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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Economic and Community Development - 09/12/2022 (2) Pending Approval Economic and Community Development Committee CC ECDC Regular Meeting Minutes September 12, 2022 Date: September 12, 2022 Time: 4:00 p.m. Place: Chambers Members: Toni Troutner, Committee Chair Marli Larimer, Councilmember Zandria Michaud, Councilmember Agenda: 1. Call to Order 4:00 p.m. 2. Roll Call Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Toni Troutner Committee Chair Present Marli Larimer Councilmember Present Zandria Michaud Councilmember Present 3. Agenda Approval 4. Business A. Approval of Minutes 1. Approval of Minutes dated July 11, 2022 MOTION: Move to approve the Minutes dated July 11, 2022 RESULT: APPROVED \[UNANIMOUS\] MOVER: Zandria Michaud, Councilmember SECONDER: Marli Larimer, Councilmember AYES: Troutner, Larimer, Michaud B. 2024 Comprehensive Plan Update Kurt Hanson introduces Long Range Planning Manager Kristen Holdsworth, who joined the Cit of Kent on September 1. Kristen comes to Kent after working as a senior planner for the City of Lynnwood and is originally from California. Kurt also takes a minute to commend Kaelene Nobis, who has ably steered the LRP ship solo since the departure of H. Harper in early June. Updating the City's Comprehensive Plan will be a major focus of Kristen's work as she begins her career with the City, and she provides an overview of what needs doing and why and what elements of the plan update are already underway. Page 1 of 5 Economic and Community Development September 12, 2022 Committee CC ECDC Regular Meeting Kent, Washington Minutes A Comprehensive Plan is a vision for the city for the next 20 years. If done well, it explains who we are as a community, what our goals and aspirations are, what type of services and amenities we have and need, and how we will continue to accommodate for growth. The Comp Plan proactively anticipates challenges and opportunities. As the community's plan, it should effectively and efficiently connect people to opportunities to work, play, and enjoy the community while also protecting natural resources that are vital to the PNW. The state requires most cities and counties to update their comprehensive plans every 8-10 years. GMA mandates that jurisdictions plan for both household and job growth through the next 20 years. For western Washington cities, this means we are planning for the time-frame of 2024- ire development to happen, but we must make sure we have designated land capacity through our comprehensive plan, zoning, and development regulations. In 2017, PSRC started updating the regional policies for growth. Then, King County and the cities updated the countywide policies through the growth management planning council. Kent's update deadline is the opportunity to make these conflicting with any of the overarching policies. The Comprehensive Plan is a broad visioning document with goals and policies. We also have functional plans (such as stormwater management, transportation management plan, economic development plan, parks plans). Regulations such as the zoning map, development code, and design guidelines implement the vision into specific development requirements. Projects can be privately or publicly funded - such as Kent station, ST light rail stations, or redevelopment of the Canyon Ridge shopping center north quadrant. with an additional 100 pages of technical data): · It includes 9 elements - Human services is not required by state law, but jurisdictions have the option to add optional elements · We also have 3 subarea plans, which are adopted by reference. · Importantly, we have 2 PSRC-designated growth centers. These are areas of regional significance that have connectivity to transit, economic, and housing opportunities. These areas are important for Kent to meet housing and growth targets, but they also have regional significance and come with opportunities for additional grant funding. · Downtown was designated in 1995, and a MIC was designated in 2002. In 2025 there will be a re-certification process for these centers, so part of our Comp Plan process will be ensuring the centers comply with the process. Page 2 of 5 Economic and Community Development September 12, 2022 Committee CC ECDC Regular Meeting Kent, Washington Minutes We are finalizing a contract to bring on a consultant to assist with the Comp Plan update. Meanwhile, we have identified a few key efforts that will be essential to the process. Equity lens focusing on inclusion, respect and transparency through outreach that meets the community where they are and how they want to be reached. intended to be static documents. They are updated every 8-10 years to recognize changing conditions and anticipate new needs. Kaelene is going to provide an overview of some of the work the City has been participating in to help us identify issues to address for the next 20 years. Taking a periodic look at progress toward goals has been essential to identifying where adjustments might need to happen. One key finding of the most recent KC Urban Growth Capacity Report is that Kent is on track to meet 2035 housing and employment targets. It also led to an update of County Wide Planning reflect new priorities to address equity and social justice. In March 2022, Kent ratified the CPPs and growth targets through Resolution 2033. Because