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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Planning and Economic Development Committee - 02/25/1986 • KENT PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES February 25, 1986 The meeting of the Kent Planning Commission was called to order by Chairman Raymond Ward at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25, 1986, in the Council Chambers. COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Raymond Ward, Chairman James Byrne, Vice Chairman Robert Anderson Robert Badger Richard Foslin Chuck Lambert Jill Spier Nancy Rudy PLANNING STAFF MEMBERS PRESENT: James P. Harris, Planning Director James Hansen, Principal Planner Fred Satterstrom, Project Planner Ed Heiser, Assistant Planner • Lois Ricketts, Recording Secretary CITY STAFF PRESENT: Scott Sawhill , Transportation Planner PLANNING COMMISSION BYLAWS REQUIREMENT Chairman Ward read from the Bylaws of the Planning Commis- sion, page 3(D) : _ New materials must be deposited in the Planning Department office at least ten (10) days prior to the Planning Commission . meeting for which the materials are intended. Since this regulation had not been mentioned at the previous meeting of the Planning Commission and materials had been submitted to the Planning Depart- ment as late as the date of this meeting, he asked for a motion to suspend this ruling for this hearing so that these materials could be entered into the record. Commissioner Spier MOVED that the requirement be suspended for this hearing. Commissioner Lambert SECONDED the motion. Motion carried. Commissioner Lambert stated that since 1980 the population of Kent has increased over 8,000 people. It has been projected for 1990 that there will be 21 ,961 people living on the East Hill and 12,400 in the industrial area. • His source of information did not have any projections for the West Hill area. He asked to have these projections taken into consideration when making a decision about the amount of area that should be designated as commercial , if any. 1 i Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 1 i Commissioner Foslin MOVED to have the information presented by Commissioner Lambert included in the minutes of this hearing. Commissioner Badger SECONDED the motion. APPROVAL OF PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES Commissioner Byrne MOVED and FOR JANUARY 28, 1986 Commissioner Badger SECONDED a motion to approve the January 28, 1986, Planning Commission minutes as presented. Motion carried. CORRESPONDENCE SUBMITTED Mr. Harris submitted the follow- ing six letters into the record: Solveig Bower, Robert and Evelyn Crandall , Bill Goodwin, Robert Clemens, R. W. Thorpe and Assoc- sates, and a previously submitted letter from former King County Planning Director, Holly Miller. Commissioner Byrne MOVED to accept the letters into the record. Commissioner Anderson SECONDED the motion. • EAST HILL PLAN Chairman Ward opened the public hearing. (Verbatim Minutes) Chairman Ward: Kent Sherburne. Kent Sherburne: I 'd like to use the viewfoil machine. I 'd just like to swing this around and speak into the mike. Chairman Ward: Would you first identify yourself. Give your name and address and what area that you are particularly concerned about or that you live in or that you are speaking your opinion regarding. Sherburne: My name is Kent Sherburne. I am with Management Consulting Assoc- iates and principal of that firm, an economist by trade. My interest is in Parcel M which is south of 256th. What I would like to do to begin with is to put up a. . . Lambert: Could we have a map up so that we know which. . . Harris: Ed, why don 't you put a map up so that we can see these site numbers. Sherburne: Our purpose tonight is showing the demand for commercial/community • retail land. I am going to take two approaches to this. First of all I am going to look at the historical East Hill Plan development which is included in the repori*,which was done by the Planning Department in December 1985. -2- 3 Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Scenario 2, I am going to take more of a macro look towards the Soos Creek area and look at the market demand approach for commercial/community retail land. So a micro and a macro, looking and both of it. This first viewfoil is basi- cally a carbon copy out of the East Hill Plan which looks at that 2.5 square mile area and looks and commercial absorption. I took off six years just to get it on a viewfoil , but it does go from '73 through 1985. Now since I 'm concerned with market demand, one of the critical things. . . (unclear) is to look at absorption or consumption of acres per year over a certain period of time or whatever. So looking at this, this shows the land absorption in acres and using the plan as far as the future or forecast consumption, they use the average of 1973 through 1 1985 which comes up with 3.7 acres per year. A more realistic approach in my view is to look at either Method 2 or Method 3 which is to take more current information of what has happened more recently. The more current years have a higher weight. If you take an average of the last seven years, you look at 5.4 acres per year consumption, and you look at the average of the last five years you look at 5.9 acres per year. Also in this area it was mentioned in the plan that there are currently available 23.8 acres available still to be developed in this area. That includes sites 1-7. More updated information, if you look at 6A, it is in the process of being developed which is two acres that can be deducted from that total . And if you look at 3.5 acres on Site 4, you notice that it on a steep slope. There is a substantial capital cost for grading and,__.,,,,,_,._ also, the fact is that if it's going to be for retail , it hurts one of the prime maxims in development, and that is visibility. It is very difficult to be . visible from . . . (unclear) . So I think it is realistic to deduct those two pieces of acreages out. So looking at what is currently available, I can spell that is just one I missed in proof. . .currently. . . What is currently available is 18.3 acres. I think is realistic of what you have in stock right now. So, if you take those 18.3 acres of currently available community retail and let' s go through Method 1 , 2 and 3 again. Using Method 1 which is straight out of the plan, taking the average of 1973 through 1985, you are looking at the years remaining of 4.9 years. If you are taking Method 2, it is the average of the last seven years, you are looking at 3.4 years . And finally down to 3.1 if you average the last five years. Clearly three years is a short time for anything when you looking at a Comprehensive Plan for a longer term outlook. As a check on these numbers, let 's get out of the 2.5 square mile area and look at the Soos Creek. Soos Creek population, which was defined in the Plan, is growing dramatically. They had population in that plan from 1973 to the year 2000. Let's look at some of the shopping center development in the Soos Creek area. Above the line there is four that were developed some time ago. They are older shopping centers. You can look at the GLA which is the gross leasable area. It is in thousands. Look at the acres consumed with that development and the year opened. I 'd like to call attention, can people see. . . Voice: Can you pull that thing down a little bit. Sherburne: If you look below the double line, you look at three shopping centers in the Soos Creek area that were developed more recently from '78 to '85 for a total of 35 acres. You divide by the last eight years, you have 4.4 acres per • year consumed. That 's ,lust community shopping center. That ignores any infill or small parcel commercial development. That's where 4.4 itself exceeds what -3- Kent Planning Commission Minutes . February 25, 1986 was looked at in the planning, that 3.7. That is Scenario 1 . Scenario 2 is to take a market demand approach. As an investor or somebody looking at this, here is how they go about looking at it. This is a long convoluted methodology. Again, it is in the handout that I will give you after our talk. But basically we are talking about population on this one hand. We are going to get down . . . we are going to get down to what is consumed on the other hand, i .e. land con- sumed. There' s a whole bunch of intermediary steps which this methodology shows. That is basically how we go about determining what the demand for commercial land is. We are taking the population growth change per year in the Soos Creek area, which is straight out of the East Hill Plan, divide by the persons per household, which is PSCOG data for each of the areas that we are looking at, to come up with the number of households. Take the number of households times the personal income for household, which is census data and Puget Sound Council of Governments data, to come up with the gross income per household. Then you are going to take that gross income to the new people that are moving in, the net new people, and they are going to spend a certain amount of every dollar earned on discretionary retail goods. So that percentage is times the gross income to find out the gross demand for community retail goods. Coming down here, you take that gross demand in dollars, multiply by one dollar per square foot that is generated for a neighborhood community shopping type area to come with a gross leasable area demanded. Then you take that gross leasable area, convert it into what we call a footprint for the land consumed to come up with the demand in acres for community retail land. O.K. Now I said we are looking at retail goods. In this whole methodology we are looking at spending some money on retail goods. What kind of goods for community retail . We are looking at the categories of food, drug, personal services, hardware, auto accessories, miscellaneous. Things that are in that area right now. That is one category of retail goods. There is another category that is also included in community-type shopping areas, which includ- eating and drinking establishments. Those are already there now in that area. Variety stores, paint, glass, wallpaper, other accessories, other retail stores like a gift shop or something like this. All these cataegories are stan- dard industrial classification categories, and all of them are listed in the Department of Revenue Quarterly Business Review. Now I ' ve got these categories which I am going to call other potential goods . The ones I showed you pre- viously are some retail goods there. So when we go through this methodology, I 'm going to have a slash. You are going to see the demand for just that first