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HomeMy WebLinkAbout10/19/2004 MINUTES Minutes for Planning Commission Meeting October 19, 2004 I. Call to Order Commissioner Streissguth The meeting was called to order by at 5:35 p.m. II. Roll Call Those present were: Commissioner Kennedy, Commissioner Kosusko, Commissioner Streissguth, and Commissioner Friedberg-Nerf. Quorum certified. III. Approval of Agenda Commissioner Streissguth introduced first Judith Friedberg-Nerf as the newest Planning Paul RogersonV. B-1 and 2 Commissioner and then the agenda. noted that items were V. B-1 essentially the same subject and recommended item be amended to be a review of A motion was made by Commissioner Kosusko changes to the Comprehensive Plan. and seconded by Commissioner Kennedy to approve the agenda as amended. Called for a vote: Kennedy: Yes; Kosusko: Yes; Streissguth: Yes; Friedberg-Nerf: Yes. The motion carried. IV. Approval of Minutes The minutes of the Regular Meeting held on September 21, 2004, were presented for approval by Commissioner Streissguth. She noted a deletion of the word “hearing” on . A motion was made by Commissioner Kennedy and seconded page 4, paragraph 2 by Commissioner Kosusko to approve the Regular Meeting Minutes of September 21, 2004 as amended. Called for a vote: Kennedy: Yes; Kosusko: Yes; Streissguth: Yes; and Friedberg-Nerf; Abstain. The motion carried. V. PUBLIC MEETING A. Call To The Public. (public comments on any item not on tonight’s agenda) Commissioner Streissguth Seeing none, closed this portion of the meeting. B. Public Hearing: Paul Rogerson, Planning Manager , began the Public Hearing portion: “You have two items in front of you that pertain to this first item: An updated copy of the draft Comprehensive Plan and a Staff Report that’s titled ‘Draft Staff Report, Bremerton Planning Commission Meeting of October 19’ and the first item is amendments of the Planning Commission –titled ‘Amendments of the Planning Commission Recommended Draft Comprehensive Plan Update’. That’s kind of a mouthful. The purpose of this briefing tonight is just that – to brief you on changes that have been made to the Comprehensive Plan since you approved or recommend to forward a draft on May 18 and I’ll go over those in a minute. What goes along with this briefing is the updated copy of the Comprehensive Plan in front of you. The first item of briefing, then, is to talk about some changes in format and voice that you’ll see in that new draft. These are not the result of recommendations from you, or anything other than staff worked to polish the product somewhat. What you’re going to see in the draft in front of you dated 6-8-04 is a lot of work done by our staff, especially Matthew Keough, to insert drawings, photographs and other graphic aids to demonstrate and illustrate the points and issues in the plan, and also a change over from single column format to double column format. So we have a little bit more of a polished look that comes along with two columns and the additionally graphics. There are a few pages here and there where the two column format has not been changed and you still have a single column format, but in general, the plan now has a different graphic layout and the insertion of a lot of graphics and I think it’s a great improvement in terms of readability and understandability for the public. I urge you to look through that and point out any places where you believe the graphics don’t properly illustrate the point or anything of that nature. We’ve also made some changes in voice, and what I mean by that is in diction and writing style within the plan. Matthew, again, spent a lot of time going through the plan and changing passive voice to active voice wherever possible and that, once again, is a readability issue. Sort of, the tone of the plan becomes more positive and actually proper for a document like this as a result. Unless there’s questions on those changes, I’ll get in to the actual substantive changes, or at least, I shouldn’t overstate the word ‘substantive’, at least the changes that are more significant in the plan. The first of those is the addition of a new designation, a land use designation, called Marine Industrial (MI). That designation now appears in the document, of course, and also on the Land Use map in an area between Pennsylvania and Marguerite, and Port Washington Narrows th and 15 Street. This is the Penn Plaza Industrial area primarily; I think most people are familiar with the area by that name. This area was designated in the plan that was approved in May as Industrial Park (IP) – I think the words are backwards in your staff report; it says ‘Park Industrial’, but the designation originally was Industrial Park. And we’re now suggesting that a new designation called Marine Industrial be placed on that site instead. This designation is very similar in the list of permitted uses to the Industrial Park designation that existed previously, with a very few key changes. The most noticeable change is that the Marine Industrial designation specifically allows storage related to maritime use to the list of, essentially, light industrial uses that existed under the earlier designation. So, just to summarize, there’s not significant changes except that addition of the marine related storage use. I’m not going to go through this, the entirety of the staff report; the purpose of this briefing tonight is just to give you a quick ‘heads- up’ about things that we will be presenting more formally during the public hearing next week on October 26, because you will be asked to present these items or consider these items in formal public hearing a week from today. So I’d urge you to read through the section of the staff report on the Marine Industrial designation, maybe refer to your old and now your new versions of the Comprehensive Plan and compare how the previous and the new designation are described and be sure that you’re comfortable with that change. This does come from a discussion that occurred between staff and property owners and we think it better implements the intent of the Comprehensive Plan in this area. Chris Hugo : Paul, I’d just like to interject here. I’d like to explain where this idea came from. We’ve been actually working this site for a long time. If you’re familiar with the Pennsylvania Avenue environment, as I think you all are. We’ve been trying to find out something that could fit and be justified because that’s not likely to go away, and it seemed to present an opportunity that, when you look at Bremerton’s future, where can we generate any kind of activity that would support the pleasure boat industry in Bremerton. Port Orchard has several facilities and there’s none around Bremerton other than the private yacht club. So we thought, boy, what a great opportunity if we could get a place that could service boats as we have a new expanding marina downtown and we have a property that seems under utilized in some ways and kind of mislocated in other ways. But if it could be tied to marine dependency so that it’s got some kind of physical operational connection to the water and the activities