings are. We looked at that to see if there might be any parcels that the computer system had somehow overlooked. Then we went out into the field. We drove to those parcels to make sure that they were indeed vacant or underdeveloped. We looked at the surrounding uses. We looked at the environmental constraints, such as slopes and things like that on the property, and we found 96 parcels. These are tax parcels of vacant or underdeveloped land on the East Hill. We placed 93 of those parcels under consideration for zoning changes. The three additional parcels we either knew of a permit that was already in process or they were so isolated and had such a limited development potential that we did not feel that it was appropriate to consider them for a zoning change. We grouped the 93 into 21 different option areas, which. are the option area you see in the report. We felt that would ease the analysis. . .these were parcels all in the same area that made sense to look at as a whole. To avoid a sort of hop scotch or spot-zoning pattern, we included an additional 102 parcels to even out the zoning boundary. So some parcels which were vacant or underdeveloped were included with these to void, as I said, a fragmented zoning pattern. After we'd identified these parcels, we took the citizen-expressed concerns from the initial meeting at Kent-Meridian, and we looked at a variety of other criteria when we were looking at zoning possibilities for those properties. We looked at environmental constraints, such as steep slopes, ravines, creeks, all of those things which require setbacks or which limit the building potential of a site. We looked at the surrounding transportation system that was a citizen concern that was expressed over and over in the amount of traffic on the roads 5 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 and the ability of the infrastructure to serve that traffic. We determined major traffic corridors and calculated the average number of trips generated by different zoning options. We looked at the• proximity of these option areas to commercial nodes and community facilities. We looked at the surrounding zoning and existing development. We considered the adequacy of infrastructure, such things as sidewalks and street lighting. What were the physical features of the area that might limit a more dense development. We looked at water and sewer availability, the adequacy of fire and police protection, the adequacy of city schools based on their projections to 1993 . We also took a look at the Soos Creek planning process. Soos Creek is the unincorporated area in the county that is just to the east outside our city limits. And we wanted to look at what they had targeted for the area and how that meshed with what we were planning. And then we looked at the Comprehensive Plan, which Dan mentioned is the general policy document that we in the Planning Department use to determine appropriate land uses, and the East Hill Subarea Plan, which is part of the Comprehensive Plan that specifically looks to East Hill. After that we came up with three alternatives that we could use to achieve the Council 's 20 percent reduction. The first of these was a site-specific reduction, and that is the staff recommended option. In this proposal an individual option area was analyzed based on all these criteria for very specific zoning change. The next option that we considered was a text reduction. This would be a continuation of a policy that the City Council put into effect last year when they passed the resolution. This text reduction would reduce the allowable number of dwelling units you could put on a per-acre basis for the multifamily zoning categories. The third option we looked at was a 100 percent East Hill multifamily reduction. In this option all of the multifamily zoning on these vacant and underdeveloped parcels would be removed and converted to single family zoning. For comparison to these three alternatives we looked at a no-action alternative so that we could compare and contrast to see what the effects of these 20 percent reductions would be versus no action leaving the zoning as it currently exists. We presented these options to the public at an open house at East Hill Elementary School in May and approximately 40 citizens attended and they gave us quite a bit of feedback about their concerns, which options they liked, which options they did not like. The people who attended that meeting overwhelmingly favored 100 percent East Hill reduction. Again, that was the option that removed all the multifamily zoning and replaced it with single family zoning. As I mentioned earlier, the staff recommended alternative is to achieve the Council's Resolution 1123 and 1172 is a site specific reduction. We believe this alternative responds most accurately to the citizen-expressed criteria along with the characteristics of the individual areas. The other options, the text reduction and the 100 percent East Hill while 6 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 achieving the goal treat all these parcels identically without looking at the individual characteristics of those sites. In some cases it may not be appropriate to rezone a multifamily area to single family if it is completely surrounded by multifamily development. In other cases it makes sense to work for a lower density. We felt that by looking at the individual areas that we might get a more precise determination and make a better judgment in terms of what the zoning should be. If we were to follow the staff recommended site-specific reduction, the potential number of multifamily units that is in the analysis area would decrease by about 50 percent. We'd lose about 704 multifamily units, under the no action alternative 1407 units could be constructed in the analysis area. An additional 123 single family units could be developed through rezoning some of these areas for single family development. The total potential housing units for the analysis areas would equal approximately 827 units, which would be 580 less than under the current zoning. So with this reduction we also lose the number of potential housing units on East Hill. Lastly, the transportation impacts. . .using a vehicle-trip-per-day figure from the Engineering Department, under the existing zoning about 8500 vehicle trips per day would be generated if the 21 analysis areas were built out to their current zoning. The sites specific reduction would reduce this by about 3 , 000 vehicle trips per day, which is about a 35 percent decrease. In terms of recommended actions, the proposal that we are presenting before you is outlined in the report on pages EH-101 through EH-107 . There are four actions that are proposed. The first is an amendment of the East Hill Subarea Plan Text to bring it into conformance with the updated housing element which Dan mentioned. In Phase I of this study we updated the housing element. We are now looking at the subarea plans and adjusting the wording so that they are compatible. The second action proposed is amendment of the Comprehensive Plan map in creation of the single family designated area overlay. the comprehensive plan map change would be needed if the zoning changes are implemented to bring those two into compatibility. The single family designated area is an overlay to the Comprehensive Plan which would be used in policy decisionmaking to protect existing single family neighborhoods. This is not a zoning change nor does it imply that any of the handful of uses that are not single family in these areas would be required to change their use. Rather the intent is to provide an indication to staff and to the general public that the single family designated area has an overall single family character which is to be protected. The third change that is in the staff proposal is amendment of the Zoning Code for one area to create an R1-5. 0 zoning district. This would be a zoning district that would have a minimum 5, 000 square foot lots. Currently our minimum lot size is 7, 200 square feet. Standards for this lot would be identical to those of other single family areas except for two things. The 7 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 minimum lot width would be decreased from 70 feet to 50 feet, and the maximum site coverage would be increased from 30 percent to 40 percent. The setbacks in all of the zoning districts, residential zoning districts, the 20-foot front yard and 5-foot side yard and 8-foot rear yard setbacks would be preserved. The same height limit would apply. The solar access regulations would not be put into effect because of the difficulty with a narrower lot width of achieving a large setback from the north property line. A description of the R1-5 standards is on page 10 of the overview chapter of your report. As many persons have asked about the quality and size of homes which can be put on R1-5 square foot lot, I have some slides. These were taken of some in Federal way, some in the Klahanie Development out near Issaquah, some in the Seattle area. Seattle, unincorporated King County, Auburn, all of them have a 5, 000 square ffootminimum lot size in their code. So I just wanted to show you a few of these. The first thing I want to point out is that the R1-5 is sort of an historical zoning district. In some ways it is what we think of single family neighborhoods. This is a small lot size up on Capitol Hill in Seattle. This lot is probably about 5, 000. . .many lots are smaller than that. These homes are also on a smaller lot size in the Seattle area. Newer homes are also being built on lots this size. The next three slides were taken in the Klahanie Development near Issaquah. Again, the predominance of the garage in modern houses change the appearance. We don't have the garage in the backyards. You are going to notice a lot of garages in these slides. These are new homes, fairly expensive homes that are going in on R1-5 lots. Acting Chair Stoner: Would you like to talk about setbacks. Lauri Anderson: The various other jurisdictions which have this lot size have various setback requirements. In the next slides we are going to be looking at the Federal Way area. They don't require a setback on one side yard. I 'm not sure what the setbacks are on these lots. In the proposal that we're making, the setbacks would remain the same as are currently in effect for the other lot sizes in the city. These next two slides are down in the Federal Way area. This is new development. Many of the homes are up for sale. This gives you kind of an indication of what can be done on a 5, 000 square foot lot. The final change that staff is proposing is an amendment of the zoning map for the 21 analysis areas. And those are listed on pages EH-102 through EH-107 of the East Hill report. There are a variety of changes. Some areas we have indicated that we recommend no change. Some areas we go from multifamily to a lower density multifamily. Some areas we go from multifamily to single family. That concludes my presentation. Acting Chair Stoner: If you have come in late and have not signed up or you decide later on in the evening that you want to get on 8 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 the signup sheet. . .could we have a second one, or could I give you a second page. We have a new member of the Planing Commission tonight, Leona Orr, and she has a statement she needs to make to comply with the Appearance of Fairness guidelines. Commissioner Orr: Thank you. As many of you know, I have been very active on the East Hill regarding land use issues and I was concerned about there being a controversy with my serving on the Planning Commission, so I had discussions with the City Attorney. While I was told that although the Appearance of Fairness Doctrine is not technically applicable to the Planning Commission, the Planning Commission is currently operating under those guidelines, and to that end I would like to make clear to everyone here that I do not live near any of the areas that are being considered for change. I have not formed an opinion one way or the other about any of those areas. I did attend one of the hearings as a citizen because I do live on East Hill, but the area