section that I showed and the demand for the second section on the other side of the slash mark. Using the methodology that I talked about before, I just want to go through one line example to show you how it goes through. We take the population. . .what I want you do to is concentrate on the two columns, poopula- tion and number of households. That gives you an idea of dramatic growth in the Soos Creek area. Again, these are selected years, but it is on a per- year basis. So in 1973 you can look at a population of 47,000, that is a net increase of 2, 100 people in that area from the previous year. There is 3.3 people per household, which means that there are 647 new households. You take those households and you take those households, you assign the per capita income, or I should say the personal income, per household, again out of published data. You convert those into expenditures, the discretionary • income, which are listed in thousands. So, for example, those households which came in 1973, they are going to spend $2,445,000. That is where -4- • Kent Planning Commission Minutes February 25, 1986 the first category. . .goods. The other slash mark is for those other ones, like eating, drinking establishments or whatever. The sale for (unclear) , again we are talking about 1973, so you have to deflate the sales. . .come up with a square footage of 41 ,000, which translates into 3.4 or 4.8 acres. As you go up here from 1980, 1984, you see in 1984 we are almost 5 acres to 6.8 acres in demand per year using this market approach. It gets a little higherin 1990 and 1995 and 2000. The reason we have the quirk between 1990, 1995 and 2000 (unclear) is that we are prorated from 1990 to 2000. . .the population dip, and the percentage change changed. So it more likely that in 1995 they are going to be demanding 6 to 8.4 acres per year, and the year 2000 they are going to be demanding 5.2 to 7.2. It is a matter of how you are ratioing up the numbers. The population tendency will be kind of a (unclear) it will peak and gradually start to come down, or the rate of growth will start to come down. So we are looking at really six to eight acres in here per year for demand. In summary then, Scenario 1 was looking at the historical East Hill Plan, more of a micro look, and the acres per year, those slashes under acres per year mean Method 1 on the left-hand side, method 2 and method 3 for those averaging techniques. In other words, if you average the last five years, it is a consumption of 5.9 acres. If you look at the years of vacant land remaining given those, those coincide with 4.9 years for Method 1 and 3.1 years for Method 3. Looking at the Market Demand Approach then, we are looking at 6 to 8 acres per year . demand. There is a gigantic increase looking at it from a forecast level . That is the reason it is a little bit higher. Here is the vacant land remaining. Given that is less than 3 acres. I think it is phenomenal growth. . The recommendations are that the East Hill Plan needs to be amended to accommodate more commercial land. In the East Hill Plan they mention Alternative 2 and Alternative 4. I believe Alternative 2 was the second choice of the report. I ' ll have to double check that. That seems reasonable but is adding 19 acres. So if you are consuming land, let 's say 7 acres per year, that is going to add maybe 3 years. Three years to an existing supply and three years already. That makes six. That might be a good measure for right now. Alternative 2, though, is Alternative 4 which is going to take a bigger leap forward as far as designated land for commercial growth which will come to the area. It is bound to come for those population numbers So that concludes what I have to say. I would like to pass out a summary of this that also has more detail in it as far as footnotes, assumptions, whatever. May I enter this. Chairman Ward: Sure. All right. The next speaker is David Hamlin. Thanks a lot. David Hamlin: My name is David I . Hamlin, H a m 1 1 n. My business address is 1606 Eighth Avenue North, Seattle, 98109. I am a consulting engineer, self employed providing services in the field of traffic engineering and transportation planning. I 'm a graduate civil engineer from the University of Washington registered as a professional engineer in the State of Washington • a long-time member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. I was formerly City traffic engineer here in the City of Kent back. . . in fact the Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 first traffic engineer back. . . '69 to '71 and after that traffic engineer for the City of Renton through 1975. I 've been involved in a number of studies out here in this part of the town and also as traffic engineer for the City of Kent. Obviously I had responsibilities for portions of the street system here. I was retained by a group known as the Tetra Group to do a traffic analysis for the portion of land that is under consideration here for the Comprehensive Plan update that is identified as Parcel M on the map behind me, I noticed. I was asked specifically to do a traffic analysis that would identify within reasonable approximations the trips that would be generated by the commercial rezone on that particular property, to look at the impacts of the trips that would be generated by that development and to define reason- able mitigation measures. Now you must understand that when we are doing something on a rezone, we have to be somewhat approximate. In other words we do not have a site plan. We do not have a schedule or timetable for the implementation of an improvement on the site. But given those constraints, we did produce a report. We identified mitigation measures . It is my under- standing that when that application for a rezone was submitted back in September, I believe, the subsequent findings of the staff was that our mitigation measures as defined therein were appropriate to the impacts of that project. I also understand that that rezone was denied for several reasons, and one of those was because of area-wide transportation problems that you have on the East Hill of Kent. Well , thinking back to when I was traffic engineer here and when I first came in 1969, my first project was to design that traffic signal • at the "Y" intersection at Kent-Kangley and 256th. That was the first signal --that -I ever designed, and I 've done several hundred since then. So it is sort of an interesting start in my career. It certainly gave me a chance to see how that corridor works. We considered that to be a major, heavily travelled and congested corridor at that time. And I 'd have to say that today there is still congestion throughout the East Hill area, but primarily around the Kent-Kangley Road. We've seen several improvements take place along that facility in the last few years, and I also think it is reasonable to say that it's probably improved pretty much to the maximum capacity that we could reasonably accommodate along that facility. It is equipped with curbs and gutters and several through lanes and left-turn lanes, and I think it goes without saying that there isn 't much further. . . perhaps some minor spot improvements, but basically we have pretty much reached capacity on that corridor. There has been talk about alternate corridors to the East Hill area as long as I can remember. Of course the State was originally going to put 516 around the base of Scenic Hill . I participated in a public hearing one time that we thought was sort of the last step in making that project happen. That was in 1970. It hasn 't happened and I presume that it won 't. But the City of Kent has now identified some reasonable corridors leading up to the East Hill area. Perhaps they could enlighten you further on that. Perhaps they already have. It appears to me that a lot of progress is being made towards the development of a corridor to go to the East Hill , basically along the 272nd-277th corridor. Talking with the traffic engineer recently it sounds as though they have begun to focus on a reasonable solution to the problem, one that certainly has been needed for a long time. I feel • that while you are concerned about the general traffic problems in that area, that we know a solution is required. We know that without this Comprehensive Plan update with no further commercial development on the East Hill , you -6- Kent Planning Commission Minutes . February 25, 1986 are going to have increasing volumes on the 516 corridor. There is no question about chat. In fact, whether or not these properties do develop commercially will probably be a small drop in a large bucket. In other words, the develop- ment east of Kent Covington and further east is what is going to be the producer of the traffic along the corridor. In a lot of ways commercial development on that corner may in fact deduct some trips along the transportation facilities. I 'm not convinced at all that commercial development there would substantially be the villain in the development of further traffic up there. But I do believe that this new corridor which is under study, very seriously under study now, is the solution to the problem, and I believe that if properties are allowed to rezone up there to a higher use developing more traffic, that the reasonable solution would be to develop a system wherein those properties have a condition on the rezone, or some other condition placed at least prior to occupancy of the site by this new development, which would require the participation in an LID or a road improvement district, whichever you wish to call it, towards the development of this new corridor. I am somewhat hesitant to suggest that the developer has to participate in something where there are some unknowns as there are today, but I believe that the City of Kent with its professional staff and their commitment to that project are in fact capable of doing what I would consider to be a fair job of developing a reasonable cost spread that would allow some cost spread that would allow some participation. And when I look at the properties along the Kent-Kangley Road, we can all debate as to whether they would benefit from this type of • a project but, as a matter of fact, since that roadway is fully improved and cannot be further improved to any reasonable extent, it seems to me that participating in this new corridor to some extent based, perhaps on numbers of trips that they may generate or area of usable land for development or whatever other measure may be used, there are several now under consideration I believe. What they are buying, of course, is additional capacity on the 516 corridor by participating in the cost of the new corridor. I