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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Meeting - Council Workshop - Minutes - 01/18/2000 COUNCIL WORKSHOP MINUTES January 18, 2000 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Leona Orr, Sandy Amodt, Tom Brotherton, Tim Clark, Connie Epperly, Judy Woods,Rico Yingling STAFF PRESENT: Matt Jackson, Fred Satterstrom, Dena Laurent, Brent McFall, Diana Nelson,May Miller, Roger Lubovich, Norm Angelo, John Hodgson, Jim Harris, Justin Osemene, Kevin O'Neill, Jackie Bicknell PUBLIC PRESENT: Leonard Juhnke, Emily Leonard, Mike Reid, Denny Holt, Tom Sharp, Gregory Cox, Barbara Clasen, Don Clasen, Alan Stuckey, Joe Miles, Garry Stewart, Joel Kwakenat, Mike Lotto, John Carlson, Scott Hunter The meeting was called to order by Council President Leona Orr. Comp Plan Amendments Planning Manager Fred Satterstrom said that all of the applications for amendments to the Comp Plan is held until September 1s`by local ordinance. They are then processed cumulatively through the Land Use and Planning Board hearings and then forwarded to the Council. This year, there are 8 amendments to the Comprehensive Plan, including the City's amendment to its Capital Facilities Plan. The Capital Facilities element however will have to catch up when the amendments go forward to the full Council agenda because the Land Use and Planning Board does not have their hearing on that until the 24`h of January. Of the 8 applications on individual sites, four sought higher density single family designations and four were moving from single family to multi family. Of those, three were for the new townhouse zoning designation. Mr. Satterstrom said two amendments, the Cairnes Amendment(A) and the Pacific Industries Amendment (D), have a common thread that runs through both and they both deal with a countywide planning policy. (The Board recommended denial of both.) He proposed that A and D be talked about jointly and last. Planner Matt Jackson said that on all applications except one, changes in the Comp Plan were being considered as well as a change in the zoning. CPA is the Comp Plan Amendment number and CPZ is the implement zoning. One application, Fortunato, did not request a change in the zoning at this time but did request a review of their comp plan amendment so that application only had a CPA. Proposal B• the TNS Condo application, is a request to change the Land Use Map Plan from Single Family Residential 8 to Low Density Multifamily Residential for the property located at 25835 116`h. The property is approximately 2.37 acres in area. The staff analysis looked at zoning for neighboring properties. Those generally surrounding the application's area are . developed with multifamily residential developments and likewise are zoned at such with a variety of medium density up to 23 units per acre and garden density at 16 units per acre on the west side of 116`h. This applicant was looking to take advantage of the new MRT 16 Council Workshop, 1/18/00 2 • Townhouse Condo Zoning. Staff recommended approval of this application and the Planning Board also is forwarding a recommendation of approval of this application for Low Density Multifamily Comp Plan Designation and a MRT16 Zoning. Proposal C is a request to change the Land Use Plan Map from Single Family Residential 3 units per acre to Single Family Residential 6 units per acre for property located at 13602 SE 282"a There is a very large subdivision, South Ridge Development, which abuts this property on the east, going from the eastern border of those two lots over to 144`h. There are about 153 lots in Single Family Residential zoning which will actually be adjoining these properties at some point. There is a substantial wetland feature on the lots neighboring this lot, so there won't be a direct lot connection between the properties, but there will be an extension of 282"d which is required for that South Ridge Development to come through and connect all the way to the new plat streets and all the way through out to 144`h. Connectivity was an issue on this one application. There is a lack of through streets between 144`h and 132"a. Staff made a recommendation for approval and the Planning Board also made a recommendation of approval to change the zoning on this property to SR6 and the Comp Plan to SF6. Proposal E is the Lotto Amendment, which was determined to be outside of the City limits and outside of the City's jurisdiction. Proposal F was a request to change the Land Use from Single Family 3 units per acre to Low • Density Multifamily. The property is located at SE 244`h St, east of 104`h, and generally at 1081. What they wanted to do was a combination of townhouse, duplex, and then single family right along the 244`h. They came in with several different plat designs but staff never felt that it really fit in well