that I have been most involved with since I 've been involved with this community is a newly annexed area that is not part of the changes that are being proposed. I did come down and look at the documents that are being shown tonight that were at one of the open houses that I was unable to attend. I completed a survey just as many of you did, but I did not form any conclusions as to how I might or might not vote given the opportunity that I have been given now. I did have one conversation with a gentlemen named Rick Turner who does not happen to live within the city limits; however, he was concerned about property across the street from him. When I talked with him, I made it very clear to him that while I encouraged him to come down to this meeting and make his views and concerns to this Commission to get him on the record, I could not offer him any opinion or give him any idea of a way I might vote regarding the property that he was concerned with, which turned out to be an actual piece of property that is on this agenda. I will be looking at all of these areas as I am sure the other Commissioners will with an open mind and with regard to what is happening within the city right now, and I believe that I can be objective when reaching a decision regarding those areas, and I just wanted everyone to be assured of that. Thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: I will start with the first person on the list. I have the first four people on the list as marked to be just on the mailing list. Ralph Wright, M. Wise, Edward LaBolle and Ethel Jaber. Is that correct? You do not wish to speak, you wish to be mailed to. The next person is Miles Drake. Would you please come to the microphone so we can make sure we have everything on the record. Miles Drake: My name is Miles Drake. I live at 302 Scenic Way in Kent. I don't know if this is the right time for me to talk or 9 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 not. I am interested in one or two particular areas on the East Hill. Acting Chair Stoner: That's appropriate. Miles Drake: And they are Areas 5 and the one south of there which I believe is 21. . .5 and 21. Looking at 21 first, that's the south one, 5 is immediately north of it. . .I thought I had it marked but I guess not. . .that is some property on the east of Summit and it goes back 200 or 300 feet, I guess. . .I think that is proposed to be changed from multidensity to duplex. The part that I am interested in is the middle where it is shown as white there. That now is multidensity and the parcel immediately north of that is used as single family, and I think the one south of there, the larger parcel, is now used as single family residence. I guess at the time that the one in the middle being white is owned by me together with the parcel immediately east of that and also east of the one which is north of the first one. Those are. . .there are three apartments in there and I think it would be better if it was left the same zoning as it is or at least not split up. I don't know that it would affect me that much if they don't change the rules because I think the thing has been there so long that it would probably at least until it burned down or something. . .but I think that it would be better for it to be zoned for the use that it has rather than some projected maybe use 50 years from now. There are several reasons for that. I just think it would be better. . .I have had some experience where they have changed the zoning. . .usually it is where they upgrade it to some zone. . .this wouldn't be the case here, but sometimes they do that and upgrade the zoning and you get your taxes raised and the zone they upgrade it to, why it is not feasible to use it as such for any foreseeable time, so it creates a hardship for the owners of the property and I don't think that it is right to do that. That' s about what I 'm thinking of here is that I just would like to see it remain the zoning that it is, especially since if they change it would make part of the property one zone and part of the property another. It's all one parcel. Now. . .referring to Area 5, that is, I believe, a five-lot area, and I think it is mostly now used as a single family. The cross-hatched. . .both diagonally each direction, does that mean single family. Does that mean single family does anybody know. . .existing use. . . is that what that is. Lauri Anderson: It means underdeveloped. Miles Drake: Where it is not developed to the potential even though it is used. What is the one where the diagonal is running northeasterly. 10 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Lauri Anderson: Vacant. Miles Drake: Well, it shows. . .maybe that's different parcels. Is this. .there Is a house there. . .there's a house here. Does that mean that there are two parcels here? This one is vacant. I see. I suppose the parcels that are vacant. . .and even part of the parcels that are used as a single family. . .these lots are rather narrow along Summit Avenue and probably 300 feet deep or so, and some of that property has been purchased. . .not vitally interested in myself. . .but some of it has been purchased with a thought that you could use it for duplex, and then when they say you can't use it for duplex, that's a hardship on the people that bought it in good faith and there would be a matter of five more families permitted. . .no there could be more than that because it could be platted into smaller lots, so there could be a few more families, but I don't think it would be significant and I think for that reason it should be left as it is because. . .one reason is because the people thought that was what it was going to be and purchased it under those conditions. That' s all about what I have to say. Thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: Are there any questions of Mr. Drake. Thank you. Commissioner Orr: One question, Mr. Drake. Mr. Drake, on Parcel Number 21 you mentioned the center portion that is white. What is that current use of that middle portion. Miles Drake: There are two buildings on that. Well, there is a 12-unit apartment building on one of them and a 9 on the other, I think it is. And the other one is 11-units. . .the one east of there under the same ownership. . .where those three buildings are shown is all one ownership. That's it units. That's not very dense the way it is used now. Commissioner Orr: Thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: I did not remind you before Mr. Drake came up. We would ask you to limit your comments to 10 minutes so we can get through as many people as possible. The next person on my list is Grant Wells. Grant Wells: My name is Grant Wells and I live at 23409 100th Avenue SE. I 'd like to talk about MF-2 and MF-3 . We live directly across the street from MF-2 and we would like to see that become single family as opposed to the site specific alternative which favors a change to a duplex. Having been a long-time Kent resident and having lived on 100th since 1958. . .the traffic has increased tremendously at the intersection of 100th, and 240th is becoming 11 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 very difficult to use, plus the intersection at 104th and 240th. The other. . .MF-3 initially for the same reasons. We already have several multifamily apartment complexes on 100th and, again, the traffic has been steadily increasing and we are concerned for the children because they typically walk out of the block back and forth to East Hill Elementary on the streets, and right now there is. . . l00th has become an alternative for folks that are trying to get on to 104th and bypassing the whole Benson intersection at 240th and 104th. And that is basically my concern. Acting Chair Stoner: Any questions from Mr. Wells. Greg. Commissioner Greenstreet: Yes, you are saying for Area 2 and Area 3 you favor Option C. . .East Hill reduction in the plan. Is that correct? Grant Wells: That is correct. Thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: Tom Deal. Tom Deal: It's not Tom, it's Lou, Lou Deal, 302 Summit. Acting Chair Stoner: Thank you. Tom Deal: My concern is also the same area that Mr. Drake spoke to, Area MF-21. I own the parcel of land, the large parcel just south of the white block which, when I purchased it, I purchased it because it was multifamily. as an investment for me and my family. It is surrounded by apartments, it always has been, and I think it should stay and remain the same. When I develop it, I don't know, but think it should stay. Acting Chair: Any questions. Commissioner Greenstreet: Yes, looking at the map now 21, you own what part. . .what I am looking at Map EH-46. Tom Deal: You see the large portion in the center. I live just south of that, and it is the apartments all the way around. It's a good area for it. Commissioner Greenstreet: on these options, Option A, B, or C in the text, what. . .do you favor one specific plan over another. Tom Deal: I would favor leaving it the same. . . leaving it as it is, not changing the zoning in that area. Commissioner Greenstreet: Thank you. 12 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Acting Chair Stoner: Mr. Peterson. Frances Peterson: Well, first I would like to thank the Planning Commission for not giving us a bunch of baloney about the traffic up on East Hill. Kind of nice for a change. James Harris: Madam Chair, we need identification. Frances Peterson: This is Frances Peterson, 10518 SE 264th. Our parcels. . .I am speaking for Jeanette, too. . .are MF-17 and we are now MRM, Medium Density, and we have this proposed MRG, Garden Density, which I haven't quite figured out yet. As near as I can tell, we have to have a spot for a garden or something. I am not sure. But, anyway, the thing I don't understand about the whole thing is why if it was zoned MRM 23-units per acre when he put 104 apartments next to me, why they don't leave it that way for now. Evidently that was five years ago or something and nothing has happened so far, but it would be nice if you could have that type of zoning that we have been putting up with you might say, the way it was zoned, and the way it is now it should stay or at least go back up to MR-23 . Acting Chair Stoner: Let me ask of staff a clarifying question. What is the difference in units per acre between MRM and MRG just to define it more clearly for Mr. Peterson. Lauri Anderson: I ' ll speak into the microphone so you can all hear. MRM, Medium Density Multifamily, allows up to 23 dwelling units on an acre of land. The Garden Density Multifamily reduces the potential to 16 dwelling units per acre. Acting Chair Stoner: Thank you. Frances Peterson: So basically when it goes from the 23 to the 16, we are going to lose 71000. . .well, at least $7,000 a unit. . . $6, 000, so that 42 , 000. Like I say, it's so screwed up now that the only thing you can do with it is either MRM or commercial. It' s right next to the Sears Shopping Center and across from the Target Store. Acting Chair Stoner: Are there any questions from Mr. Peterson? Commissioner Biteman: Do you live near there? Frances Peterson: Yes, I live 10518 SE 264th, it' s about two blocks south of the Sears shopping mall. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions. . .Ray. commissioner Ward: Do you plan on developing this land? 13 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Frances Peterson: Well, I don't, but you never know. It's the idea that I 'd like to leave the option open, you know. It's not hurting anybody the . . . like I say . . . there are 104 apartment units right next door, across the street is not in the city. There's Jeanette Mulchins and the land of Norders that the City of Kent stole part of hers, practically, and to 104th, you know, so. . .like the guy that developed next to me said he wouldn't do anything in Kent again, but evidently somebody sure has because it is filling up fast. Acting Chair Stoner: All right. Thank you Mr. Peterson. Barry Quam. Q U A M. Barry 4uam: I 'm Barry Quam, 23711 100th Avenue SE, and I want to thank the people who put the study together. . . it is good, and I think we all favor reduction in multifamily types of units. I think just a general concern would be the lot size reduction with the R1-5. 