think. . .Today we see throughout the Pacific Northwest where this business of requiring the participation or signing and recording the document which is a no-protest to a future formation of an LID is a common vehicle for doing it. I think we will see a lot more of that. In fact I am attending a seminar in Florida in several weeks and we have people coming throughout the country who are going to speak to this very issue.,. the means of supporting this type of project recognizing that the burden is now falling more and more on the private sector to do this type of thing. But I believe there is a reasonable solution. . .to identify the corridor, to develop the means to finance it, and that these properties with these proper conditions placed upon them that I define, that is the requirement to not protest the formation of a road improvement district, is the proper way to address this issue on the East Hill . Traffic volumes are going to increase, the need is there. Let's find a way to get some parti- cipation in it. That is the extent of my comments. If you have any questions of my involvement in this, I 'd certainly be pleased to answer them. Thank you. Chairman Ward: Any questions • Rudy: I have a question. Do you have any idea what it would cost a developer, say per acre, for participation in such an LID. -7- t Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Hamlin: No, I really don't. I would like to defer to your own staff that issue, because they have looked into this to some extent. I don 't think they have actually identified the dollar value, but they are coming up with a mechanism for doing it. And I am not sure that per acre is necessarily the way to do it. There is a lot of debate, but per trip. . .a trip fee is what is commonly done. That has been rejected some places because agencies have asked for trip fees but they have never identified where that money was going. Of course, I wouldn 't want to pay into a general fund if I didn 't know if I was going to derive some benefit from it. But here we are talking about a very specific project to which we can identify benefit. I am sorry that I don 't have a dollar value. If I throw one and and I 'm wrong, I think that is a mistake, too. Foslin: One quick question on the zoning of a commercial piece of property. Is it your feeling that it is a minor consequence to traffic influx in that area. Hamlin: We have three categories of trips that I like to refer to in my studies. One is new trips, and let 's call a new trip someone who might be up at 208th and the Benson and had no intention of coming to this site until some new services became available. He is pretty much a new trip on the new system. We have a diverted trip. That might be someone who is up on 256th on his way home or to some other place where he gets a service that • we now have available on that site, so he diverts down. He is already on the roadway system, but he is contributing to some traffic on some roadways that he wasn 't otherwise going to use. And then we have the intercepted trip. That is the trip that is going by the site on its home or to some other service or something, he is simply going in. He is a new driveway trip, but he is not a new trip. Of course, located as our client 's property is on the Kent-Kangley Road which is the heavily traveled corridor, I would have to believe that there would be a large segment of trips into that site which would actually be existing trips. They are not new trips at all . They are just simply intercepted along the facility. There is one other category of trips that I like to refer to. None of these can be very easily quantified. And you can imagine the range of analysis to figure this out. __ We also have something I will call deducted trips. And that is the person who is going by the site, let' s say into downtown Kent or Southcenter or Seattle or wherever to get whatever goods or services or whichever he is looking for. He now goes there, attains his purpose and goes back to his destination or his origin, so he is actually not on the roadway system any more. Perhaps I have made your question more complex than it should be, but because of the consideration of these various categories of trips. . . if I tell you that we are going to generate 7,000 new trips because of some new commercial develop- ment, that is 7,000 daily trips That is a very big number. When we begin to qualify that and to consider the fact that we are not really talking about new trips on the roadway, we are at the driveways and our access onto the site has to be properly engineered to accommodate that, but it isn 't that many new trips on the facility. I think, you know, for example, the Fairwood • Village area, Fairwood area, development up there probably definitely reduces the amount of trips in and out on Petrovitsky Road, for example. I think that is a case where we actually have fewer trips on the most heavily travelled -8- r Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 element of the roadway system. That is not in Kent, but I think you all know where that is, and that is an example of deducted trips there. Badger: Would you please define one thing a little further for me. You were discussing both Kent East Hill and the Soos Creek area, I believe you were saying Covington, define what you call Kent's East Hill Hamlin: I thought about that driving down here if anybody asks me that question. . . we all have our definition, but I see the East Hill of Kent from say the 208th area and both sides of Benson all the way down to well south of 256th, I don 't know the cross street where it would stop. Badger: How far east? Hamlin: Lake Meridian area, I guess. Badger: Well , then are you saying that the majority of the traffic that would be diverted to 277th would initiate or end east of what is Kent' s East Hill then. Hamlin: I think that a lot of it would be related to areas quite a ways east of East Hill . I look at it . . . call it a bypass if you will . • Chairman Ward: Any further questions. Thanks a lot. Next we have Dan Moorman. Correct me if I am wrong in my pronunciation. . .enunciation of your names. Dan Moorman: That's very good. Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. . . unclear We addressed a letter to you that's entitled "A Near Term Solution to the East Hill Traffic Problem" and that is basically what I 'd like to talk about. I am going to paraphrase the letter as I go along for the benefit of those in the audience who do not have any copies. I will be referring to some of the maps that are included in the letter. I said that the East Hill traffic congestion is at its worst when the late afternoon shift change traffic impacts the shoppers at the five-way intersection of Canyon Drive and 256th and Kent-Kangley. Basically what I am referring to here is that we have workers who are captive. If you want to go to work in the early in the morning, you can miss a lot of traffic. And if you look at the duration of the peaks, the morning one is fairly abrupt. The afternoon one comes in bow waves with every shift change. That is where the worker is captive. He gets caught in those bow waves. Also, the shops are open and there are shoppers out, and we believe that is when we have the worst congestion. We haven 't made a real comparison of it, but we think that the City recognizes that too in having constructed the bypass at 260th. We feel we have a better way to give the homeward bound commuters a way around the traffic. We propose that in the sketch shown on page 2 of the letter. I am going to put that up here on the screen here. Basically this route. . .if you turn right on Crow Road is just as you would if you went on the 260th bypass, but you continue down to 264th, turn left and continue all the way to Kent-Kangley and merge . with Kent-Kangley. Of course that road doesn 't exist today. What we are proposing. . .and what I would like to amplify on is that this route be put on the Comprehensive Plan. I realize that there are problems of funding, -9- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 there are problems of acquiring it, there are problems of working with the County and working with the State. I am Just suggesting a first step and that is to put it in the Comprehensive Plan. I 'd like to point out that partially it was in the old East Hill Plan. Just showing briefly here. . .this is the early version of the East Hill Plan and the road was through here, I believe this was through here. . .I believe 114th. Voice: There is a pointer there. Moorman: Thank you. It was through here to 114th. . .was shown on the previous plan. We are suggesting that. . .show it the rest of the way. Now part of the rationale is. . .we come out here . . .as we talk about a comparison between this route and 260th. First of all this is truly a bypass route. This over here is. . .Mill Creek Park. . . actually the steepest course of the canyon. This route would then turn along here. . .this area south of here. . .first of all there is a new power station going in. Most of this is apartments only here. So we are proposing that this be a thoroughfare. If they stop anywhere, they would be on the Benson. We suggest that it be a thoroughfare all the way through. In other words, flashing lights on the Benson and yellow flashing lights as a thoroughfare. Also, it would continue on and merge in a merge lane. Now let' s compare it to 260th . This one goes right through the center of the shopping and right through the center of East Hill Plaza, which is on both sides of the road here. Then you turn left and back track back, • and then you have to make an acute angle turn onto Kent-Kangley in traffic. This one is much more direct, it merges, they could have no stops if you wish, and it bypasses the traffic . . . rather the commercial rather than (unclear) through the center of it. There was some testimony from the last meeting on the 28th, and there was one question asked by Mr. Badger of Mr. Morris. He asked how much of this is really pass-through traffic. Mr. said it was approximately 60 percent. If you could give the pass-through traffic a route around that intersection that was much more readily accessible than the current one, you are going to reduce that intersection there by 60 percent of the traffic. As far as 260th is concerned, Joy McGatlin made a comment that she has been around for quite a while and she has seen traffic build up and she says that as far as 260th is concerned, we have a beautiful road, sidewalks and landscaping, but nobody uses it. And it certainly has been advertised a lot. So to avoid these difficulties we propose making 260th a thoroughfare, implementing a right-hand merge lane onto