DRAFT
MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING
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Commissioners Present |
Staff Present |
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Chair Moss Vice Chair Esselman |
Rachael Markle, Director, Planning and Community Development Steve Szafran, Senior Planner, Planning and Community Development Paul Cohen, Planning Manager, Planning and Community Development Lisa Basher, Planning Commission Clerk |
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CALL TO ORDER
Chair Moss called the regular meeting of the Shoreline Planning Commission to order at 7:02 p.m.
ROLL CALL
Upon roll call by the Commission Clerk the following Commissioners were present: Chair Moss, Vice Chair Esselman, and Commissioners, Maul, Montero, Scully and Wagner.
APPROVAL OF AGENDA
The agenda was accepted as presented.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes of the September 5, 2013 Public Hearing and the October 3, 2013 Regular meeting were adopted as submitted.
GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
No one signed up for general public comment.
STUDY ITEM: Update on Planning for Full Commission Retreat in spring 2014
Staff Presentation
Paul Cohen, Planning Manager, introduced the first study item and explained that staff coordinated a ‘mini-retreat’ on October 25 during which the group went on a field trip to the Bullitt Center in Seattle followed by a short meeting to discuss ideas for a future retreat. He explained that the purpose of the study session was to make sure we had made accurate notes of the discussion and to report back to the Commissioners unable to attend, and request feedback from them about what they think would be helpful to cover in a ‘retreat’.
Mr. Cohen introduced Steve Szafran, Senior Planner, who presented a summary of the information gathered as a result of the planning meeting on October 25th.
Mr. Szafran provided background information about previous Planning Commission Retreats. He said that there is usually a retreat every 1-2 years. The Planning Commission last held a retreat on May 19, 2011. The focus of that retreat included working as a team, interacting with each other and the public, and team building activities.
Mr. Szafran said it was decided that the best time to schedule a full retreat for the Commission would be in May following the swearing in of the new members. Everyone agreed that it should take place after they had attended a few meetings and had identified questions or areas of confusion. Mr. Szafran said that the feedback received fell into two categories: New member orientation and content for a full retreat.
New member orientation would most likely occur in April. Concepts Commissioners felt would have been useful to know more about as new Commissioners were suggested. Orientation would be for new members only, and cover things that seasoned Commissioners already know. These subjects include parliamentary procedures; more detailed info on current issues such as Point Wells, Ronald Wastewater and Marijuana; and the distinction between Master plans, Comprehensive plans, and other commonly used lingo.
The second category would be items for a full retreat to enhance Commissioner knowledge. Various ideas were discussed which have been included in the Study Item report that was submitted to Commissioners.
Mr. Szafran concluded by requesting additional feedback from members that hadn’t yet had a chance to participate in the discussion, as well as asking for direction from the Commission to go forward with retreat planning.
Commissioner Wagner offered that, in addition to what has already been suggested, it would have been helpful as a new Commissioner to know more about what quasi-judicial actions are and the difference between a ‘study item’ and a ‘public hearing’.
Chair Moss affirmed that many things came up that she didn’t fully understand in the beginning of her service as a commissioner and that an orientation in which these topics were explained in more detail would have been beneficial. She also pointed out that Planning 101 taught by Robin McClelland would be a great resource and she found while checking into it that there is a formal process through APA to request her to provide this training. She also stated that it would be good to have a current commissioner at the new member orientation as a resource. Both Chair Moss and Commissioner Wagner volunteered for this role.
Public Comment
Tom Jamieson, Shoreline, said that he had been following the Planning Commission meeting schedule and expressed concern at the amount of cancelled meeting in recent months. He questioned why there is not enough work to keep the Commission busy. He wonders if they have been meeting surreptitiously without posting the meetings.
Chair Moss responded to Mr. Jamieson’s comments by acknowledging that the past few meetings have been cancelled and that we had discussed during our Commissioner Retreat Planning Session, the topic of what to do when there is nothing on the agenda for a Planning Commission meeting, and that several ideas were discussed to use as agenda items so that future meetings wouldn’t be cancelled.