with the existing neighborhood or that they were taking good advantage of the zoning code the way it's supposed to be used. Staff made a recommendation to the Planning Board that this be denied which was upheld by the Board. Since then the applicants have requested that this application be withdrawn. Proposal G: Fortunate. This one is a request to change the Land Use Plan Map Single Family Residential 3 units per acre to Single Family Residential 6 units per acre. The property is located at 27842 and 27854 132nd Ave SE,just north and west of the Clasen Amendment, and is approximately 6.75 acres. The issues are obviously very similar to the issues with the Clasen Amendment,however they aren't necessarily adjacent to that large development to the east. The whole area to the west or to the east of this site is all zoned SR6. The Fortunate,property is just on the northern border of the SR3 area. Staff made a recommendation to change from SR3 to SR6 and a zoning change to SR6. The Planning Board felt that too much was being changed in that SF3 area at one time and they denied the request to change. Proposal H: A Flower Court. This is an application which is requesting a change in the Land Use Plan Map from Mixed Use with Limited Multifamily to Low Density Multifamily Residential in order to take advantage of the MRT16 zoning. The property is at the southeast corner of 102"d and SE 232"a. This property is in an area that is surrounded by existing multifamily development. The property to the east fronting 104`h is a series of commercial Council Workshop, 1/18/00 3 • developments. This one also has a portion of a right of way on the north side. They're asking to take advantage of the new condo zoning. They want to units at a density of 16 per acre and staff recommended approval to the Board for reasons of compatibility with existing land uses. The Board recommended approval of the application as well. Proposal I: The applicants are requesting a change in the Land Use Plan Map from Single Family Residential 8 units per acre to the new MRT12. This property is located behind the Meridian Plaza Shopping Center and the existing access is behind the shopping center. Issues with this site are substantial wetlands and Soosette Creek, and there's some severe constrictions as far as building on a portion of the site. Access obviously will be the number one issue when it comes to developing the site. The applicants have a contingency on the three lots which abut the property on the south which would connect it to Kent Kangley and they propose to develop a couple office buildings on the Kent Kangley frontage in conjunction with the condo development in the back which would allow them to have access directly off Kent Kangley without having any kind of a strange constricted development. Staff recommended approval and the Planning Board also recommended approval. Proposal J is the Capital Facilities Element which as you mentioned is lagging a little behind. Hopefully, that will catch up when these are taken to the full council. Proposal A (CPA-93-99A) and Proposal D both deal with the issue of the urban separator. Both of the properties are located on the eastern border of the City and in that area, there are • properties which have been designated as urban separator. These are areas that are to be kept (per the countywide planning policies) at low density to separate different jurisdictions as far as development is concerned going from a high density to a low density back into the new city. The first applicant, Cairnes, is requesting a change from SFR 1 to SFR 3. Their property is located on 14845 SE 264`", behind or to the east of Lake Meridian on a street that ends up as a graveled road once you get to Sees Creek Trail. They want to get their property rezoned to either SR-2 or SR-3 in order to short plat it into one additional lot. Staff looked at the existing lot which is larger than the existing lots that come off that street. Staff was recommending approval at a SR-2 zoning in order to create one additional lot. However,the Planning Board decided to consider this property as urban separator and to be consistent with urban separators as a policy, they recommended denial of the SR-2 change to maintain low density. Proposal D. Pacific Industries: The request is for a change from Single Family Residential one per acre to Single Family six per acre. The property is located on the northeast corner of the City at 240`" and generally west of 14811, on the top of the hill. The three lots to the east and the two lots on the northwest are zoned SR-1, which was consistent with existing zoning when the area was annexed from the county. Properties to the south and generally southwest are zoned SR-4.5, as is most of that area, including the country club. Staff looked at the feasibility of development, access issues, and