Kent-Kangley during the planned widening of Kent-Kangley by the County. Now that is something that is up and coming. I don 't know the timetable. Do you, Ed. What are the plans for widening Kent-Kangley. If it is in the Comprehensive Plan as a route, then that certainly is an enabling step toward getting together with the County and working on a merge lane. Right now there is nothing in the way. No buildings, no parking, no nothing. I think there is a farmhouse and a barn. It goes along here right behind the school , and then goes through a pasture and it might clip the end of the barn, but there is nothing else in the way. We suggest that if you propose that. . .put that pathway in the Comprehensive Plan, hopefully it will discourage someone from developing • along that route. There has been a lot of talk about the 272nd, and we've been around for quite a while. We've heard talk about that route for almost 20 years. It was asked at the last meeting by Nancy Rudy of Mr. Morris -10- Kent Planning Commission Minutes February 25, 1986 when will it be built. He said it could be as much as ten years. So we are proposing something that will help out with the traffic in the intervening ten years. Now this is 516 that comes up here, goes out to Kent-Kangley. We are proposing an alternate 516. We think the State certainly would be interested in this because they certainly have an interest in that route and of helping solve the problem. We are not saying that the State will pay for it all , but we certainly feel that they should be approached to help out with the problem. Now the second part of the recommendation deals with developer support of this bypass funding. Now you are talking about how you get selfish interests to help out with the public interests. There was some testimony in our last hearing, and I am talking only about south of Kent-Kangley and 256th, this area in here only. There were three people who spoke. . .Mr. Potter who spoke about M, and Mel Kleweno spoke about J and my partner, Bob Clemens spoke about G, H and I . If you compare that you will notice that all except M are bordering on this route. The folks at M got hit with a couple of LIDS and have already done their bit to support some of the street construction. I put in my letter a copy of our short 1 plat which gives you an example of a no-protest LID covenant. There are three of them that have been taken from our short plat application. It talks about the improvement, for example, of 104th with pavement, cement concrete curb and gutter, sidewalks, street lighting, underground power, storm drainage and other related appurtenances. That is also true of 264th and Crow Road. So through these no-protest LID covenants, you are going to get improvement • of a large portion of this group. If we look at how these parcels stack up against the existing zoning, we see that they are a rather logical extension of the existing zone. Here is the existing zoning shown here, and here are the pieces. What it comes down to is a rather natural boundary at this bypass. Here is M. What you've got along here again. . .Mill Creek Park, the steepest position of the canyon. Down here you 've got a power station and multiple zoning, plus this bypass then would have to be then a boundary, because you don 't want to put commercial on this side and start going through the center of it again. You want to bypass it. So we feel that. . .now we haven 't always said is here. . .because there isn't any particular map that matches this. We've simply said. . . Chairman Ward: You are getting slightly over time. Moorman: That is basically it. More than our property I am more concerned, I believe, about getting this bypass route in the Comprehensive Plan as a basis for negotiating with the County and the State to get that implemented. Chairman Ward: Are there any questions of Mr. Moorman? O.K. If not, thank you. We will hear from Bill and Mary Applegate. Are you going to speak at the same time? Not going to. Anyone else who has not signed up on the sheet who would like to. . .O.K. If that's about the size of it we have heard the public side of it. We can now close the public hearing. Lambert: I MOVE that we close the public hearing. • Chairman Ward: Do we have a second. -11- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Harris: Chairman, let me say this about rebuttal by the staff. I think the staff has to. Since we are the presentors of this material , we have to be able to develop the presentation and we also have to be able to develop the rebuttal . We have heard numerous other persons and we have to be able to adequately rebut where it calls for rebuttal . We have a whole host of people that have talked. Lambert: Petitioners too. Chairman Ward: A point of order. . . the staff is, in essence, is rebutting each of the public testimonies given. So if we count up the number of people and multiple this by three, that is the amount of time that staff should be allowed. . .in essence you are rebutting each of those testimonies. . .six from last week and three testimonies, which is nine minutes there and approximately ten people. . .so you have your 15 minutes. Spier: I 'm up here listening to the staff and not having a break and then if we have. . .if we have tons of people that need to speak afterwards, maybe we need a break, but let 's move on with it. I would like not to lose people who are here from the community. Byrne: Do we have the sign-up sheet from last time. If we do, I think that we should just go down that and see if anybody. . . • Ward: No one. . . I gave them the opportunity. . . Only one person requested that privilege. Byrne: I know, but not everybody knows what they are going to say. Ward: Has anyone changed their mind. Would anyone like the right to reserve the right to rebut based upon what staff has to say. I guess it is being signified by silence. Pardon me. Lambert: To continue what I was saying about petitioners, I 've heard several people get up and say that my section should be zoned but theirs shouldn 't, or such a thing. It might take them more than three minutes to rebut the different people. Ward: We haven't enforced time with anyone. We had some presentors tonight who went decidedly over the ten minutes, but they had interesting information and I thought we should hear it. So, we are trying to be lenient in that regard. We aren 't holding to a strict thing. We will try awfulTy hard not to be biased,___„_,y: but in the same token. . .there is only one person who has requested to rebut, and that is based upon what is said by staff. Byrne: Recommendation. . .continue on and when the rebuttal is over, take a short break and come back and debate. • Chairman Ward: That sounds good. Could we have the staff's rebuttal then. -13- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Heiser: Thanks for the chance to stand up after an hour of being seated. I am thankful to stand up. My name is Ed Heiser, and I am an assistant planner with the Kent Planning Department. I will offer rebuttal comments on testimony given at the January 28th public hearing as well as some comment on some of the comments that were given tonight. During the earlier meeting on January 28th the staff overviewed a variety of issues related to the expansion of the commercial area. After analyzing these issues and considering the public testimony given at the hearing previously and tonight, the staff is recommending that the Planning Commission take no action at this time to expand the commercial base. I 'd like to discuss four basic issues which were addressed primarily at the January 28th meeting. The first one has to do with the transition of land use on the north end of the commercial area within the study area. As shown on the map, the commercial area again is at the center of the intersection of 256th and 104th. At the northern end of this commercial area there are already two major office buildings, the Bell Anderson Building is one of them, and just north of the Bell Anderson the Kent East Office Building exists. These two office buildings were built some time ago in the latter part of the 70's. More recently three additional office buildings have been built in the corridor along 104th Avenue to the north of the commercial area. Mr. Glenn Crow has built a two-story brick office building just south of SE 248th Street on the west side of 104th. He also plans to develop a twin building to be a twin to this existing office building at some point in the future. The Benson Business Park has also been constructed along 104th Avenue SE also to • the south of SE 248th Street. Just south of the Benson Business Park is the Burns and Ells Office Building. So these three new office buildings represent sort of a trend towards office development along 104th Avenue corridor, together with the two existing office buildings that round out the commercial area, that is the Bell Anderson Building and the Kent East Office Building. These new developments set the tone for future development of office uses along 104th Avenue SE. As the area matures, the office will be in greater demand. The present vacancies in some of the newer buildings will fill up as the demand for office and other services increases. Allowing retail along this corridor, in other words on Sites A through F, would establish sort of a strip commercial . You could expect negative impacts that would include impacts on traffic safety, visual aspects and also negative impacts on the adjacent multifamily planned areas which exist on both sides of the corridors. In other words the plan at the present time calls for multifamily development to the east of Sites B, ; D, and F, and also the west of Sites A, C and E. So what I am suggesting , , , if the land is designated for commercial use, that the eventual development of that land for commercial use will have a greater impact on the adjacent multifamily designated land than would an office use. Office uses in this area would provide a more appropriate transition from the commercial to the south to the multifamily uses that are intended to be developed at some point in the future along the street corridor. The last point I 'd like to make in this section has to do with existing zoning. The Sites A through F are zoned for office and professional development. In that particular zoning district retail uses are allowed to occupy up to 50 percent of a development, provided a conditional use permit approval can be obtained. In the past there have • been conditional use permits requested that have not been requested for a specific use. In other words they were speculative and did not provide for any specific -14- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 