SUMMARY MINUTES OF SPECIAL MEETING

Annual Strategic Planning Workshop

Friday, March 1 and Saturday, March 2, 2019

March 1 - 8:30 a.m. Brightwater Clean Water Treatment Facility

22505 State Route 9 SE, Woodinville, WA 98072

PRESENT: Mayor Hall, Deputy Mayor McConnell, Councilmembers McGlashan, Scully, Robertson, Chang and Roberts

ABSENT: None

STAFF: Debbie Tarry, City Manager; John Norris, Assistant City Manager; Randy Witt, Public Works Director; Margaret King, City Attorney; Don Moritz, Human Resources Director; Rachael Markle, Planning and Community Development Director; Sara Lane, Administrative Services Director; Eric Friedli, Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Director; Shawn Ledford, Shoreline Police Chief; Nate Daum, Economic Development Program Manager; and Carolyn Wurdeman, City Council Executive Assistant

GUESTS: Brian Murphy, Principal, BERK Consulting, Workshop Facilitator; Paul Inghram, Director of Growth Management, Puget Sound Regional Council, Workshop Presenter

At 8:30 a.m. the Special Meeting was called to order. Mayor Hall opened with introductions and provided a welcome to Council and staff. Mayor Hall stated that Deputy Mayor McConnell was attending the SeaShore Transportation Forum meeting that morning and would be joining the Special Meeting at 9:00 a.m. Mayor Hall then provided a statement about the purpose of the Workshop and then turned the Workshop over to Facilitator Brian Murphy who walked through the agenda and set some ground rules for the meeting.

Council then discussed the 2018 City Accomplishments. Assistant City Manager John Norris provided a brief overview of how staff put together the accomplishment list and provided some thoughts on key accomplishments from the staff perspective. Mr. Norris also stated how City staff were proud of all the work that was accomplished this year.

Council then heard a presentation on the Puget Sound Regional Council’s (PSRC) work on Vision 2050 from Paul Inghram, Director of Growth Management for the PSRC. The presentation was focused on the projected growth for the region.

Following the presentation, Council discussed the City’s Comprehensive Plan vision, Vision 2029, and the Framework Goals associated with the Vision. Council was interested in understanding how far the City had come in working towards the City’s vision, given that the City is half way through the planning horizon for Vision 2029 (10 years into the 20-year vision).

Council began with a review of the City’s accomplishments in the last 10 years and was impressed with all that has been accomplished by the City. Multiple accomplishments were identified as significant by the Council.

Council also discussed updating the City’s vision as part of a future Comprehensive Plan update and whether a major community visioning process was necessary, similar to what was conducted prior to the development of Vision 2029, or if a smaller community engagement process would suffice. Council generally felt that the current Framework Goals and vision were still relevant, although they could probably use a ‘refresh’, and therefore a smaller community engagement process would work for updating the City’s vision in the future. Some Councilmembers also felt that updated vision should include a focus on the transformed neighborhoods around the future light rail station areas.

The Council also discussed future work items for the next 10 years to continue to implement Vision 2029, including a discussion on utility assumption and management, parking management, park and open space acquisition, achieving the City’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in the Climate Action Plan, and a continued focus on financial sustainability. The Council also briefly discussed whether the City should focus on job growth, but there was not consensus on that discussion item.

The City Manager then began reviewing the current (2018-2020) City Council Goals and Work Plan. Council appreciated the staff’s work on implementing the Council Goals and Action Steps, and asked that Goal #5, Action Step #9, which is focused on understanding the service gaps for homelessness and opioid addiction, be carried over to the new Council Goals and Work Plan to work on implementation of the research and gap analysis that was completed this year.

The City Manager and Council then reviewed the staff proposed Goals and Action Steps for 2019-2021. Council proposed changes to multiple Action Steps and directed staff to add two Action Steps to Council Goal #2. One of the new Action Steps under Goal #2 is focused on exploring the establishment of a Shoreline Parks Foundation, and the other is focused on continuing to implement the Public Arts Program. Finally, Council reconfirmed their interest in updating Council Goal #5, Action Step #9 to continue the work of the gap analysis focused on addressing homelessness and opioid addiction. The update Action Step will focus on developing recommendations and an implementation work plan to address the previously identified gaps.

The City Manager and the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Service Director then began presenting information on Community and Aquatic Center (CAC) and Priority Park Investments Potential Ballot Measure. Much of this discussion focused on the alternate site of the CAC proposed by the Shoreline School District and the Council’s interest and concerns with this alternate location. Council was interested in understanding all of the costs associated with the School District property site at the Shoreline Center, including any costs associated with demolition or relocation of some of the District’s maintenance facilities near the back parking lot area.

Some Councilmembers expressed their concern about the overall cost of the facility and whether the facility is in the public interest given the competing priorities for public funding and resources. Other Councilmembers did feel the CAC is in the public interest and is worth the estimated development cost for the community. The Council generally agreed that if the facility is put in front of the voters to fund, it would be worth it to include the additional elements of the facility program that members of the community are interested in including, as these elements are a smaller portion of the overall facility cost.

Other Council comments included wanting to see a feasibility analysis of other external funding sources, including funding that could come from a park foundation, to see how much cost could be offset from these external sources, and whether it would make sense to potentially push a ballot measure into early 2020, as opposed to having the measure on the fall 2019 ballot. Finally, it was also stated that having survey information on the potential facility would be helpful, which will be forthcoming.