STUDY ITEM: Station Area Planning Update
Staff Presentation
Miranda Redinger, Senior Planner and Project Manager, has been busy with Design Dialogue and Visioning workshops and creating many opportunities over the spring and summer for engaging citizens and stakeholders in the light rail planning discussion. She presented on progress for station area planning for light rail in Shoreline so far. Mrs. Redinger explained that the 185th street Design Dialogue Workshop was extremely successful in gathering more data and citizen feedback. Mrs. Redinger said that, while some of the stakeholder meetings were light on attendance, the citizen meetings were very well attended. She noted the 185th neighborhood group especially as being very open and collaborative and the Youth Group that participated also provided interesting feedback. Feedback was compiled and has been included as an attachment to the Study Item that the Commissioners received in advance of the meeting.
Mrs. Redinger gave examples hi-lighting some of the ideas and concepts that were discussed in the visioning and design dialogue workshops. Various types of higher density housing are being considered and examples were shown. She talked about the concept of a ‘Catalyst Redevelopment Site’, and showed an example with pictures of both drawings of how a site was conceived in renderings and provided a picture of the site after being built out. She noted how closely the rendering matched the actual development. Mrs. Redinger also talked about different possibilities to allow people to get to stations, and to ensure bicycle safety near stations.
Mrs. Redinger showed a top view map of the station area on 185th hi-lighting where the parking garage will be in relation to the station itself. She then explained that the station will be built underneath the I-5 overpass and that the station will be accessible from above via escalators and elevators. She pointed out areas of development opportunity adjacent to the station. She said that based on the feedback given by citizens most people favor ‘residential urban village style’ of development for those areas. Additionally she added that the citizen ‘wish list’ included water or spray parks, dog parks, community gardens, arts and performance centers, commercial uses such as coffee shops, internet cafes, breweries and daycare centers where parents can conveniently drop off their children before boarding the train to work.
Mrs. Redinger also informed the commission that the second station location had been determined by Sound Transit and that it will be located at 145th. Now that the decision has been made official she will move forward with planning the second set of Design Dialogue workshops focusing on the 145th street station, scheduled for February. She informed the Commission that their second meeting in February will likely be cancelled to allow commissioners to attend these workshops and to be involved.
In conclusion, Mrs. Redinger also showed the commission the Station Area walking maps that were created as a public involvement tool, and explained that they are also located on the website with links where citizens can comment on the various points on the map. She said that these maps need to be sent to the printer again as they have been very popular and that we have already received a lot of comments through the website. Those comments have been correlated and made available through a link on the website as well. She opened the presentation up to questions or comments from the commissioners and also thanked the three commissioners who have been heavily involved in this process as they serve on a subcommittee of the planning commission for light rail station area planning and, along with some of the other Planning Commissioners, have attended both the Visioning Workshops and the Design Dialogue Workshops.
Chair Moss thanked Mrs. Redinger and asked if there were any questions or comments from the other Commissioners.
Commissioner Scully spoke of his involvement as a member of the sub-committee and mentioned that the City has made the planning process more of a ‘listening process’ from the beginning and has really made an effort to involve the community in the visioning and design stages of the process.
Commissioner Scully said that he was curious if anyone from the City of Seattle has been part of this process up until now since the station in 145th will serve both Seattle and Shoreline. Miranda indicated that no one from the City of Seattle has reached out to us but going forward, now that we have determined for sure that 145th is going to be a station, we will be making those connections and locating people in the City of Seattle who will be appropriate to talk to.
Chair Moss asked if there were any additional questions or comments. There were none. She asked if anyone signed up for Public Comment on this study item.
Public Comment
Tom Jamieson, Shoreline, returned to the podium to ask why the Station area planning hasn’t taken into consideration the Point Wells traffic which will also be surging through the station area at 185th. He also said that he looked online and noted that the Land Use map in the Comprehensive plan has been cropped to cut out Point Wells and wonders if the City is deliberately trying to eliminate Point Wells from the discussion.
Mrs. Redinger responded to the question by indicating that those traffic studies will be part of the future process for station area planning, and that Alicia McIntire, the Senior Transportation Planner for the City of Shoreline would be a point person for information on traffic studies and analysis.