use for the Planning Department or the Hearing Examiner to make a decision on. These sorts of speculative requests may continue to be denied; however, low intensity retail uses which are more supportive of the office areas may be more compatible and might be approved in the future. The next thing I 'd like to talk about is the consumption rates. We've had a lot of discussion about consumption rates. We had a hearing in December. It was actually a public meeting before the Planning Commission. We also had a hearing in January and again tonight we talked about consumption rates. Rather than tell the Planning Commission how the staff came about the 3.7 acre per year figure, I 'd like to just skip that and go into my rebuttal comments . It has been sug- gested that the consumption rate of 3.7 acres per year is low and I 've heard people manipulate the figures in different ways and say that over the last six years if you look at the last six years . . . if you look at the last six years, 1980 through 1986, the consumption rate is somewhere near six acres per year. If you consider that, that includes 21 .5 acres that were developed in 1983. If the acreage developed in 1983 is subtracted from the calculation, the consumption rate goes down to less than three acres per year. So what I am saying, you can manipulate the figures in any way you want to give you a different projection, either higher or lower, depending upon what you are looking for. What I am saying is that 3.7 acres per year is a reasonable figure that is based on the long-term analysis of the construction in the study area. Another factor that might affect consumption rates is the recent construction of retail development in the study area. For example, Kent Hill Plaza apparently • has a 15 percent vacancy rate at the present time. Another example is the East Hill Hill Shopping Center. . .that includes Johnny' s. . .it used to include Flakey Jakes. Flakey just went out of business. What I am saying is there are vacant spaces available in the existing retail business, and this vacant space may substantially satisfy the short-term demand for additional retail space. So if you consider the 3.7 acre per year figure, over the short term in the next few years we may not consume that much land, because there is already existing space in these developments that are up there at the present time. Significant vacant, commercial space could lessen the desire for new development over the short term. The consumption rate of 3.7 acres per year is based on long-term statistics since 1973. If you will notice, I know that you have all looked for your books and how it was determined. In times of economic prosperity, construction rates were on the rise. Conversely, during the economic slow downs, construction is less. It is cyclical in nature. On the average, in 1973 in the study area 3.7 acres per year is a reasonable rate of consumption. a The third thing I 'd like to talk a little bit about is population growth. We've talked a lot about population growth and the Puget Sound Council of Govern- ment figures for residential expansion, and so on. I think that there is no denying that the area is going to grow through the year 2000. Historically the development of commercial property lags slightly behind the demand generated by residential growth. Now the Planning Department considered this, and after the meeting on January 28th we sat down and looked at the different commercial nodes on the East Hill area. We've got a map that shows where they are located. So this is one more map that we have developed since the last time we met. It may be difficult for everyone to see, but I will try to point out some land- marks. Where the Green River is down in the valley here, the study is 2.5 square miles. . .the blue square. Faintly you will be able to see Kent-Kangley -15- e Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Road coming out through here. . .this is 256th . . . coming through the center of the study area. . . 108th becomes 104th here. . .272nd is the southerly limit of the study area. Petrovitsky comes up through here. What this map is designed to show is that there are, including the study area, nine commercial areas gen- erally on the East Hill that provide for the day-to-day shopping needs of the community. They provide a range of convenience foods and personal services . They are not planned for nor do the intend to compete with regional facilities such as Southcenter or Sea Tac Mall . They are just not in that class. The several commercial areas that are shown here can be expected to grow along with the residential population, although the size and rate of the growth of each of the areas is going to vary dependent upon its location and demands put for commercial services in those areas. They are not expected to compete in a re- gional basis with Southcenter or Sea Tac Mall . In other words, one area, the study area, will not provide for all the shopping needs of the entire Soos Creek area. Southcenter Mall attracts people from greater distances. These shopping areas are meant to provide day-to-day and convenience needs of the people who live in a close range. The last thing I 'd like to talk about tonight has to do with the 277th arterial option. And as a second option, the Planning staff has recommended that Alternative 2 might be adopted by the Planning Commission and the City Council if three conditions be endorsed by the City Council . These conditions are outlined in the yellow book. The idea is that they will create the potential for the east-west arterial , that is 272nd, to receive Federal and State funding. This option, Alternative 2, would provide • an additional 19 acres of commercially-designated land together with the supply of existing land 23.8 acres, the alternative would offer about 11 .5 years of commercial development. This generally corresponds with the time frame that it would take to construct the street. . 10-12 years, in that neighborhood. What I am suggesting. . . if the Planning Commission and the City Council decide to go for Alternative 2, add an additional 19 acres, by the time that supply of commercial land is exhausted, 11 .5 years roughly, 272nd should be a reality. I 'd like to offer some rebuttal for Mr. Sherburne, the economist. He took several different tacts. While I 'm not an economist I tried to follow along. One of the points he made was that. . .he was taking two of our sites right out of consideration for commercial development. For example, 6 A because the grading costs were too high. Also, if you took out number 4 out of vacant land summary because that is under consideration and they are planning to develop that at the present. I don 't believe that Mr. Sherburne speaks for the property owners in either case. I wouldn 't suggest that they be taken out of the vacant summary on his say so. He also presented a couple of different ways to look at the consumption rates. Although I think there are a couple of ways to look at consumption rates, in fact I have offered rebuttal testimony tonight that looks at it several different ways. He falls to consider the traffic congestion. That is one of the major issues of this study. Regardless of what the consumption rate is, additional commercial development is not going to occur if the street system is not straightened out. That is all the testimoy that I have tonight unless you have any comments. . . then I 'll try to answer them. . Lambert: I have two questions. Considering Parcels A through M, what is the total acreage. -16- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Heiser: I 'd have to refer to my notes. Do you have a (unclear) question while I refer to my notes". Lambert: Yes. By taking the alternative no change be made, would that alleviate the traffic problem. Heiser: It wouldn't alleviate it but it worsen it either. In other words we've got a street system. We've made some changes and we've got some other changes in the works. Lambert: Let's assume that the Planning Commission decides to recommend that no action be taken. Is there a possibility that that would drive the commercial development east of the City limits of Kent thereby taking away the tax base from the City of Kent and the business out of the City of Kent and dump it into the County, which would also give us a traffic problem to get out there to do it. Heiser: I understand your question, but I don 't have an answer for you on it. Lambert: I don't either. Heiser: I 'll check that figure for you. • Lambert: I 'd like to know. Heiser: Any other questions while I am standing. Chairman Ward: Do you have any questions. I have a couple. It is my under- standing from your initial statement that the staff is recommending that no additions be planned for commercial zoning. Heiser: Yes, in fact that was our recommendation at last month 's meeting. That is that we are recommending Alternative l . . .no action be taken at this time. Chairman Ward: Rather than Alternative 2. Heiser: Right. As an option, if the Planning Commission wished, Alternative 2 might be accepted. If it is, there are three conditions necessary to create the potential funding of SE 272nd, that arterial . Chairman Ward: Second question. You made the statement that under the present requirements, any area that is designated for office use could by special request be 50 percent retail . Heiser: That 's true if the conditional use permit is approved by the Hearing Examiner. That would be an option. • Chairman Ward: O.K. At the last hearing did we have testimony from a consultant engineer where this was basically refused. -17- • Kent Planning Commission Minutes February 25, 1986 Heiser: Well , that's true. Steve Elkins' applied for up to 50 percent retail at the Benson Business Park for his client. It was an open request and it didn't specify any type of retail use, just that up to 50 percent of that business park be used for retail development. The Hearing Examiner ultimately denied the request. Chairman Ward: Because he did not specify. Heiser: Well , that might have had something to do with it. Without the records in front of me tonight I wouldn 't say why or why not. But the application was denied. Chairman Ward: You further made a statement to the effect that due to the vacancy rate in existing commercial zoning, that this would substantially reduce the amount of land consumption during the coming years. Do we have an extremely high vacancy rate. Heiser: Maybe I should say may substantially reduce the. . . Chairman Ward: Of course, then you are channeling people into location, and I gather that many things concerning investors and property development are geared to