Council then discussed the other elements of a potential ballot measure for the CAC and Priority Park Improvements, including whether an additional request should be made for park property/open space acquisition and other park improvements. Council had various perspectives on this, including potentially bringing forth just a CAC facility for voter consideration, to bringing forth a larger ballot measure that includes both a CAC and other parks improvements and acquisition.

Council then discussed the Financial Reserve Policy, which was led by the Administrative Services Director. Council discussion focused on how the revenue stabilization fund is funded on an annual basis and how one-time expenditures relate to the City’s fund balance. Overall, Council agreed with the recommendations in the Reserve Policy memo developed by staff, which will come back to Council for approval as part of the mid-biennium budget update in the fall of 2019.

The first day of the Strategic Planning Workshop Special Meeting was adjourned at 4:35 pm.

March 2 – 8:30 a.m. Council Chambers - Shoreline City Hall

17500 Midvale Avenue North

PRESENT: Mayor Hall, Deputy Mayor McConnell, Councilmembers McGlashan, Scully, Robertson, Chang and Roberts

ABSENT: None

STAFF: Debbie Tarry, City Manager; John Norris, Assistant City Manager

GUESTS: Brian Murphy, Principal, BERK Consulting, Workshop Facilitator

At 8:33 a.m. the second day of the Special Meeting was called to order. Following a welcome from Mr. Murphy and recap of what was covered on the previous day, Council began with a review of the proposed changes to their Council Goals to make sure that the proposed changes were captured accurately. Generally, Council did not have any concerns with the staff-proposed edits to the Goals. There was some additional discussion regarding whether the newly proposed Action Step regarding a Shoreline Parks Foundation was to ‘establish’ a foundation or ‘explore establishment’ of a foundation. Council agreed that the Action Step should focus on ‘exploring establishment’ of a foundation.

Council then began a discussion of a series of policy questions generated by various Councilmembers. This began with a discussion of establishing a Diversity and Inclusion Commission. While some Councilmembers were interested in exploring a Council-appointed formal Commission, most Councilmembers were interested in having the City Manager work with the Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator on a potential staff-appointed group to support the work of the Diversity and Inclusions program. Council is also interested in having a dinner meeting for a Diversity and Inclusion program update so that Council could discuss the idea of community members supporting the program in some way.

Council also discussed car, bike and scooter share policies and regulations, and directed staff to begin working on this in the 2021-2022 biennium. There was a great deal of discussion around how the shared use mobility industry could be regulated, and the timing of when regulations should be considered, but Council was comfortable in having staff start working on this in the next biennium unless one of the shared use mobility firms approach the City earlier about entering the Shoreline market.

Council then discussed attracting the film industry through adapting model codes. Staff explained to Council that this is on staff’s current work plan, and Council expressed support for continuing to work on this.

Council next discussed neighborhood commercial center development and activation. Much of this discussion centered on what else the City could do to incentivize additional development in the City’s neighborhood centers. Councilmembers expressed some disappointment with the perceived lack of commercial development and vibrancy that has occurred in some neighborhoods. Council had a good discussion about both physical investments that could occur and engagement with the business community. No further action was requested of staff other than having the City’s Economic Development Program Manager continue to engage with the business community and look for investment opportunities from the private sector.

Council then discussed requiring commercial, mixed-use developments to have first floor commercial space. Some Councilmembers were interested in having the Planning Commission study this and study the design standards that indicate that first floors are required to be built to in mixed-use buildings. Other Councilmembers were comfortable with the City’s current regulations and felt that they did not need to be reviewed. Council all agreed to keep watching this issue and potentially review this issue as part of the Light Rail Station Subarea update that is scheduled to occur in 2020 as part of how all commercial land is being used in the station areas.

Council next discussed the sustainability and environmental work plan. As noted in the staff whitepaper, the City is not on track to meet its ambitious goal of reducing emissions 50% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. Council asked staff to review the existing work plan, without embarking on a significant reevaluation, and suggest actions that can be taken. A majority of Councilmembers were not in favor of one option: banning the use of natural gas for heating in new buildings.

Council then discussed the City’s tree code regulations. There were differing opinions on Council regarding whether the City’s tree code should be reviewed, and a majority of Councilmembers ultimately decided to not direct staff to add tree code review to the City’s work plan. The Council did ask that the Parks Board begin weighing in on potential tree regulation changes and amendments in the Development Code, which has exclusively been the purview of the Planning Commission. Council also directed staff to continue to study the City’s tree canopy on a regular basis and if there is reduction in the canopy, then reviewing the tree code could be revisited at that time.

Finally, Council brought up an additional policy issue focused on reviewing the zone ‘phasing’ in the Light Rail Station Subareas. A Councilmember was interested in reviewing the phasing to see if the timeframes of the phases, or the phases themselves, should be amended. Council was not interested in amending the phasing at this time but did agree that this should be looked at during the Light Rail Station Subarea update that is scheduled to occur in 2020. Council was also interested to know at that time the amount of quasi-judicial rezone requests in the subareas, which could be a good barometer of community interest in amending phasing. Other topics that Council discussed that they would like to have reviewed as part of the Subarea update, in addition to phasing, included building orientation regulations, building type construction, parking, covenants and plat restrictions, and the number of and processes for development agreements.

At the close of the City policy issues discussion, the Mayor thanked the Council and staff for a good Workshop. Mr. Murphy also thanked the Council for their participation over the last two days. Council and staff then provided reflections on the entirety of the Workshop.

The second day of the Strategic Planning Workshop Special Meeting was adjourned at 12:45 pm.

/s/John Norris, Assistant City Manager