Chair Moss closed the public comment session for this Study item and introduced the next agenda item.
STUDY ITEM: Planning Commission Recruitment Process
Staff Presentation
Steve Szafran announced that the Planning Commission recruitment begins now. He indicated that since Michelle is reaching the end of her term she will no longer be serving as commissioner so there will be at least one vacancy if not more. He indicated that commissioners have a timeline in their desk packet (also projected on screen) as well as an outline of the process. The timeline showed commissioners the plan for the recruitment process and important dates for this plan.
Mr. Szafran said that the City is casting a wide net for applicants. We have already announced the recruitment in the next issue of Currents (to be in homes December 16th) and we are also planning on coordinating recruitment efforts with the Library Board who is also looking for commissioners at this time.
Chair Moss asked if the application is available on the website and Steve said not yet, but that it will be available by the time the announcement comes out.
Commissioner Wagner said that it would be a good idea to advise potential commissioners to attend a few Planning Commission meetings before being sworn in so that they know what they are signing up for.
Chair Moss asked for Public Comment on this item, there was none so she turned it over to Rachael Markle to deliver the Directors report, at which point Rachael confirmed with Steve Szafran that he was going to talk about Upcoming development Code Amendments prior to her delivering the rest of her report.
Mr. Szafran agreed and announced that there is a large batch of Development Code Amendments that the Planning Department is working on and these will be given to the Planning Commission to review and make recommendations to Council.
Chair Moss asked for clarification about this process.
Mr. Szafran explained that anyone, a staff member, a citizen or a developer can bring forward code amendments if they feel that the code is inhibiting them in a way that doesn’t serve the community or the developer. He said that there are a few that have come from citizens in this batch. Most of them are from Staff who have encountered problems with the code.
Commissioners wondered if there is an explanation of this process on the website and Mr. Szafran said that there is along with contact information for people to call if they have questions.
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
Rachael Markle, Director of Planning & Community Development clarified that the code amendments are different from Master Plan or Comprehensive plan amendments. They are collected into a batch because it is easier to work on them that way and bring them through both Council and the Planning Commission together instead of separately.
Mrs. Markle also updated the Commission on the status of transition area amendments related to setbacks on commercially zoned property located directly across a Right of Way from single family R-4 and R-6 property on December 2nd. Before Council, the staff has presented both the Planning Commission recommendation, which was a 15 foot setback, and a staff alternative. The staff alternative was to allow the 15 foot setback to be reduced to a one to one ratio for every foot of Right of Way over 60 ft. Example; 61 feet of right of way would allow a 14 foot setback. The Council seemed most supportive of the Planning Commission recommendation to change the current 0 foot setback to 15 feet and asked staff to do some additional analysis. The additional analysis includes looking at the implications of a reduced setback option for transition areas on principal arterials. The Council is scheduled to make a decision on this at the January 6, 2014 meeting.
Steve Szafran went through a slideshow about updates to two Master Development Plan Permits. He reminded the Commission that the Crista Ministries Master Plan was approved by the Planning Commission on March 18, 2010 and subsequently approved by the Council on May 10, 2010. The plan was immediately appealed to King County Superior Court based on traffic, tree loss, and wildlife concerns. The result was that the Master Development Plan was approved with one modification, which was to omit the practice field.
Mr. Szafran also provided updates on the Shoreline Community College (SCC) Master Plan which began in 2003. SCC issued its Final Environmental Impact Statement in 2006 and applied for a Master Development Permit in 2011. Then re-applied for the permit in 2013 to include a 400-bed dormitory. Currently, the traffic and drainage plans are under review.
Mr. Szafran ended the discussion by informing the Planning Commission that Master Development Plan Permits now need to be approved by the hearing examiner, which relieves the Planning Commission from having to review these plans or make recommendations on them.
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES AND COMMISSIONERS/ANNOUNCEMENTS
AGENDA FOR NEXT MEETING
The Commission confirmed that there will be four Commissioners in attendance at the next meeting which is scheduled for December 19. The next meeting will include a study item on the Chronic Nuisance Ordinance.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.
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Donna Moss Lisa Basher
Chair, Planning Commission Clerk, Planning Commission