0. I understand, probably, the basics and the ideas behind providing a smaller lot, therefore you can provide a smaller house and maybe people can afford a smaller house and it would gave them an opportunity to purchase something like this. But I look around and look at the lot that was developed on the corner of 240th and I think it is 98th, and I really get concerned at looking at that thing. And I tell you honestly that as soon as I looked at that lot, I started thinking about things like Timberline and maybe something like. . . I think it is Falcon Ridge in Renton. . .and they spawn a lot of problems, quite frankly. We have a very nice city here. We have good police protection, good fire protection, but I cannot understand the thinking behind the smaller lot like that, the. . . (unclear) . . .thinking that if these types of lots are allowed, the congestion that occurs. . .you cannot get police and fire department units through these areas. You are actually, I think, cheating the people that actually buy these houses, and you certainly probably run down the property value of the people around these types of units. Another concern of this whole type of thing is traffic. I understand reducing multifamily units will probably reduce traffic on East Hill, but it's really bad now. If this type of lot were allowed to be used, we are going to develop a lot more traffic in the area. Commissioner Ward: Were you speaking of some particular area or just in general. Barry Qualm: Just in general, but probably the most noticeable example was right on the corner of 240th and 98th on the southwest corner. There are three houses that were put in right across from the corner of East Hill Elementary School that to me. . . I cannot understand how that type of thing was allowed to happen. 14 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions from Mr. Qualm. Commissioner Orr: Can someone on the staff tell what those lot sizes are at that intersection? Lauri Anderson: That is the Strawberry Lane development, and those three houses are built on 7200 square foot lots. Acting Chair Stoner: Excuse me, please. Staff goes out there with their rulers and measures all these and they know. Barry Oualm: May I have further comment. Just a question in response to that. If those are 7200 square foot lots, maybe I 'm misunderstanding, is that a multifamily type of development, then. Acting Chair Stoner: Lauri Lauri Anderson: That is Single Family R1-7 .2 . The plans came in and I reviewed those plans, and unless the developer was lying to me, those are 7200 square foot lots. Acting Chair Stoner: All right. Thank you. Mr. Qualm. I ' ll summarize what she said. She said that those three houses were built. . .she reviewed those plans and they were built on 7200 square foot lots which is 7200 in our Zoning Code. Mr. Qualm do you have any other comments you would like to make. Barry Oualm: I hate to be rude, but that is hard to believe that that is a 7200 square foot lot for each house. Acting Chair Stoner: We' ll all drive past on our way home tonight. I have Florence Lien and Cortlan Betchley as wanting to be on the mailing list. Cortlan Betchlev: I 'd like to speak. Acting Chair Stoner: Yes, please. Courtlan Betchley: Okay. This is in general. I am Cort Betchley. I live at 10213 SE 228th Street. It is closest to Area 1, but I don't really live right next to any of these areas. It is just a general thing. I am not in favor of the R1-5. 0 new zone. I lived in Seattle for a long time and I was not favorably impressed with the density of single housing in that kind of zoning, and I was not particularly impressed with the slides that were shown of the types of houses that could be built on those kinds of lots. I do think you will have a crowding problem and you will have congestion for it. I think it is better to not fragment the housing in Kent. . .not 15 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 add additional type of housing, but to add the necessary units in terms of apartments and the already existing R1-12 through 7.2. Acting Chair Stoner: Questions. Thank you. Brad Bell. Brad Bell: My name is Brad Bell. I live at 26034 142nd Avenue SE. And before I get started tonight I would like to put in a request for some parks on the East Hill of Kent. We've heard some talk of those; however, the latest reading I have done in the newspaper is actually they are cutting back the park budget up there and that creates a big concern. . .traffic problems and other issues that many, many property owners including myself are concerned with. I am not going to talk about the merits of multifamily units in Kent primarily because I 'd like to get out of here with my life tonight. I 've talked until I was blue in the face in the past and nobody has listened to me, so I 'd like to talk about a couple of other issues. The first is property-owner rights. I would appreciate it very much if each one of you commissioners would be sensitive to property owners who have owned their property, many of them for 30 or 40 years and have had a zoning of perhaps multifamily, and because of that the property adjacent to their property has been developed multifamily. Now we are finding ourselves asking these people to not only switch their zoning from multifamily to single family, thereby reducing the value of their properties substantially, but we are asking them to develop single family property or housing units right next to an apartment complex, you see. That in addition brings down the value of that property. If you couple that with a 5000 square foot minimum lot size, you will find yourself in a situation possibly similar to the army barracks. The slides that the Planning staff showed were great. This is not Seattle, this is not Issaquah. We are not dealing with necessarily the same types of neighborhoods. Certainly you can build a nice house on a 5000 square foot lot. I challenge any of you to. . .this is Kent. I challenge any of you to drive around and show me a house that resembles those houses sitting on a 5000 square foot lot. You won't find any, because this isn't Seattle and this isn't Issaquah. I 'm a little bit confused about this process. I don't know if the purpose of this is to amend the East Hill Comprehensive Plan or the purpose of this is just to change immediate zoning on site specific properties. The comment was made that the zoning and the East Hill Comprehensive Plan have to be the same. It is my understanding right now that there are some discrepancies between multifamily being shown on the East Hill Comprehensive Plan and Single Family zoning being shown on the zoning map, so I don't understand first of all why they have to be the same, and number 2, why are we bothering to amend the East Hill Comprehensive Plan if we haven't amended it in the past. The staff's recommendation for sites specific is tremendously unfair. If we are going to take a little 16 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 away from these people, let's take a little bit from everybody rather than going to certain property owners in this community and saying we are going to pick on you and we are going to change your multifamily zoned property as single family zoned property, I think it should be done on as equitable basis as possible. In other words let's take everybody with multifamily zoning in Kent and reduce it accordingly to come up with the same results. Thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: Mr. Bell, I don't know if we have any questions or not. Anyone on the Commission. Ray. Mr. Bell. We have a question for you. Commissioner Ward: I 'd like to perhaps shoot out some questions that perhaps the staff should give an answer to at this given point. My particular question to you would be that we have in effect now an ordinance passed by Council to reduce multifamily by 20 percent. We are attempting to do that in everything that we review, and East Hill being one of them. I think the net result of all the suggestions that staff has come up with here is an approach to this given end. I think it has been expressed very strongly by many citizens that we have too many multifamily within Kent. All we are attempting to review and do here. . .Your portion regarding why some property owners have been changed from multifamily of varying degree to a residential, 1 think the staff should perhaps give an answer as to why in some cases this happened and other cases it wasn't, as compared to a 20 percent spread across the board. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions before I ask staff. Any other questions of Mr. Bell. Greg. Commissioner Greenstreet: As you were talking you were saying that everything should be reduced fairly all the way across the board, like a 20 percent reduction or something like that. What do you feel of the duplex zoning that has been talked about as a substitute for some of the multifamily. Brad Bell: Well, it brings down the density. I am not. . . first of all I am not an advocate of this 20 percent reduction. I know most of you people and I know you to be fair, honest, reasonable people. Greg, what I am asking you to consider, if we have to have a 20 percent reduction, let's be fair about how we do it, because we know very well we are taking money, not out of developer's pockets, not out of investor's pockets, but people who have lived here longer than most of us, and I don't think that's fair. I don't believe that you think that is fair, so I 'm asking you to consider if we have to have a 20 percent reduction, let's try to do it on an equitable basis with everybody. I have not gone around and looked at all the sites, by some of the comments I 've heard, I hear 17 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 that some of these downzones or single family rezones are being done right next to commercial and apartment property. You will not see those homes you see in the slides sitting on those pieces. What you will see are lower and inexpensive homes. That's fine if that's what we want. But if we want it, let's say it and not pretend that we're going to be setting up something on the wall, because that is not what is going to happen in those areas. So I am just asking you, if we have to have a 20 percent reduction, let's be as equitable as we can in terms of how we institute it and fair to as many people as possible rather than going out, for whatever good reasons the staff had, and I have no doubt that the staff has very good reasons for it, and say, okay, let's pick on this guy, this guy, this guy and this guy and basically reduce the value of his property significantly. Those people aren't in favor of apartments necessarily either, but they own property. And if you ask them to rezone their property to single family and it is sitting right next to an apartment building, that's unfair for two reasons. They've been downzoned and their property is worth less now because we used to have a plan that said that you could build multifamily there. You see, that is really not fair. If that is the way it has to be, fine. I 'm not thoroughly convinced that it does and I would rely on your judgment to take a look at it and do it as equitably as possible for everybody concerned. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions? All right. Can I ask staff to respond to the concern about are we amending the plan and the relationship between the site specific issues and amending the Comprehensive Plan. I 'm asking staff to respond to the concern about amending the Comprehensive Plan on East Hill and the site specific option that they recommended. Lauri Anderson: The proposal for the zoning changes. . .I ' ll try to speak up. The proposal for the zoning changes on some of the 21 option areas would result in an incompatibility with the Comprehensive Plan maps, not necessarily the text. The text of the plan would support some of these changes, but in order to bring the Comprehensive Plan map and the zoning map into compliance, that's why we are asking for the Comprehensive Plan changes in certain areas and those are outlined in the Actions Recommended section of your report. Did you also want me to respond relative to the 20 percent versus the site specific. It is my understanding that the straight across-the-board 20 percent reduction was forwarded by the Planning Commission to the City Council last year as a recommendation and that the City Council at that time instructed the Planning Department to take an area-by-area approach to the study so that while we present the 20 percent reduction as an alternative, we were also specifically directed by Council to look at individual areas and determine what might be an appropriate zoning for those. 