location. . .location. . .location. Heiser: I talked to Bill Ruth in the last month about a vacancy at Kent Hill Plaza, for example. He is one of the principals involved in the Kent Hill Plaza. He suggested that they have a vacancy rate of 15 percent. I also men- tioned the case across the street at the East Hill Shopping Center where Flakey Jakes, that 10 to 12,000 square feet of restaurant, folded. For whatever reason there are new developments in the area. There are vacancies within those developments, and it may have an impact or have some impacts. . .so bearing on the potential for new development. Ward: That' s all I have. Badger: I 'd like to pursue just a little bit your definition of what these A through M sites are. Are they local , semiregional , or regional shopping center sites in staff's mind. Heiser: They are identified in the East Hill Plan as community retail sites. There is a definition provided for in the East Hill Plan for community retail a area. Basically what that is. . .is to provide for the day-to-day shopping needs of the community. It is not really a regional shopping area. Community retail is a smaller nodal area as defined in the East Hill Plan that we have today. Harris: Mr. Badger could I also answer that. You will notice as you march up 104th, and if you had circles that you drew, you 'd see these little shopping centers repeating themselves up the highway. We have the 256th and 104th, one mile north • do it all over again. At 208th and 108th we do it all over again. At Petrovitsky -18- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 and 108th we do it all over again. . .versus a Sea Tac Mall , and then 10 or 12 miles north you have Southcenter. Then you have Tacoma Mall south of that, and then you have Northgate, and then you have the Bellevue Shopping Center. So the difference in scale is that these repeat themselves every two or three miles in heavily populated areas, or every four or five miles versus many, many many miles for large regional shopping centers. You may have ,junior department stores here. You may have clothing and shoe stores, but you won 't have the scale that you have at a Southcenter or Sea Tac. Badger: If a large area was available though, Ed,if somebody wanted to develop like East Hill did. . .another 20 or 30 acre block, where would they find the property to put together to make that kind of a purchase. Heiser: I can 't answer that. At the present time there aren 't any blocks that exceed five acres. Badger: In other words, you have a circle in downtown Kent on your map which . . . I live up on East Hill and I would hardly ever go to downtown Kent considering it as a shopping area, even though I realize that it is for the people in the area. . . l I guess I am a little puzzled by the attitude of opening the valley up for indus- trial for square miles of area, and the concept of a closure here to very restricted growth. I don 't quite follow the pattern between the two areas. I realize you • weren 't present and maybe most of the staff wasn 't present when the valley was zoned the way it was. But I 'm a little puzzled by the retraction feeling that I am getting from staff of the area. i Harris: Can I again answer that. What the City fathers in Kent did in about 1955 when they began to annex and zone the valley lands and more or less finished it off by 1965) they made Kent a regional industrial area versus the shopping centers you are talking about being less than regional . Kent now is a competitor against Seattle. It has 7.5 square miles zoned for industrial in a city of 27,000. Auburn is another. . .same story. These small cities in the valley repeated this throughout the valley and made themselves regional attractors of industry. Some historically had some industry. Boeing was building airplanes in Renton during World War II . PACCAR was building railroad cars in Renton prior to World War II . That hadn 't happened in Kent. Our industrial . . . started after World War II . Auburn had the Northern Pacific shops. It had another Boeing plant. It had the General Services Administration operation. So there was kind of a base down here. But the City fathers in Kent decided, and I wasn 't here, that this was going to be a regional industrial area, and they zoned 7.5 square miles industrial . Now that is a little bit different from what we have on East Hill in the way of shop- ping. What really should have happened probably, and it didn 't come off, would be that our downtown would be the commercial that would offset the industrial . It may yet happen. It hasn 't happened to date. It is still a viable shopping area. It is not an area, though, that is equal or the same as the East Hill area. It has only one supermarket in its area. It doesn' t have some of the shops that you have on East Hill . • Badger: Except the traffic problem to get down to downtown is horrendous for East Hill residents. -19- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Harris: I don 't live on East Hill . I live on Scenic Hill and I shop equally in downtown as I do on East Hill , but it may well be. I don 't know. Lambert: I don't know whether I want to ask Mr. Sherburne or you, Ed, but in the commercial business. . .I know in the apartment business investors believe that if they don 't have a 10 percent vacancy, their rents are too low. Is that common in commercial , too. Sherburne: I 'd say depending on what type of area it is. If it's a ritzy shopping center. . . Harris: We don 't have any idea who is talking. If people are going to talk from the audience, we've got to get. . . Chairman Ward: Would you identify yourself as you answer. i Harris: We are doing verbatim minutes, so we can 't pick people up from the audience easily. Sherburne: My name is Mr. Sherburne and I am responding to the question by Mr. Lambert. I think the vacancy depends on what type of development area it is. Whether it is a K-Mart store or an I . Magnin. It really does depend on that. Ten percent or fifteen percent for a new shopping area that was mentioned earlier . as being (unclear) because of Flakey Jakes, I think for a new area and for the circumstances of Flakey Jakes, which is a bankrupt corporation essentially, it is not the viability of that store. It is the viability of that corporation. It speaks for itself. Chairman Ward: Were you checking your notes. Heiser: I don't have the answer for you yet, but I also wanted to mention that the other part of the staff's contribution to the rebuttal comments would be comments from Scott Sawhill who represents Ken Morris. Scott is Ken 't assistant. Ken wasn 't able to be here with us tonight. Scott is here to offer rebuttal . Anderson: Can I ask a question. Can you define. . .I have a question. We go from commercial , it seems, to office. And there is another category called Limited Commercial . Can you explain why you left that out as a consideration for any of these sites, and also define what uses it allows. Heiser: Limited Commercial is kind of afterthought that is left in the plan, the East Hill Plan. We were talking about plan designations and not zoning here. In East Hill I , when the Fred Meyer was being considered, the Limited Commercial strip along 104th, say from 244th to 248th, was taken out of the plan. What is left remains about 5.7 acres of Limited Commercial south of SE 248th Street. It doesn 't equate with the zoning per se. Other than that I don 't know how to anwswer your question. • Chairman Ward: Any further questions. O.K. Scott are you going to take 15 min- utes. Sawhill : No. -20- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Scott Sawhill : Good evening. My name is Scott Sawhill , the assistant transpor- tation engineer for the City of Kent. Upon hearing the public testimony this evening I have some concerns in regards to the East Hill land use and traffic generation. Taking a look at what has been presented before us this evening, some of my concerns in regards to the traffic generation that is presented with the Alternative 1 through 5 as shown in the East Hill Plan. We are recom- mending that Alternative 1 , the no action alternative, be recommended for this particular issue. There are some concerns that I have in regards to the type of trip generation that would be accomplished if this were to go to a buildout of 58 acres or more. We are presently taking a look at the South 272nd 277th corridor which the Mayor's task force has a goal in light. They have incorporated with another task force called the South King County Task Force which is a conglom- eration of four or five 3urisdictions. It includes the City of Auburn, King County, the City of Kent, the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Puget Sound Council of Governments. This task force, along with the Mayor 's task force, is to recommend and set down a concrete plan on how the corridor will be aligned and how it will affect our transportation needs. We need to pursue this issue and it should not fail . The SE 264th bypass that was presented was Sites G, H, I and J is a good alternative; however, it does leave some questions in mind. In response to the map which I will put back up. . .the corridor will continue south down to 264th, which will lead directly into 104th. Eventually as we are develop- ing further south, we are acquiring from two lanes to five lanes, and 104th will eventually be five lanes as it continues past the City limits into King County. Traffic control is a necessity as far as the traffic signal system. That would have to be incorporated to make that bypass an even flow. We are having problems with the SE 260th bypass because there is no current signalization and i it's a five-lane section. That same problem would happen at this particuar bypass as well . The next thing I has as far as that bypass. . .as it goes further to the east from 108th and goes past. . .to the east all the way to 114th or 116th, will require extensive right-of-way acquisitions. As everybody knows, the cost of land is extremely expensive up there and would cost a great deal to acquire that land for the use of the business bypass. Mr. Hamlin had good points in assessing developers for LID covenants at a trip-generation figure, and if these were as- sessed on a regular basis and equitably, we can provide South 272nd 277th corridor more readily and it would become more (unclear) . We are recommending the no action alternative at this time. Any comments please. Chairman Ward: Any questions from the Commission. Badger: What's the difference between the task force and getting it done. 1 Sawhill : Well , I believe a task force is something that is on its way. It is a start. It is a step in the right direction, and if there was no task force at all , we could be floundering around. We need some sort of organization and some sort of planned layout in order to follow it and to get it on its way. It costs a great deal , but if we start now, we can see the light down the road. Badger: And the 272nd 277th corridor is really for the service of Soos Creek area east of Kent's East Hill . -21- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 1 Sawhill : I would say it would be accessed to both the East Hill area and also the Soos Creek Plateau area. a Badger: Are you intending on 104th you said going south of the City limits becom- ing five lanes. Are intending an intersection with such a bypass, if it should be be built. I 'm serious. Sawhill : Where the intersection at 104th and 260th. . .that would be the condition at 264th and 104th. Badger: No No. The 272nd bypass. Sawhill : Oh, I 'm sorry. 