neighboring zoning and decided that they could not support SR-6 but could recommend a SR-4.5 zoning for this property. The Planning Board, in order to be consistent with their earlier ruling on densities and urban separators, recommended denial of this application. Council Workshop, 1/18/00 4 • Fred Satterstrom said that both of sites, A and D, fall in an area that apparently is designated or has been designated in the past as an urban separator on King County's Comprehensive Plan. Just prior to the City adopting its Comprehensive Plan, it ratified the countywide planning policies and one of those policies dealt with urban separators, LU-27 (which means Land Use Policy number 27). It said urban separators were low density areas or areas of little urban development within the urban growth area. They are defined as permanent low density lands which protect adjacent resource lands, rural areas and environmentally sensitive areas and create open space corridors within and between urban areas. They provide environmental, visual, recreational, and wildlife benefits. The policy says that designated urban separators shall not be redesignated in the future. That was a 20 year planning horizon from 1992 to 2012 to other urban uses or higher densities, and the maintenance of these urban separators is a regional as well as a local concern, and no modifications should be made to the development regulations governing these areas without King County review and concurrence. When the City annexed the Meridian area in 1996, there were several areas that were designated as urban separators. Some were retained in their low density zoning at that time and some had their zoning changed up to 3 and 4 %2 units per acre, depending on where it was related to utilities and other land uses and other commercial services, etc. Independent judgements were made about each site. There were no designated urban separators on the Countywide Planning Policy maps that were adopted with the Countywide Planning Policies. In the 1992 interim countywide planning policies, there was a map that showed urban separators but there were none in the Kent area. The urban separators were identified not in the countywide planning policies map, but in the county's comprehensive plan map. In any case, the City has rezoned some of those properties and has had several amendments over the last four years and there may have been one property in the urban separator area. This fall the City was made aware of this policy by the county staff and has put the matter to the City attorneys for an opinion(which was not available at the time this was taken to the Land Use and Planning Board). The Law Department has given an opinion that says the difference is that the countywide planning policies were meant to be broad statements of policy not defacto development regulations and therefore the policy goes beyond a framework policy and gets into amounting to a development regulation. This policy needs to be explored and discussions initiated with the county as to what exactly it does to the City's own authority to make land use decisions in the City of Kent. The Law Department says that the RCW, even though there may be a countywide planning policy about something, that nothing in the countywide planning policies shall reduce the effect of the cities to make their own land use planning policy and develop their own plans. Staff recommends that when these two amendments come forward to Council in regular session, that they be tabled and a discussion of that countywide planning policy be initiated, perhaps in the Planning and Public Works Committee, to explore and bring back a recommendation to the City Council. Leona Orr asked if it would be appropriate for the Council to take some action regarding the City's own policy and then to allow the Land Use and Planning Board to review the two • applications, rather than Council tabling them and making a change and the Land Use and Planning Board not having had the opportunity to look at them in light of a different policy. Council Workshop, 1/18/00 5 Fred Satterstrom said that if Council wanted to explore that policy and look at possible changes or just to simply understand it better and what the ramifications were, the Board would probably like to have the opportunity to re-review the applications should the policy change and possibly make another recommendation. Leona Orr recommended that the two applications be separated when they came before the Council and therefore be able to move them in a different fashion through the system. She said she thought the best way to handle the two issues was to take them to the Planning Committee (if approved tonight, there would be separate Planning and Public Works Committees again). Five Year Comprehensive Plan Update Senior Planner Kevin O'Neill, Project Manager on a Five Year