18 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Acting Chair Stoner: The next person on my list is Betty Acheson. Betty Acheson: I 'm Betty Acheson. I live in 10717 SE 248th Street, and I want to thank Mr. Bell. He did my speech already. I ' ll just give a little more pinpointing of what is happening on our street. there are four of us homeowners left that own property, and I was going to use a nasty word, maybe we were going to be called the scapegoat, because this is what the city has done to us. We have put up with these apartment developments for the last 20 years. Okay, there are four of us left. I wish you had a projector I could show what we got here. And now you come out and say you've lived 20 years with this mess and you no longer can sell your property. You have five lovely homes and five lovely trees and you have an acre, but I 'm sorry, we're going to tell you now it is single family. I agree with Mr. Bell . It is not right. We would love to get out of there. We are waiting for one last developer to please relieve us of our property. I have written a few comments here on what it is like to live there. Acting Chair Stoner: Do you have a designation. . . Betty Acheson: I have this one. . .EH-100, single family designation. So you are going down in our property from multifamily housing to single housing. And without a projector let me show you what we live next to. We come off the Benson Highway. . . Acting Chair Stoner: I think we could see it if you would just show it to us. I think it is clear enough. Betty Acheson: I 'd like to have the audience see or is it just for you folks mainly. Acting Chair Stoner: Yes. Betty Acheson: All right. Okay. Come off the Benson Highway, you get approximately 300 feet of commercial property zoning. Then we hit the lovely Meadows Apartments. Then there are four of us left, four property owners on SE 248th. Then we hit 109th. Right behind us in our back pasture we have Lakeville Apartments, three stories high overlooking our property. Behind them we have the East Hill Apartments. When 109th came through a few years ago, the hotrodding road of the apartment houses, we have the Sunrise Pointe Apartments. Then we have the large Shires. A little bit east of us we have Redwood Square, and then the newest one is Walnut Park Apartments. Now you try to live in that. Let me tell you a few of our problems. First we have such increased traffic we now have difficulty getting in and out of our driveways. It is almost impossible to walk across the street to get our mail in the 19 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 afternoon. Excessive noise. . .the increased traffic and the car noise. . .we have a lot of extra hot rodding down our area. We now keep our windows closed to sleep at night. At times we have to close our doors and windows to talk to our neighbors on the phone. We now have a higher crime rate. We must keep everything under lock and key. We have many more robberies in our SE 248th area. Last week alone Kent Police told us there were four robberies at the Meadows. Our mailbox continually gets knocked down at night. Again this last weekend it was bang bang bang. Look out the window at 9 o'clock Friday night. . .mailboxes once again, all gone. For the lack of respect for private property we now have continuous apartment dwellers going through our property and across our properties. We have vacant land in the back that used to be for horses and cattle is now garbage. We continually get bottles and such from the neighboring parking lots of our neighborhood apartment buildings. We also have now become a property on one side of us which the. . . (unclear) . . .of us is now called the potty run. . .dog potty run. All day long people or their little dogs from the apartment house run along our properties. Our driveways have become the fast food dump, and also with the fast food paper accumulated we get broken bottles and beer cans. We have lost all of our privacy for private living up there. We have apartment buildings on all three sides of us. The future costs to come will be great. If we stay there we are going to soon have to pay for improvements on the road. The road is not large enough any more for the apartment dwellers. The apartment dwellers are continually out on SE 248th without any sidewalks. It is very dangerous road for the pedestrians. We definitely need street lights and the city has not yet put street lights in and we have been in the city on our side since 1970. And at some point in time sewers are going to have to be put down on SE 248th. As Mr. Bell said, I hate to discriminate against the last four of us, we would like out. And if you say single homes in our area again, our value has just gone down from multifamily housing down to probably half the cost we were hoping to get from one more developer which has not yet come to approach us. I have one last statement here before I see if you have any questions. Problems created by the developers of the apartment complex in our area close to our properties and abutting our properties we are saying that the (unclear) type of single homes is now gone forever in our immediate area. So be it. The land has now come to the point of no return. We cannot go back to single houses. We are just an island in the sea of apartments. Our only salvation is to once again soon, one last developer will come in and please relieve us of our five pieces of property. We will then move on to single homes in other single areas. Do you have any questions. Acting Chair Stoner: I 'd like to ask you what the total acreage of the five of you is. 20 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Betty Acheson: Six acres, approximately a little bit more we figured. I have the names for the record of all of us and I hate when they put us into the city they said that you had to have 75 percent. This time we have 100 percent. We do not want to go down to single family. The first property coming off the Benson Highway there are two parcels there owned by Jean and Darrell McClarren. All right. The next property is owned by my husband and myself, 10717 SE 248th. The next property is Leona Wister at 10723, and the last property is owned by Charles and Gloria Mosley. We would all love to see it left high rise apartments or multiple housing. I 'm sure it is not feasible or practical to have single homes in that area. Acting Chair: Any other questions. Leona. Commissioner Orr: I 'm not clear exactly which property number you're referring to in our study. Betty Acheson: I think it is EH-100 where it shows these little islands in the sea with all the apartments around us right here, and they want to put us down from. . . (unclear) . . .housing to single housing. Commissioner Orr: You are currently zoned multifamily. Betty Acheson: We are currently zoned R1 with the Comprehensive Plan going into MRG at a time we would sell or have it rezoned. We would like it to stay that way as long as we live there, but. . . (unclear) . . .we were going to put it up for sale and try to get out of there. Any questions. Commissioner Greenstreet: Maybe staff could look at your map there and fill us in where it is on our text please. James Harris: What is the number of the map? Lauri Anderson: The map that she is looking at is the single family designated area concept. The area that is indicated. . .this is a Comprehensive Plan map change, this is not a zoning change. The zoning area that is most closely tied to her property is Area MF-12 where we are recommending that a portion. . .a triangular portion that is currently vacant be rezoned to single family. Currently the other parcels are zoned single family, and since we have not been looking at single family land, we were not proposing a change for that area. Betty Acheson: This time you have your rezoning. . .your little red marker on the property saying that we are rezoning downward. 21 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Lauri Anderson: Ma'm, it is this triangular area here. Betty Acheson: So you are saying that you are going to leave the rest of all our four properties to be MRG in the Comprehensive Plan? Lauri Anderson: I meant zoning. . .the zoning would remain the same except for this triangular portion right here which we are recommending to go R1-7.2 in tandem with the rest of the properties. So in other words, since the majority of these properties are zoned for single family, we are not addressing single family land in terms of making a change. So the bulk of those properties are not affected by this action. Betty Acheson: You are saying that overall Comprehensive Plan is still MRG. Lauri Anderson: Right. There is a difference between the Comprehensive Plan and the zoning. The zoning is the legal mechanism that we use to enforce what is allowable on a piece of property, and in this particular case the zoning would remain the same except for, as I mentioned, an MF-12, the small triangular portion. This single family designated area overlay is in the Comprehensive Plan and as proposed would affect this property; however, that does not change the zoning on the property. That would only be an indication that as staff and the general public were to look at that property, they would consider that there are single family residences that might deserve some protection if so desired. Betty Acheson: Are you saying that we are allowed to eventually sell and leave with a developer. Lauri Anderson: Your zoning would. . .m'am, I 'm not sure exactly which piece you are here. Betty Acheson: All of it together. Lauri Anderson: All these. The zoning would not change. You could still do whatever. . .the zoning is not proposed for a change on your properties. Betty Acheson: That is not what we understood and that is not what this map shows. Lauri Anderson: That's because this is the comp. . . Betty Acheson: Okay, all right, okay. 22 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Acting Chair Stoner: . . . (unclear) . . .I think what has happened here is that the single family areas have been pulled out of this and they are just looking at multifamily. I think it is important that you get that clarified so that you are really quite sure that you. . . (unclear) Betty Acheson: what we are concerned is for the Comprehensive Plan. We are all living there now in single, which is fine. But we are all hoping to leave very shortly. Okay. Acting Chair Stoner: I would suggest. . . (unclear) . . .I think that your property is not going to be affected by our action, and I think what you need to do is clarify that with Planning. Thelma McCann. Robert Baird. She asked for the mailing list, I think. Howard Bromley. Howard Bromley: My name is Howard Bromley. I live at 15501 SE 276th Place in Kent. I 'd like to thank Mr. Bell for his comments this evening. I probably would have said something like now that all the stock is out of the barn, you people are running around trying to slam the doors. I 've lived in Kent most of my life and never intended to live in an industrial multicomplex-type area. I put my roots here, raised my family here, and I 've invested in this area. My property is just a few feet, 40 feet I believe, off the Kent-Kangley Highway which is given to office buildings, retail outlets, stores, that sort of thing. I bought the property 17 years ago. It had apartments on it. It was annexed into the City of Kent in 1968 and at that- time was zoned for three-story apartments. I 've made payments on it and paid taxes on it for 17 years based on the philosophy that with my retirement I might build an apartment complex there, and find it to be an amazing fact that the City wants