272nd bypass will probably be a limited access route which basically alleviates any intersections that come through there. Badger: Then the five lanes you were referring to . . . between 260th and 264th. Sawhill : That is correct. Badger: And South 104th. Sawhill : That is correct. . Lambert: State participation extension of 264th. . .chances are. . .what would you guess. Sawhill : As far as answering that question to be equitable, the chances of that are relatively slim in my opinion. 1 Lambert: If it was taken into consideration the cost of acquiring property, no freeways would be built. I mean if this was going to be. . . (unclear) . . . Sawhill : That's true. Lambert: And . . . going through the center of downtown with I-5 cost tremendous amounts of money, but still that was built and it had to be. If this has to be, well , someplace the money is got to come from. Sawhill : That is correct. Anderson: I 'd like to clear up something in my mind. In looking at this 264th bypass, it appears to me that is helpful for evening but in the morning it is a route that won't work. They will have to use some other method because of the left turns involved, so I guess I would question what kind of participation you might get in a one-way-only thoroughfare and . . . (unclear) . . . and if 277th 272nd study goes anywhere beyond say west of say the Benson Road. . .you know at one point there was talk of a route substantially south and winding up and probably coming up somewhere around 280th or something like that. . .up the hill . • Sawhill : Between the two different bypasses that are under question, the SE 260th and 264th, they basically pertain to the eastbound traffic. The eastbound traffic, -22- I Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 p.m. traffiq is our major concern here. However, there are certainly problems with the morning commute into town and using 516 to get to I-5 and 167. There has been some talk in regards to developing the northern type of bypass which is SE 248th. That would still have the motorists come into the intersection and divert to the north and may or may not reduce travel time. Even if you did have signalization for either 108th and Kent-Kangley or where the bypass for 264th would come into Kent-Kangley, there would be some delays there. So it is a give or take. Badger: With 104th being widened in the next year and one half all the way through now so that essentially from 260th all the way north to wherever it ends presently at five lanes, will that generate north south traffic into this same intersection at 256th that wasn 't there before. Sawhill : I would say if the 277th corridor would be built, it would. But that is some years down the road. At the present time I would not believe so. Badger: Don't you think that more people will travel north and south on Benson because it has been improved in the next year or year and one half. Sawhill : Oh yes, very much so. But it just takes the major capacity that we have now and gives it a more acceptable level . Any other questions. • Chairman Ward: Any other questions. It sounds like we don 't have a solution to the traffic problem. It is either cost prohibitive or it is in a plan and depends ; upon some other agency, State, Federal or County. Sounds as though whatever we do, whatever we decide to recommend . . . (unclear) . . . Thank you. All right. No, we can entertain discussion and questions from Commission members. You can seek any additional information you might want. I guess we should offer the opportunity ' first of all for the gentleman. . .they said what you wanted them to say. . . You wish to offer rebuttal now. O.K. Go ahead. Moorman: My name is Dan Moorman and I spoke a little earlier. On property acqui- sition, I wanted to point out that you need to acquire property from here to here because this is owned by the schools already. . . (unclear) . . . on school property. Another thing was . . . and I recognize that this is to strictly to carry traffic east in the afternoon. Chairman Ward: Right. One way. J Moorman: But cheaper than using 248th would be to just come this way and put a ramp back down over the road back down and come down here and put a ramp over the road and back down again. You have both ways now. This is not an interim solution. This is not competing with 272nd. All I am saying is that I 've heard this about this east-west route for twenty years, and I 'm sure they are going to strike to get this done in ten years. But what do you do between now and ten years. . Chairman Ward: Total solution then would be to put a sky bridge all the way across Kent That would be the only way to solve the problem. . . ten lanes coming and ten lanes going and ,lust bypass Kent and forget all about it. -23- . Kent Planning Commission Minutes February 25, 1986 Voice: I think, Mr. Moorman, we'd still have to buy the land from the school district. . . (unclear) . It might be easier to get it since it is not being used, but still we'd have to purchase it. And I 'm sure they wouldn't let it go cheap. Chairman Ward: We have another rebuttal . My name is Mr. Sherburne again. I 'd like to respond to the rebuttal by Mr. Heiser as far as my testimony earlier tonight. He made a couple of comments and I 'd like to review them. I mentioned one in response to Mr. Lambert's earlier question about the 15 percent vacancy rate. Primarily 10 to 12,000 square feet for one company that, I believe, initially filed bankruptcy and then rescinded part of it. . .I think they are under Chapter 11 right now. . . is not indicative of the general well being, commercial health of the area. It is a system-wide thing. Number 2. He mentioned that you can manipulate and quote the numbers any which way you want, and he mentioned that the Kent Hill Plaza did take a big chunk. No question about it. They took 20 acres in 1983. My comment is that if the demand wasn 't there, they wouldn't have built it. So it didn 't matter if they piecemealed it two acres at a time over a period of time or built it then. The demand was there. And the demand was an accumulated demand, meaning that it had been burgeoning for several years before that. Thirdly, he ; mentioned that the area is for the day-to-day convenience and for the close-range people. That it is. But it is also for the Soos Creek Plateau, otherwise why would they list the Soos Creek population in the East Hill Plan. It is a neigh- borhood, and there are a lot of multifamily dwellings going up in that immediate area, no question about it, and it is a close range. But it is in the Soos Creek Plateau witnessed by the plan that was issued by the department. Fourthly, what • is going to happen to the demand. Again, this is an extension of Mr. Lambert's earlier comment. If adequate commercial is not going to be available, there is going to be cause for what we call leakage. It won 't be in Kent. It is going to be somewhere else, because the people are going to buy the goods and they will find a place to develop. I didn't respond to traffic, I didn 't respond to traffic, that was correct. Mr. Hamlin. . . he did list some mitigating-type measures that might be offered. I think I ' ll defer on that. Finally, I just want to reiterate the numbers again. He mentioned let's take a long-term historical perspective. In 1973 2,100 people moved into this area from year to year. In 1988 4,273. Now if you take an averaging technique that includes more years in the 70's than in the 80's. . .that looking at the forecast from 1986 looking back to 1973 rather than forward. . . I rest my case. Thank you. Chairman Ward: 0. K. Now we can have discussion among the Commission members. You can ask questions of anyone, and then we can entertain a motion. Any questions of the Commission members. Lambert: Can we take a ten-minute break before we do this. Ward: You 'd like to take a break now. I guess we should take a short ten-minute break and we' ll come back and have a little further discussion and call for a irotion. (Break at 9: 10 p.m. ) • Chairman Ward: Now we will again call for discussion and questions among Commis- sioners, and then we will entertain a motion. Any questions. -24- Kent Planning Commission Minutes February 25, 1986 Spier: The only problem I had... I wasn't at the last month's hearing, but listening to what has been talked about tonight, it seems like there are two issues. . .maybe there are 20 issues. . .but talking about development and talking about traffic. Perhaps we need to look at them somewhat separately or to focus our attention on one or the other, but I think when we just lump them together. . .they are two sep- arate issues. To me it sounds like most of the problem or major part of the problem that should be dealt with concerns the actual street and traffic problem. And that should be our number 1 priority. Chairman Ward: Any further discussion, questions. Lambert: For the record. . .I added up the acreage from the East Hill Plan book. All parcels total 74.2 acres, and while I 'm still talking, there are some things that kind of concern me. There has not been one person at the hearings against any of this as a whole. I can 't get it through my head why alternative number I, no action, would be taken when the area is going to grow...the area is going to need more commercial space. This is a plan. It doesn 't mean because it would be changed to commercial that it would be developed. It is not going to commit an instant problem. Maybe it won't be developed for ten years. We've got to look down the road. Maybe the bypasses will be in. There is a lot of mayb_e_'s to think about, and that' s troubling me some. Chairman Ward: Any further discussion, questions or comments. Foslin: Just a comment on the traffic situation. It does seem that that's one of the matters at the heart of our concern, but I 'd like to recommend at some point that we have a cursory review or some further study on the 264th Street extension as proposed tonight. That might be one small part of the overall solution to the traffic problem. The document says it is a near-term solution, but it goes beyond that. It provides interior circulation of traffic within the commercially-zoned area if it were to be an extension. . .on the southerly boundary of the commercial zone. As I mentioned earlier, the traffic pattern in the morning, as far as usage of that road, will be different than in the evening. The use of the businesses is in the evening, not in the morning. So that is another opportunity for that type of an extension to be a viable slice of the traffic problem solution. 