we are on track, Kent maintains flexibility in planning, provided we are not in direct opposition to CPP goals. Currently we are on track to accomplish 10,200 new housing units and 32,000 new jobs over the next 25 years. A relatively new piece of legislation - will have a big impact on the update process and a few main components of the update. Historically, we have had to make sure we had the capacity for new housing units based on only a number. Now, we must also designate levels of affordability and include strategies to attract those levels. Commerce is still working on guidance for determining levels of affordability, KC Growth Management Planning Committee is having conversations about how to equitably distribute targes, especially since some cities have had many more affordable units than others. · Strategies for missing middle housing (duplexes to townhomes) · Examine historical zoning and disparate impacts or limits to wealth creation through home ownership opportunities · Displacement and anti-displacement strategies · A climate element which is not required, but we are electing to do it as grant funds are available from K4C to support this Immediate next steps are: September 20: Contract on Council agenda for approval September 30: Submit Commerce grant application Page 3 of 5 Economic and Community Development September 12, 2022 Committee CC ECDC Regular Meeting Kent, Washington Minutes Ongoing: Monitor conversations regarding housing needs allocation at King County Growth Management Planning Council (GMPC) Coming Soon: 2024 Comprehensive Plan Community Kick Off! C. 2022 Permitting Activity Deputy Director Matt Gilbert will provide an update on permitting activity in the first measurable period since covid restrictions eased. In broad terms, even despite the pandemic, development activity in Kent has been remarkably stable, with City staff processing and reviewing some 5000 applications per year. This necessitates some 20,000 inspections annually for building services and job site inspectors in the field. While we are not currently tracking exact numbers, with buildings open to the public again now for more than a year, we are answering hundreds of questions each week at our public counter in addition to phone and email inquiries. Staff find phone and email to be the most efficient way to deliver service for these types of inquires, and many customers have become accustomed to working with us in this way. Meanwhile, the number of permit and land use review staff has declined over all and some of the changes we have made mean that some things take longer, especially on the front end. As an example, before we went paperless, it was the applicant that was burdened with providing the city 5 sets of paper plans, which would then be routed and dedicated to the specific type of review. Now with Bluebeam providing a digital platform for document review, multiple paper copies are no longer needed but each separate reviewer must access a single digital "session" so plan review requires many more steps and touch points for each individual reviewer. Overall though, we feel pretty good about the vast amounts of paper saved and vehicle trips back and forth to city hall avoided. The nature of the projects has also changed a lot as the city has grown. There has been a big increase in the number of vertical urban style residential projects, with 5 major apartment projects underway since Covid began. There are also major infrastructure and regional legacy projects underway in Kent. This is of course Sound Transit and these require dedicated staff to oversee due to the multiple iterations of plan review because ST is making design decisions at the same time as they are building the basic infrastructure. Metro's Rapid Ride I line also requires input not just from ECD but all the transportation related functions in Public works, with multiple construction locations for stops, signals, lane widening, and other modifications related to safety and impact reduction for adjacent properties of all types to consider. The point is, regional investments in Kent, while welcome and necessary to enhance our community, are not free. Page 4 of 5 Economic and Community Development September 12, 2022 Committee CC ECDC Regular Meeting Kent, Washington Minutes Infrastructure related to advances in tech, like 5G, are also creating notable impacts. With equipment upgrades needed at hundreds of locations, many on our near public right of way, and federal requirements in place for quick turnaround, staff still must look at each individual install and its power connections, resulting in a staff time intensive effort. Other technologies changes that are impacting staff include a marked increase in permits for residential solar panels. While they have been around for quite a while now, it has been a slow trickle until recently. However, 25 applications in 2022 thus far is a notable uptick, which is likely to continue growing, possibly due to federal tax incentives provided to those who make the switch. A number of changes brought about by the pandemic are also seemingly here to stay, and as we move forward and make adjustments continue to impact permitting. These include going paperless, accomodating hybrid work schedules, changing hours for our public counter, and adding additional staff to the permit center. 5. Adjournment 4:43 p.m. Rhonda Bylin Committee Secretary Page 5 of 5