now to come and take my zoning away from me when they have taxed me for 17 years and tell me I can no longer do my long-range goals. Acting Chairman Stoner: Could you identify your parcel in terms of the study. Howard Bromley: I was just going to. . .my property is in your map area 14 designated on your list as MF-18, it would be tax parcels 231 and 232 . This property, as I pointed out, was annexed as an apartment property. The zoning was changed in 1973 again indicating that the city was keeping that property for apartments. New zoning changed to MRM, which is multifamily, I am surrounded by apartment complexes, a day care center, retail outlets. I find it hard to believe that anyone is going to live on 7200-square foot lots in that area. I also find it hard to believe that the city now having built apartment complexes all around me is going to tell 23 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 me I can no longer build apartments on my property. That is all I have to say. Acting Chairman Stoner: Any questions. Thank you. The next people on the list are John and Jean Marshall who have said that they want to be on the mailing list. All right. Ann Eggers. Ann Eggers: My name is Ann Eggers. I live at 9806 South 248th Apartment 24, considered the Kentbrook Apartments at the intersection of 98th and 248th, formerly Strawberry Lane and 248th, and I have three items I'd kind of like to cover. I think the first item that we all need to consider here is that we really are considering people, you know, we are not considering just buildings but we are considering people. I 've lived here in Kent for eight years, seven years in the Kentbrook Apartments. Those years on 248th have at the beginning been very happy, enjoyable years, but within the last four to five years it has been a tremendous impact on my life in terms of a feeling of overcrowdedness. The impact I have seen on the neighborhood has been one of overcrowdedness. We've lost our space in terms of our open space. We've lost the feeling of spacialness and the natural beauty around us. The impact I 've had personally on myself when I watched the apartments east of the Kentbrook Apartments go up was quite literally shaking as they tore down 15 beautiful trees and picked them up with the big. . . it was gut wrenching. And not only that, when the developer said that the red fox that used to go through the field could find somewhere else to life. I just about punched him out. But. . .the biggest impact again I think we are talking about is on people. The second factor is that affordable housing may be a goal of all of what we have been talking about tonight and I don't know if it is making money. . . if we are looking at our goals backward or not. Is our goal to make money or to get the most amount of money off the land that we are talking about, or is it affordable housing. The parcels that I have interest in is MF-7 and MF-10, both east of the Kentbrook Apartments and west of the Kentbrook Apartments. And as I heard some of the others talk tonight, I agree that it is extremely difficult for single family homes on the 248th property, specially on the south side, to be surrounded by these enormous apartments that are going up, and I would be in favor of zoning in terms of duplex, certainly not as large as a multifamily housing that is going up near unit 10. I 'd also like to speak to the fact that I am a schoolteacher for the Kent School District, and the big impact that we have felt on our school has been tremendous. We opened three schools two years ago, approximately, and we hope to open three more schools in approximately one year. They tell us that even with those three schools built, we are still going to need three more if the multifamily housing keeps going the way it is. As a teacher, that impacts us right now as we do not have the teacher-to-student ratio that we would like, and more students 24 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 coming in with less buildings is a big impact. I would also like to address the issue of what I call Kent being user friendly or non-user friendly. As a walker, I feel that it is very non-user friendly. Until 104th, the Benson Highway, did get sidewalks on; either side. . .before that I did enjoy going up and down the hills on either side of the road trying to slosh through the mud. Now it at least has sidewalks. But 248th I find very hazardous to walk, and in fact just today was clipped very close by a car who thought it would be cute to come over towards me even though I was off towards the side. I 'd also like to say there doesn't seem to be any busses going throughout Kent in terms of Kent City busses. I personally would like to see that in terms of a reduction of some city traffic that could connect up with the downtown areas or the commercial areas, and I 'd also like to see some type of youth or boys and girls club activities in areas where the youth of our city could have places to go to. If multifamily units are getting as large as they are, there doesn't seem to be any areas where these youth of our city can go to enjoy themselves during the day other than to make problems and to just use their skateboards for eight or ten hours and drop their trash wherever they want to. I think that is all I have to say. Acting Chairman Stoner: Any questions. Greg. Commissioner Greenstreet: You were talking about the teacher- student ratio. What do you feel if you allow the developers to build out their land but charge fees to pay for school construction, hiring teachers, .more busses, development fees is what they call. . . Ann Eggers: I 'd be in favor of that if the schools were built first and if the teachers were hired first. It seems that we sort of have it backwards. The developers come in and they develop the land, put in all the units, and then they go guess what schools. You need this many more classrooms and this many more teachers. It seems that we are playing catch up and we haven't anywhere near caught up. Commissioner Greenstreet: Thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions. Thank you. Tom Sharp. Tom Sharp: My name is Tom Sharp. I live at 24254 143rd Ave SE in Kent. Before I begin. . .my nature is not to be a confrontational- type person, and so I don't want you to take this as a confrontational measure, but I, along with my partners and the City of Kent, have been named in a litigation brought by an organization that Mrs. Orr is an officer of, and think that since the Planning Commission operates under the Document of Fairness that I think it 25 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 is only fair that she not hear anything concerning any properties that I own on the East Hill either in the zoning issue or the Comprehensive Plan. Acting Chair Stoner: I would like staff to note Mr. Sharp's concern. I think we need a legal opinion and we will get that. Tom Sharp: I 'm waiting for the legal opinion. Acting Chair Stoner: You know that we do not have the City Attorney here. If your concern is that Mrs. Orr not hear your comments on your property, then we are in a bind. James Harris: Madam Chair, * let me explain. In a situation like this we would simply take it under advisement and you would proceed forward. Leona Orr participates. Acting Chair Stoner: If we find out at a subsequent point. . . James Harris: He's challenged and that goes on the record. Simply go on with your deliberations. Acting Chair Stoner: At this point we are taking testimony and comments. Tom Sharp: Thank you Madam Chairman. I have another issue and I guess this has been . . . I 've read the Ordinances 2796 which sets up the Planning Commission - as the hearing body for the Comprehensive Plans which is part of the scope of the hearing. . .Planning Commission, also I have read Chapter 2 .32 of the City Administrative Code. . .sets the Planning Commission as the hearer of the. . .hears changes to the Comprehensive Plan and zoning ordinance changes and also Ordinance 2233 which sets up the Hearing Examiner and I just wish to state that since the Council has passed Ordinance 2796, the. Planning staff has sent out basically a shot- gun notice. Item number 1 is to hear the goals. . . is to hold a public hearing on the existing goals, policies, additions, etc, which no one has spoken to this evening. I 'm not sure everyone has the documentation concerning that. Notice is also given that you are hearing changes to the subarea plan, which is within the scope of 2796. The third item is the Zoning Code change, or additions to the Zoning Code R1-5000, and the fourth item is the zoning change. Now it seems to me we have four items here in the shot- gun approach. I haven't heard any organization to the hearing of the testimony concerning these four monumental changes to the Zoning Code and the Comprehensive Plan, and I just think that there should be some organization to this, and this shot-gun approach is totally unfair to everyone out there, including myself, and I have read these things. To me it is beyond me how the Planning 26 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Commission in the Planning Department can expect people to understand what is going on with one notice. That is enough of my confrontational items. The things I do like. After being a member of the committee that revised the PUD ordinance in the City of Kent, after being involved in the first PUD in King County, I wholeheartedly support 5000 square foot lots. I think it is long in coming and I think it is the way maybe some of these inf ill areas can get infilled in the City of Kent and that it be done on an economic basis. I would like to get into areas of MF-3 in which I have an interest. MF-3 is over basically on 100th Avenue. And if I understand that, maybe the staff can correct me, that you are overlaying with the Comprehensive Plan change overlaying a single family over existing multifamily changes. Is that correct? Acting Chair Stoner: We need to direct questions through the chair. Tom Sharp: Oh, I will. Just assume that it is being directed to you, Madam Chairman. Acting Chair Stoner: One shouldn't assume those things necessarily. MF-3 , and you are wondering specifically the action that is. . . Tom Sharp: Right. Acting Chair Stoner: Do you have other questions and other concerns because I am looking at the time and I think you might want to use the time to get all your questions and concerns out and go and have a staff response to them. Tom Sharp: Okay. And on rebuttal I can pick these up also. That is just a point of order. I also have an interest in area MF-18 which is currently zoned MRM and which is proposed to be changed R1-7200, I do believe. This is area is bordered by Kent Kangley, a major arterial, state arterial in the City of Kent, 116th, which I believe is an arterial. As currently planned, it would have no buffer between the apartments which surrounds the site on two sides. According to the documentation that the staff has put out, this would reduce the East Hill potential by 15.28 percent. However, my calculations may or may not be wrong, but I calculate that it would produce, if you would change it from MRM to single family that you would be reducing a potential of 30 percent. Isn't it a little unfair to be putting either 15 percent as the staff calculates it or 30 percent as I calculate it in one block of land. What are we talking about here? The people who own it are not large developers. I guess if I am considered a developer, then I guess I am a developer, but I certainly don't consider myself a large developer, and I don't understand why on the East Hill we are 27 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 picking on the small people who own this land, and down in the valley they are totally immune to any changes. I 'm talking about the Lakes project. . .totally immune. We have owned this property ten years, just acquired the last parcel in January to extend our apartments, and now we have a site plan completed. We have not gone for an EIS assessment with the city, but we do have a site plan and I have another one to go through first before we do this, and now we find out that after owning this and paying taxes on multiple-family-zoned land that now we are looking that it is going to be single family. I can guarantee you that it will not be developed as single family. It is a multiple-family area surrounded by multiple family, accessed by major arterial in the City of Kent. It is beyond me. It is basically, I guess, a knee- jerk approach to the situation, a 20 percent reduction. If you reduce these major areas in the City of Kent, the growth is going to move right outside the city, right across on 116th. That's what is going to happen. You are not going to stop growth. Commissioner Biteman: Do you own all that area. Tom Sharp: No, I own. . . I am partners, and my other partners are here also, and the property that is adjacent to the Colonial square Apartments. There are two lots there. Commissioner Biteman: MF-18 or MF-3 . Tom Sharp: MF-18. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions from Mr. Sharp? Can we clarify his question about MF-3 . Lauri Anderson: If you will look at your city map EH-4, which shows the area MF-3, and then if you want to compare that with map EH-47, which shows the single family designated area, MF-3 is not included in the single family designated area. Acting Chair Stoner: The next person on the list is K Meyers. Kathy Meyers: My name is Kathy Meyers and I live at 23829 illth Place SE, Apartment P1. I don't have any interest pertaining to any specific property. Basically I just think that if you drive along 240th you can see a difference, I think, between some of the older apartment complexes, for instance the one that just went up, the newest one. After that road is widened, and certainly the complex went up I am sure when the city knew they would be widening that street, I don't see that there is going to be any buffer between the building and the road at all. They are going to be right next to each other. There is going to be no room for landscaping. I don't know what kind of requirements there 28 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 currently are for a landscape perimeter, but I think perhaps you could lessen the problems in the future if you required a better apartment complex, not so much as you do away with them, but just make them more palatable when they are built. Require a landscape perimeter, for instance, much more aggressive than what is currently required, if anything is currently required. I think I read that Kent will allow in certain classifications up to a four- story apartment building. That seems like you are getting into monstrosities. Maybe tone it down. I live in an older apartment complex that is two levels. We have trees around us, green space. It is a totally different environment. And I am not getting down on the people that built the apartment complex across the way. They didn't rip down the trees. The trees were long gone. The single family owners have ripped down the trees. But I think that perhaps you could have a better apartment complex by changing some of the rules about how they are built and what needs to go into them. That is the first thing I 'd like to say. The second, I would like to address the 5000 square foot zoning. You showed pictures of really pretty houses on 5000 square feet. I had the misfortune of living in Southern California a couple of years. I am originally from Indiana from a very small town. And if you want to see what a 5000 square foot lot can be like, just go down to Southern California and you will see abundant examples of what they can look like 20 years down the line. And I 'm not saying that the ones in Kent necessarily would, but at least be open to the possibility that you may be letting in what is going to end up being really trashy housing. When you get into the lower cost, I think naturally that is going to be the first to be degraded if the city goes that way, not to say that Kent would. But it certainly is something to consider, I think. And the last thing I 'd like to say is just that one of the persons that spoke enumerated a number of problems that come with a higher-density population. . .crime, noise, another lady pointed out overcrowded schools. It seems to me that some of the people here seem to be saying that it has gone so far you can't do_ anything about it. It's kind of time to give up on it. . . if you can't beat them, join them. Let's just go with the flow here and let the trend continue. But I think there is a mistake inherent in that philosophy. If you don't think it could get any worse, I think you are very wrong. I think it could get a lot worse than it is now. And if you people don't take action to keep it from getting worse, I think it will get much worse. Acting Chair Stoner: Any questions. Commissioner Ward: I think that staff should perhaps respond to some things that you say would like to see, because we do have some things like this and it affects. . . (unclear) . . .where landscaping is concerned. Maybe one member of staff could quickly review some of the things we have already in place and it would. . .basically answer 29 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 the question as to where it is that the whole thing is trying to go. Lauri Anderson: I don't have the Zoning Code in front of me. You want me to just talk about some of the standards. Commissioner Ward: Some of the landscaping requirements . . . (unclear) Lauri Anderson: Multifamily have perimeter landscaping requirements, I believe that is 20 feet. I don't have the code in front of me. Also they have a requirement for a five-foot foundation landscaping against the building. In most of the multifamily zoning categories, 25 percent of the development has to remain in open green area. There are requirements if multifamily abuts a public street or a single family residential district. There are some building modulation requirements, in other words you can't have a barracks-type building. The building has to have some setbacks, for example roof-line changes, or something like that to provide a little more of an interest rather than a straight facade. Those are the ones that come immediately to mind. I know there are other multifamily standards in terms of building separation, distances. . .they have to be a certain distance apart based on their building height, and that kind of thing. James Harris: Madam Chairman, one thing I 'd like to add is that most of you on the Planning Commission recall, it's been about two years ago, that these more stringent standards came into play. And those more stringent standards, recommendations you made to the City Council because of citizens' concerns, and those citizens ' concerns being made known to the City Council that they didn't like the continuation in Kent of the types of apartment buildings that were being built at that time. So what Lauri is talking about are some rather new standards. The testimony that we heard earlier may be about an apartment complex that was in the design stage before those new standards came into play. So from this point on, or say from two years ago on, the citizens should begin to see changes in the way apartment buildings look. Acting Chair Stoner: Richard Nelson. Richard Nelson: My name is Richard Nelson. I live at 430 Summit. I 've lived there 26 years now. What you are changing here. . .I live at a lot just north of the first. . .well I own the lot just south of the line on where you are proposing the rezoning, and I own the property right next door to it. Acting Chair Stoner: Do you have a designation for it? 30 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Richard Nelson: Excuse me. Area MF-5. I 've owned that lot now for possibly 23 years. I bought it as more or less a semi investment. Now that my children are grown up and gone, I 've planned in the next few years to build some time of rental unit on it and live in one of them myself and sell my older home to my boy. Well, if you rezone this, I can't afford to build a single family home on it, now with the taxes nowadays in King County. And I have been fighting the County for four years over the taxes on this. They call it view property. It is not view property. And if I can't build say two nice duplex on it, and you change the zoning from MRD to single family dwelling 5000 square feet per home, I 'd almost be forced to build three cheap homes to be able to pay the rent and keep the rest of my property up there to retirement. There is very little MRD left, and I don't know why this little area is singled out. The taxes on all those lots are tremendous. I don't know what else I could say in my defense. I just think it is unfair to rezone that little parcel in there. I have access to Summit Avenue on it, and I could build two nice duplexes which I 'd like to do and live in one of them. I have nothing else, thank you. Acting Chair Stoner: Are there any questions from Mr. Nelson. Alan is it Stoick? Alan Stoick: My name is Alan Stoick. I 'm at 332 Summit. I will be speaking first about, I guess, the same property, MF-5, up on Summit Avenue. I like Mr. Drake, Mr. Deal, Mr. Nelson all bought the property thinking about developing and as an investment. Currently it is zoned duplex, and I 'd just like to address the Planning Committee on the subject of fragmentation, I guess. Right now if you change it, there will be a duplex zoned to the north, multifamily to the south and then single family in between. Doesn't address. . .kind of goes against the fragmentation part of it. Going form duplex to 7200, if I, like Mr. Nelson, would like to develop it, I could put three single family 7200 on in lieu of the two duplexes I also plan to build someday, which would be one unit difference. I don't know how big an impact that is going to be. . .very little. Pertaining to that I guess I 'd like to keep it simple. I think. . .shown on the one map you are going to create a fragmentation. It would be a nice straight line if you would leave it as it was coming off 240th going straight down south to the multifamily zone. If you just leave it the same, you be using the KISS method. . .Keep It Simple Stupid. The other one would be the reason why M-21 was even put into this study. One of the property owners has already said that he would also like to develop it. That's. . . (unclear) . . .sounds like serial 92 Mr. Deal, I think. One of them listed there is already multifamily. Why you would want to zone it to duplex, I have no idea. It would be grandfathered anyway. The only other one that would be affected would be a 31 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 property just south of me, Joe Blessing, and that property couldn't be developed into a duplex anyway, more than one duplex. So that area doesn't make any sense to even be on and even have the Planning Committee worried about it any more. Just keep that one out of it. And the last thing, I guess you ran out of the Area Housing Studies books. I guess I wonder if I could get a copy of that. Bill Dinsdale: My name is Bill Dinsdale. I live at 13700 SE 266th in Kent. I don't have a lot of the data, a lot of the property descriptions, but I 've been listening to the comments by some of the people that I consider the core of the City of Kent, some of the people who have lived here for a long time, and who have elected to make their investments in the City of Kent or within an area surrounding the City of Kent. And most of us know that the average person who doesn't have the time and energy to study the stock market or the time and energy to study banking systems so you know were to put your money. . .everybody has always been told. . .put your investment in real estate. And that is what a lot of these people have done, including myself. I 've made a lot of sacrifices to build up equity in property and some of the sacrifices I made were listening to comprehensive plan studies, the Soos Creek Plan, the City of Kent Comprehensive Plan and I put some faith in those things. When we have a Comprehensive Plan that says that property is going to be developed in a certain way, the City of Kent develops their utilities to facilitate that kind of development, including roads, sewer, water, we've got water mains and sewer mains into these areas that are zoned multiple family. And to throw that