9 Byrne: Yes, there are two issues, and they are both directly related to each other. I remember a while ago we were talking about commercial use along 104th to the Benson Highway and retail use. One of the things that came out was that we didn 't want another Highway 99. By allowing retail use along Benson, we are going to create another Highway 99, I feel . I think that we'd have to look at this review more thoroughly and maybe pick the parcels apart and decide which ones can actually be retail and which ones can be office. Maybe get a little deeper into it. Con- sequently, I would recommend alternative 1 at this time because of the traffic and because of not wanting to get into a Highway 99 situation. As we see now, I 'm not looking at the clock to see what time it is. . .what Jim Harris pointed out with the circles. Circles grow. And if we allow retail space along there, we are going to see the circles grow that way. And we will have from downtown Renton, actually the Renton Village Shopping Center where the Sheraton is and Ernst, right up that hill , all the way down as far as 104th can go along the ridge we will have the Midas Muffler shops, you name it. Just go down 99 and pick out what you -25- Kent Planning Commission Minutes February 25, 1986 ' • want to pick out. I think that is what we 'd be turning 104th into. I think what we'd have to do is to recommend alternative 1 or give it back to the Planning Department to come up and define the areas even better if they can at this point. Discussion about 272nd and 277th. . .it would be nice to have them in place before we create more traffic problems at 256th and 104th. Rudy: How many acres are open for development now that are not developed._23.8? _ Anderson: Well , I have a concern here. Everything that I 've heard in terms of the public testimony has generally slanted itself toward the market place . . . what is needed. What I 've heard out of this is that we don 't have enough commer- cial . We may not have enough commercial for the very near future, let alone the long future, and we kind of have too much office space. There are sites out there that are designated on the Comprehensive Plan office now that no one wants_ to put _ an office on. I think what we are looking at here is not just five years, but we have to look 10 or 15 years down the road. With that in mind I would be in favor of. . .I certainly would not be in favor of Alternative 1 . I would want to go for something somewhere between 1 and all the way up to 70 some acres. Let the Hearing Examiner take care of those cases as they go. Hopefully during that period of time we could also be getting some direction with the traffic to tie in with it. Chairman Ward: Clarification of point. . .could we possibly have all the alternate posters sort of displayed with some degree. • Lambert: All the alternatives are not on the map. Chairman Ward: We got four. . .five on maps. Lambert: We could have Alternative 14, you know. I just think. . .speaking of creating a Highway 99, I 'd rather see that than see residential spotted with { commercial . I 'd rather see a commercial area kept separate from residential areas._ We keep hearing that office buildings and then multiple dwellings. . .well , let's consider commercial office buildings and then back farther the multiple dwellings. Keep commercial out on the highways. . .where you don 't have to listen to the traffic. Badger: The present zoning recommendation shows a lot of multifamily surrounding these candidate sites and includes some of the candidate sites right now. Lambert: Which would work in well , I would think. Byrne: As long as we have it designated office space, it could be changed later on if the need really arose. . .say Kent-Kangley developed commercially going that way, maybe you wouldn 't want to develop 104th. Lambert: Don 't you think, Jim, that if we ,lust sit and wait for the roads that they will keep waiting. Well , they put it off so we will put them off another two years or five years or ten years or whatever, and then they won 't zone it commercial and we won't give them the roads. • Byrne: 104th is going to be widened this year between 240th and 256th up five lanes. -26- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 i Lambert: That's costing a pile. They are taking 36 units out of the Highlander, . .three buildings. That' s going to cost them a pile of money to do that. Byrne: . . .signals on 248th. . . Badger: Kent-Kangley is being widened right now to 124th, is that correct. . . or to 132nd all the way. Five lanes, center turn lane. In other words, once the demand is there they had to respond. a Ward: I 'd like to offer my opinion not to summarize the comments and discussion that have gone, but be ready to offer my opinion as to the various alternatives we have presented, the various public testimony we have heard, and one very noteworthy thing regarding the public testimony ...the fact that everyone seems to be for some expansion. That is very influential to me so far as a decision and/or a vote. I feel that we are a body who is basically charged with the responsibility of listen- ing to that given public indicator. I would like to see a combination of Alter- nate 4 and number 3 including all those given zones basically recommended for the change in the plan. Can I underscore the word plan here. We are not saying in essence here that we are going to say that this will definitely happen. We are saying that we are planning on a comprehensive basis for a future event of happening. That when incorporated into a plan so that once it is in that given plan, then the possibility of our developing the plan along those given lines of ' • additional zoning changes is a feasible recommended type of approach, so far as development in this area. Transportation will always be a problem. Traffic congestion will also always be a problem. And I said in jest to some degree the sky-bridge type of approach to alleviate it. . . . (unclear)the fact is that if we have fantastically highly trained individuals who are trying to decide on an approach in many metropolitan areas and in many small towns and in intermediate sized towns to try to solve the traffic problems, they would never be solved. As long as the American way of life is to be married to your car. . .mass transporta- tion would solve the problem, true, but with the American has the fantastic love { affair with the automobile. I do with mine, even though it is falling apart. It sounds from previous testimony further that whether we do anything. . .we take Alternate 1 or we take no given action so far as recommendation. . . then the net result. . .we still will have a traffic problem. It was mentioned very pointedly that there is a planned development in the County that will increase our traffic circulation fantastically. That is doing nothing. The traffic will be there. Either we' ll adopt a sky-bridge approach, the mass transit approach, or we will revert to the European approach of riding bicycles, but we will always have a traffic problem. Byrne: I 'd just like to comment about the Kent-Kangley widening. The reason Kent- Kangley is being widened now is not because of commercial development. It is attrition. . .growth I guess is a better term for it. So commercial development. . . i { allowance of commercial development. . . does not necessarily dictate that we are going to get improved roads. Population will do it. I believe we want to force • (unclear) to follow the same thing. There are more people at this end of town than there was before. -27- Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 Chairman Ward: Any further discussion. Do we have someone who has enough intestinal fortitude to make a motion. Lambert: I do. I MOVE that we recommend Sites A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L and M be designated commercial on the Comprehensive Plan. Badger: Community retail . Lambert: Yes, community retail . Chairman Ward: Can we have a second to that motion. Badger: SECOND. Chairman Ward: It has been moved and properly seconded that Parcels A through M be designated for commercial zoning. Is there any amendment to that so far as local development and improvement upon. . .taking into consideration the traffic thing. The chair is probably exceeding its authority by suggesting something, but I thought. . .there might be possibly some amendment to that. Anderson: I 'd like to suggest that 264th Street in conjunction with that. . .that a 264th Street extension easterly to the Kent-Kangley Road. Chairman Ward: Would you consider modifying your original motion. Lambert: Sure would. Badger: The second would also. Chairman Ward: The chair uses the prerogative to modify the given motion based upon the designations of the suggestors so far as the given motion and the second. We will signify on this given motion as amended by stating as to whether you vote aye. All in favor indicate by saying aye. Any nays. Could we have a hand raised. All ayes indicate by raising your right hand. (Five hands were raised. ) All nays indicate by raising your left hand. (Three hands were raised.) Did you get the count. Do the ayes have it. The ayes have it. Therese it is the recommen- dation of this Commission_to the City_ Council that the Comprehensive Plan be modi- fied according to the motion as amended. Chairman Ward: The next order of business would be any notice of upcoming meetings. I guess we need no continuation of this public hearing. Any notices, announcements We will now entertain a motion to adjourn. (End of verbatim minutes) -28- i Kent Planning Commission Minutes • February 25, 1986 ADJOURNMENT Commissioner Lambert MOVED to adjourn the meeting. Commissioner Byrne SECONDED the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 p.m. There will be no workshop in March. The next meeting will be March 25, 1986. Respectfully submitted, r yr- Jam s P . Harris, Secretary -29-