Update of the Comprehensive Plan, said it had been almost five years since the Plan was adopted. It is in the work program for this year to do a comprehensive update to that Plan. Every year we do an annual plan update which are fairly site specific changes to the Land Use Plan Map and the Zoning Map. The Five Year update is a broader, more comprehensive update of the Plan. There are several reasons why it's a timely issue. The GMA requires that by 2002 each jurisdiction that planned a provisions of the Act do an overview of the plan. But really more compelling is the Growth in Kent. The population of King County, as a whole, has increased about 11% since 1990. The population of the City of Kent has increased by 92% since 1990. A lot of that has to do with annexation activities,but it's a different city in many ways than it was in 1995 when the plan was adopted. It's much larger. And there are issues like the urban separator issue, that the City wasn't facing in 1994 and 1995 when the plan was being adopted. The purpose of the project is to update the plan in every aspect to reflect the changes that have taken place in the community. It is also an opportunity for the community and the Council to determine if staff has implemented what the plan said and also to see if there are places that should be emphasized more or changed in some dramatic fashion. In the next 2-3 months, staff will be going out to the public, citizens at large, other agencies the City works with, adjacent cities, a number of organizations, what they see are needs to update in the plan. The update is probably a twelve to fifteen month process, and it might be useful to come back in a workshop maybe later in the spring and to talk in more detail about the project. It's obviously going to be a project that involves a lot of City staff from a number of departments, the public, and ultimately the Council. Legislative Update Government Affairs Manager Dena Laurent shared the City's approach to the discussion around I-695 and the governor's and AWC's proposals. Lots of cities were impacted at different levels by I-695, and there are lots of different schemes being discussed for restoring this and that. The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is the funding for Public Health which the governor has proposed on an ongoing basis from the Health Services Account and there's broad support for that. While the impact on Kent was around $2 million • the major question is the impact on transportation. The approach has been when that issue comes up with the legislators, lobbyists, the community, and with friends at the Chamber is Council Workshop, 1/18/00 6 to collaborate on discussions about transportation. Staff has been sitting with the Chamber at the King County Transportation Coalition, developing a list of countywide transportation priorities to discuss with the King County legislative delegation. There are four projects that really impact Kent. One is restoring funding for design of the 224`h/228`h corridor, which Don says is the most important future corridor that we need to begin design work on. That funding was approved under Referendum 49,but the money for that is now gone. That's the most important thing inside the City limits that needs to be funded. The other projects are to continue Auburn's part of the 277`h corridor, the 180`h corridor project, and the HOV lanes south to the Pierce County Line. Those are all Freight Mobility Projects. They're all critical for the local economy. There are two issues that need some feedback. The first regards legislation being put forward by the Washington Cease Fire Group - a bill that would require background checks for purchase of guns at gun shows. The other is the Whitney Graves Bill regarding firearms storage requirements. Leona Orr said she believed that if background checks are required every other place guns are purchased, then they should be at gun shows. Ms. Orr said she wasn't sure about the other bill for the firearms storage requirements. Dena Laurent said that the Ten Year Property Tax Abatement for High Density Housing and Urban Centers bill was moving nicely in both the Senate and the House and there was a House hearing scheduled next Tuesday at 3:30 in Olympia. She said she would love to have someone accompany her to give some testimony in support of that bill. The meeting was adjourned. • PLEASE SIGN IN COMMITTEE: DATE: l� Name Address Phone Number o n Nd J y h n k c ZJ-// Si Z 787- KC'n Lrn i 1 L��►� �—�� 133 z 1 5 f— 2-2 i>?,53 -6.3D t V"\ ftE rrc,. 2—9—� rat K c IzE1 O �aszz tiE 3h'iO CI" 13EL�E/�G� /ZS S2'Fr �y/O Jib N y yL� �ZIS S�.Ce ,�wl eve- ��1 (Z'S3) ssZ- (30 33 1 tl • S off y e aS3-10 639•o/Z 3�yh�q ISf�' �. 5 yo q A! k L Ro A L A vi- l?F,v 25-3 PLEASE SIGN IN P C412111,� COMMITTEE: DATE: Name Address Phone Number 13635 1p �� w�► � s� "`'sue K�:�7