away and to try to come up with a new plan at this point, we've gone so far and to just arbitrarily downzone this property where we've got the utilities in place. . .we've got everything in place and to top it all off the citizens of our city have invested their money over a period of many years, have paid taxes to guarantee that someday they would be able to make some money on their property and not only that but provide a good stable income for themselves. For the city to think. . .the Planning Department to think that they can just arbitrarily take that away without some sort of compensation is wrong. Now when King County came up with the idea that they were going to keep some of the farmlands in the valley in place, some of their remedies was to buy the development rights from those farmers so that the property wouldn't be developed. I don't think there is a citizen in this city that would say that somebody should come and take my property make it worth half what it is worth now when I in fact paid for that property even ten years ago a price that was at that time was considered to be multiple property and that's the price we paid for it. . .to come along and take that away from me without some sort of compensation is not right and is not the American way. It is just not something that I think that I should have to suffer. Now if 32 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 all the citizens that are here want to pay me for my development rights, then I will walk away from it and consider that my investment down through the years has been compensated. But for somebody to just take it without any compensation is not right. I have listened to everyone here who has any investment in land feels the same way, and I just can't see this thing going the way the Planning Department has recommended that it go. Thank you. Any questions. Acting Chair Stoner: Are there any questions? Commissioner Biteman: Where is your property located? Bill Dinsdale: I have some property in the 18 area. I have just put up a chain-link fence on part of it because it is surrounded by. . .and it was a major thoroughfare from 116th to Kent-Kangley, and we are. . .that was an effort to cut it down as a foot traffic area. And I didn't squawk about that, I didn't ask the City of Kent to do that, I did that at my own expense, and it is bordered on two sides by multifamily property. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions. Thank you. I have no one else on this list. Do you have other people on another list. Yes m'am. (Voices Unclear) Yes you may. Ethel Jaber: My name is Ethel Jaber and I live 628 East Titus Street and I am talking about the Area Map 20, multiple family. My home is the second home over from Cemetery Road there on East Titus Street. There are four houses in there. . . four single family residences. To the north of us is the Farrington Retirement Home, then up above the third home in is an apartment house, then up behind are two homes, and there is a lot with just a little small house like shack but it is about 1. 1 acre back there, and then there are apartments up in there. We are zoned as multiple family high density, and your plan is to zone us down to garden, which would reduce us from 40 units down to 16 units. Where we are situated there with the apartment houses and the retirement home, it has really taken down the value of our home. I 've got my tax assessment for 1989 . My land was valued at 16 9 and went up to 25 1. My building, my home, was 57 8 and they lowered it down to 49 7. And I 'think it is going to go down lower and lower because of being in this high density area where there are apartments in there. Right now for me to back out of my driveway. . . it is going to be really tough to sell my house as a single dwelling. . .backing out of my driveway in the morning to go to work it is really tough because the traffic is so bad there. Across the street from me now is a beauty shop, and then just recently in a home next to it went into a financial planning business. So we are just really being surrounded by . . . we are surrounded by multiple units and 33 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 businesses. And to go and lower this down to a lower density, it is going to lower the value of our property and I've lost already because my house is assessed at lower than what I paid for it, and it is going to go down, down. And I 'd rather it stay at where it is. . .at the 40 unit zoning. Acting Chair Stoner: Any questions. All Right. Thank you. I have one more person who has signed up on the list and then I 'll call for any other testimony and we will go until 10:00. Paul Morford. Paul Morford: My name is Paul Morford and I live at 21264 132nd Avenue SE, Kent, Washington. I would like to address the fairness thing as much as Brad Bell has. I probably wouldn't be quite as nice in the terms I could use if I would use them. I was on the Planning Commission when the existing Comprehensive Plan was done, when Boeing was going out of business we were going to turn out the lights. Mr. Harris preached and preached to us, we can plan now with pure planning. We don't have the pressure of growth. I was one of those ding dong Boeing engineers back in those days and didn't have common sense, so the things I learned . . . that I learned from Mr. Harris in the Planning Department. We looked at these plans, we looked at these maps, was preached and preached at me and it finally sunk in that we had commercial areas, then we go to multifamily, then we go to a lesser multifamily, you square off _ areas. And this whole area was done without the pressure of growth. Now we have people coming in from California, we've got them coming in from Indiana, we've got them coming from all over because there are jobs here now from Boeing. I remember Mr. Scarf gave a talk at the Chamber of Commerce one time. It sure is a lot nicer to be in an area of growth than a place like Richland or Texas when they are losing their homes. . . in losing your land values you pay taxes on. In areas like the ones I am very familiar with there is, I think Mr. Wright is here, he has lived there a long time, I don't know what his feelings are, up near Kent-Kangley and 116th that is completely surrounded by apartments, ours included. I don't necessarily like to build apartments. I 've built some. I 've also built some $400, 000 and $500, 000 homes in the Meridian Valley Country Club where some of the wealthy people can live in. But that is not what the market is and that is not what the need is now and that's not what the demand is. Apartments are full and the apartments are getting very, very expensive and more and more expensive as the government officials and the do gooders keep driving these land values up. And it is interesting that people come in here from California and say keep someone else out. I think most of us are transplants here. I came here 23 years ago. I don't know how long you have to live here to become a local person. I can't hardly get out my drive on 132nd Avenue, but it is not. . . I don't go up and say that I came in here and I 34 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 don't want anybody else to come in. I bought eight acres and I 'm paying the taxes for it. And I plan to pay for it as long as I can. Some of these other people who had this acreage paid the taxes for a long time. Talk about spot zoning and violating every principal I learned from the Planning staff. Take Kent-Kangley and 116th, if any of you are familiar with it, and I think most of you are, is completely surrounded. We have our apartments Colonial Square, you have to the north of us another apartment complex, then it goes down to a duplex. You go behind us and you got the old Quail Ridge Club that was put up there a long, long time ago and it has a lot of problems, and I think they have serious drug problems in there. Then there is Lincoln Gardens. You have all those in there, and you take one corner out. . .stuck right in the middle of this. . .and say you want single family. Someone brought up those ugly houses on 248th or 240th and 100th. Yeah, they are ugly. They are cheap. They meet the requirements. They probably shouldn't have been that way. There should probably have been a nice apartment complex. That's the kind of thing the Planning Department and whatever political thing is taking place to ram this thing down in such a big hurry is doing. When you take that spot zoning. . .you see they are going to set there and you are taking these people' s rights away from them which you should pay for it if you want the parks, vote a bond issue in, or you are going to be faced with cheap, ugly housing like you saw up on 100th and 240th. . .who is going to build a nice house on that corner. Anybody like to build a $100, 000 $200, 000 home there. . . $150, 000 home is about the average now. And I am hoping that the Planning Commission uses some common sense. Another thing we have here, and I guess I have to speak out against Leona Orr. She is also suing me, and she has stated publicly at numerous meetings that I was at that she is against all apartments on the East Hill. You can go back to the record. . . for her to stand here or sit here and say that she can listen to the testimony of these people here and be fair and nonbiased, I want to form a protest of Mrs. Orr. Acting Chair Stoner: Mr. Morford, we do have Mr. Sharp's protest and we will know yours for the record. Any questions. Commissioner Greenstreet: Yes, I have some questions. You said you were on the Planning Commission before. Paul Morford: Yes, I was on it for four years. Commissioner Greenstreet: What years were you on? Paul Morford: When Boeing was going to turn out the lights. Commissioner Greenstreet: 169-75? 35 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Paul Morford: I don't remember the years. Mr. Harris probably knows. Commissioner Greenstreet: The overall city multifamily plan and where what is all zoned multifamily. . .do you feel that is good city planning the way the city is now? Paul Morford: Yes, I think so, because most of the time when the growth appears. . .and that's another thing that was preached at me on the Planning Department, you had these certain things and then you expand them out as the demand goes. And here for the first time you have this tremendous demand for housing because of Boeing. If we want to stop this growth in here, we need to stop Boeing from building airplanes and people from building plants. As long as we are going to have that employment base, then if we downzone in here, you are going to have the same traffic problems or more traffic problems are going into the county. Mrs. Stoner is on the Soos Creek Plan, and I have been sitting out there listening to that, and the whole emphasis on the Soos Creek Plan is to keep rural further out and to keep the higher densities closer in. That was good planning. Anne Biteman: I have a question, Mr. Morford. Which property are you involved in. Are you involved in any of these areas? Paul Morford: I have some property that is on 116th Avenue just north of Kent Kangley. I have several pieces of property here, but I am just in the issues as a total issue rather than specific. Acting Chair Stoner: Thank you. I had one other hand in the audience that I saw, and I will take other people's testimony until 10 o'clock. There was a gentleman back here. Will you come and state your name and address for the record, please. Ralph Wright: My name is Ralph Wright, 11414 Kent-Kangley Highway. Okay, I 've got two and one-half acres on Kent Kangley that has been zoned MRM for a long time. Now you are downzoning me to single family residence. . .paying taxes for whatever they zoned it, I guess. Right along beside me, outside my 900 feet, is a three- story apartment. I am relying on this land to sell so that I have a better retirement, maybe better nursing home care you might call it. So, I 'd appreciate it if we had some kind of consideration in taking me from way up to way down. And I got the last piece of land on Kent-Kangley on this triangle. Anne Biteman: Which side of Kent Kangley? Ralph Wright: North side. You see, the Sequoia Apartments are right along side of me. 36 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Anne Biteman: What is the address. Ralph Wright: 11414 Acting Chair Stoner: Any questions for Mr. Wright. Commissioner Ward: Can you identify by one method. . . (unclear) Ralph Wright: MF-18. I have 900 foot along the border of the Sequoia Apartments. Acting Chair Stoner: Any other questions. Thank you. I have a hand here in front. Would you give your name and address for the record please. Lucille Lemon: My name is Lucille Lemon. I live at 22911 101st Place SE. I have no property in Kent. I own a home. We have not lived here very long. I sympathize with the landowner. I don't feel that money should be taken away from you, but I do not like apartments. My parents have managed apartments all their lives. I 've seen what happens to apartments. People that live in apartments do not care because it is not their property. I do feel the landowner should be compensated somehow. It is not right for them to lose their funds and their land, but as I said I do not like apartments. My next issue is on the lot sizes. I would like to stay in Kent. I have finally reached one of my dreams. I own a home. I have children that are in their teenage years and someday they will be owning homes. I want them in a decent city. I don't want Kent turned into a Tacoma, a Valley Kee Apartments. I don't want it here. I would like to stay in Kent. As far as the lot size of 5000 square feet. . .the only people. . . I think if we stop analyzing and used common sense. A home on a 5000 square foot lot is going to be a rental home. Now is that any worse than an apartment, because you are going to have three and four families living in a rental home. I 've seen it happen. It is going to be completely trashed. You cannot build a decent home on 5000 square feet. No one is going to own that home. It is going to be low income, and it is going to be a rental. I would like to see apartments . . . a halt put to them. I believe there are certain areas that apartments should be built on. You cannot put homes in between two apartment buildings. That 's insane. But you can't have a city full of apartments and tiny little homes that no one will own, except for landlords. I would like to see Kent stay a nice city for families. As one lady stated earlier, I want out of here. That is what is going to happen to Kent and the families that alive here. People have to be compensated, and it has to be stopped on some of the growth. There has to be an even balance there somewhere. Thank you. 37 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Acting Chair Stoner: Any questions. Thank you. Do I have anyone else. Is there anyone else here who would like to comment who we have not talked to. Yes m'am. Would you state your name and address for the record please. Steve Babbitt: My name is Steve Babbitt. I live in the Scenic Hill area, 945 Maple Street. I own a single family home on an R1.72 lot. I am going to address the fairness issue. First of all, if we are going to take the development rights away like most of the people toward the end of the meeting today have said, I think those owners should be compensated if there is a downzone. Obviously that money is going to have to come from somewhere and that will be from the other members of the community. Getting on to other things. . .I think one of the strengths of America . . . there has always been a strong middle class where there was a pretty good percentage of people could own their own property. America was doing great until we started to run out of land, which we are finally doing. So we have a big problem. I think we are going to have to adjust to that fact. Maybe one way to do it is that our Planning Commission or elected officials are going to decide what quality of life we want here and then everyone is going to have to pay for it. If there is a downzone, the other folks in the community are going to have to reimburse that person for his lost income. But on the other hand we are going to set a limit on how many people we want in the city period because that will establish a certain quality of life, and part of that will have to be controlling how many jobs we create here, because that does bring in more people. You know, there is always this motive, well, mainly down in the valley where you see all the warehouses. We got to develop it. It brings in more taxes, creates jobs, and this is good. Well, maybe a certain level is good, but anything beyond that isn't because that hurts the quality of life. I 've reached that point. I moved here 10 years ago, I 'm not a native. At that time Kent reminded me very much of a city I used to spend my summers in where my grandmother lived, and it had a railroad that went through it and a real good parks department. I 'm single and I never thought I 'd ever be able to buy a home, but I managed to three years ago, so in a sense I attained a goal. Now that I have done it one of the primary objectives on my mind is as soon as I get enough money saved, I 'm going to get out of here because the quality of life isn't what I remember as it was when I moved here 10 years ago. I think we have to establish what quality of life we want. If it involves downzoning, we should reimburse those people. If it means limiting the number of jobs created, I think that means that we have to do that. The piecemeal zoning I don't think is a good idea. That's all. 38 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Acting Chair Stoner: Any more questions. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wants to comment. If we have no more testimony. . .I see a hand. Mr. Sharp. You heard the joy in my voice, didn't you. Tom Sharp: Would you like me to state my name and address again? Acting Chair Stoner: Oh, please. Tom Sharp: My name is Tom Sharp. My address is 24254 143rd Avenue SE in Kent. Since I stated it before that my nature is basically nonconfrontational, I would like to again discuss the 5000 square foot lot addition to the Kent Zoning Code. I was involved back when I was a Boeing engineer, like my partner, which he said is a bunch of ex-ding-a-ling Boeing engineers, we were involved in a plat that happened to be the first PUD in King County and very, very successful. It was in the Woodinville area. It was basically in the boondocks at that time. Right now it is in the middle of one of the largest growth areas in King County. The housing when we were selling housing in there was $50, 000, now it is $200, 000, basically the same size lots, 5000 square feet. There was a mix of uses both single and multiple family uses in different densities. But the point is with the finite land. . .there just ain't land no more around here, to put it very bluntly. And if people think LA is bad, wait until the land prices here. . .wait until the development reaches the base of the mountains and we don't have far to go. Wait until we see what happens with land values then and prices in affordable housing. One of the only ways we are going to be able to provide affordable housing for people is through smaller lots. And I can guarantee you that design is not the problem. I ' ll put. . .as an example, I have duplexes that I 'm building on 8000 square foot lots, basically 4000 square foot lot per unit, and I ' ll put my duplexes up against anything that is built in the City of Kent, anything . . . from a design standpoint and from a usability standpoint. And I know the design can be done, and I don't want the Planning Commissioners. . .and I would invite them to come up to a plat that I 'm involved in and look at the design and see what can be done on smaller lots. I don't want you to be swayed by people who don't understand design and what can be done with good design, because this is one of the only hopes of providing not only affordable housing but land use, good land use in the City of Kent. Acting Chair Stoner: Any questions. Commissioner Greenstreet: Yes, I have a question. Actin Chair Stoner: See, you thought you were going home. Commissioner Greenstreet: You were talking of Woodinville PUD. 39 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Tom Sharp: Right. Commissioner Greenstreet: Was there green belt acreage in that? Tom Sharp: Definitely. Commissioner Greenstreet: What do you think of 5000 lot spot zoning areas without green belts, trails, everything that goes with the PUD. Tom Sharp: It can still work with the proper design considerations. I don't see any 5000 square foot lots being built in the city where the Engineering Department and the Fire Department would degrade their requirements in terms of street access, widths, turnarounds, and things of that nature. I 've worked with those people long enough to know that it would be like getting blood out of a turnip. You are still going to have all the requirements for the engineering, even with these lot sizes. Commissioner Greenstreet: So, looking at it from an engineering standpoint you can, but what about the people who have addressed the quality of life, and if you don't have the green belts to go along with it, how do you take care of it. Tom Sharp: Well, the City of Kent has, I guess, chosen not to purchase parks on the East Hill of Kent. Like Mr. Bell stated, there is a dire need for parks in the East Hill of Kent. One of the supposed outroar is because we don't have any parks on the East Hill of Kent. One was developed at a great expense for a football field at the high school, and there is some proposed parks outside of the city, but no one has come up with any money for them. They decided to put their money on the West Hill, not on the East Hill. Commissioner Greenstreet: Should the parks be purchased first then allow the. . . Tom Sharp: I think it has to go in conjunction. What do we pay taxes for Isn't that one of the issues. . . fire, police and parks. But I don't see any money coming out of the city. There isn't any there. There isn't any councilmanic bonding capacity left. If people want to talk about the quality of life, why don't they talk about a bond issue and put the money where their mouth is. Actina Chair Stoner: Any more comments or questions? Commissioner Ward: Would you recommend a solution and. . . (unclear) . . . changing zoning. . .city buy all this land and transfer it to parks. 40 Planning Commission Minutes August 28, 1989 Tom Share: Sure, that would be fine if they would buy the land that I own. I would be more than glad to sell to them at a market price. I have no problem with that. I don't have any problem with you rezoning my land as long as you pay me for the difference. After all I paid for the difference. Commissioner Ward: I do agree with you on one point. There is. . . (unclear) . . .wrong with the 5000 square foot lot. I 've heard too many comments regarding this, and I think that it is only because not too many people have been exposed to 5000. . .you are talking about a lot that is 50 by 100. There is a whole slug of them in Seattle that are pretty nice older homes that were built on. I own a few of them, and some of them are like 70 years old. So it has been in effect a long time. So, I wouldn't be appalled by the thought of the 5000 square feet. I don't want to say any more, because she will challenge me, also. Acting Chair Stoner: It is now 10 o'clock. We are not going to take any more testimony tonight. Having seen no more hands, I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Commissioner Ward: So moved. Acting Chair Stoner: Ray has moved. Do I have a second. Commissioner Biteman: Second. Acting Chair Stoner: Anne has. seconded the motion to close the public hearing. Is there any discussion. All in favor. Commissioners: Aye Acting Chair Stoner: Opposed. (Silence) Motion passed. We will then deliberate at our next meeting which I understand is September 18. At that point we will take no more testimony, but we will deliberate and try to reach a decision on this issue. Thank you. We appreciate you coming and we also appreciate you sticking to a ten-minute limit. It is nice to get through everybody in one evening. (End of verbatim minutes) The meeting was adjourned at 10 p.m. . Respectfully submitted, AJameVI—arr/is," Secretary 41