of the water, that maybe we could turn something that’s a little bit right now kind of a ‘black sheep’ … not a real black sheep, but it’s just kind of a tough fit right there. And you normally wouldn’t plan that kind of thing in a city, in that location, you know, with the warehousing and the propeller repair and the kinds of things that go on there. It was concrete production; you wouldn’t do that in that location today, so how do you make that into something that’s fully beneficial. And so this is, working with the property owner, what we’ve come up with. Commissioner Kosusko : Does this new designation restrict other things that might be allowed in Light Industrial, or does it just add marine related things? Chris Hugo : This would limit the activities on the property as it expands up to its plan perimeters to things that are related to the marine world. Paul Rogerson : I think when you read the designation as it’s written up in the draft of the Comprehensive Plan just handed to you, you’ll see that the permitted uses all have to relate to the utilizing the waterfront. So it’s kind of specifically marine oriented. And also provides that circulation has to be within the site and not take advantage of adjacent streets, so protecting adjacent neighborhoods from boats moving back and forth and that sort of thing on trailers or lifts – that sort of operation. Chris Hugo : So it can be everything from retail like a little chandlery to, it could even be – I don’t know if a Fish & Chips place would be [laughter]. (Commissioner Kosusko: It depends on where the fish came from!) Depending on where the fish came from? Off the pier? [More laughter] Taking boats out of the water and servicing them and things like that. And storage and there is that propeller shop that’s already there. [You] could also do boat wood-working and repair and things like that, for fiberglass as well as engine work. I think it’s a pretty exciting opportunity if the property owner can work with the system to conveniently get boats in and out of the water there, which can be done; it’s just a matter of the right technology and the right amount of money. It seems like a great opportunity for us. Paul Rogerson : You’ll also notice, when compared, the previous designation and this new suggested designation, that there’s approximately equal emphasis in both of them on buffering and protecting adjacent uses, which was emphasized a lot in the first designation and continues to be emphasized in this one. The next change is referencing the Centers Supporting Residential designation, or CSR designation. That’s another new designation – the only other new designation that staff is suggesting we add to the plan. And it comes to you as a direct result of your discussions during the Planning Commission meeting of July 20 in which you discuss some mechanism to better connect Downtown, the Harrison Employment Center and the Manette Neighborhood Center - I suspect you all remember that conversation. This Centers Supporting Residential designation is what we’re proposing and recommending as the implementation of the ideas you talked about at that time. Once again, I won’t spend a lot of time going through it in detail other than to point out to you that it’s there. Where the property that it applies to at this moment is indicated on the Scenario 3 map. Right now, I’d be happy to share that with you if you want to be reminded of where that would likely occur. The details of it, of course, are implemented during the zoning exercise yet to come and this is a policy recommendation at this point so you’ll be able to read the policy direction in the new draft of the Comprehensive Plan. Are there any questions on that one? CommissionerKosusko : I’ll certainly look at the text of this, but is this designation written in a way that it can be applied other places in the city or is it very location specific? Paul Rogerson : It’s written such that it’s available in any situation where you can link two or more centers that are in close proximity to each other and connected by a designated public trail of some sort. So if that situation occurs elsewhere, it would be available elsewhere. Chris Hugo : This has made a liar out of me because I talked to our newest Commissioner this afternoon and I thought we drafted this up so it had to be connected to the three centers downtown, and I did review this language so I’m culpable in this because I’d forgotten what I’d reviewed. The language ‘near the Downtown Center’ stood out in my mind when I had this discussion. But that’s ‘as mapped near the Downtown Center’ and so I think we might, if the intent is to have this a part of that more intensive regional core environment of the Harrison Center, the Manette Center and the Downtown Center, then we probably need to tighten this up a little bit and say that it can happen anywhere in that three center triangle that meets these other conditions of a trail. The way it’s written now, as Paul describes, is, yes, if somebody could meet these other conditions but then we start to have this kind of higher density anywhere between two centers if there’s a trail. And somebody could start to argue that that’s trying to dilute the focus. So, what’s the Commission’s comments on that? CommissionerKennedy : I’m trying to figure out where else it could possibly be used. Right now, in my brain … (trails off) CommissionerStreissguth : I’m wondering with Charleston, is there an application there with the Charleston Center? I don’t know, distance-wise, what… PaulRogerson : That’s about what I was to say that the difficulty right now is close proximity isn’t specifically defined. Either you could work on more closely defining items like that so that this thing operates the way intended to or take a more explicit path that Chris is asking you if you whether you want to pursue and tie it specifically to that downtown triangle. I don’t know, Chris, whether we need a verdict on this tonight or is this something that can be determined during our hearing process. ChrisHugo : It can be, but I think it would just be – again, go back to if there’s any two centers around on the map and if we happen to work on a pedestrian connection that goes through those two centers and there’s a mass transit route, then somebody could argue on any parcel along that path you could go to higher density. PaulRogerson : The minute we designate another trail equal to the Freedom Trail, then we open up the possibility for this to happen elsewhere and it gets complicated to designate trails. ChrisHugo : And we have a kind of trail and open space schematic that does try and link centers, which means that all of a sudden now anywhere in that pattern of trails, if there happens to be a transit route we’ve got this problem. My recommendation would be that we tighten it up, at least right now, and add language that relates it to the downtown, like, within the regional center or something. CommissionerStreissguth : I agree – as I think back to that July meeting, one of the things that we talked about and recognized was this unique opportunity with the shoreline and existing bridges and this fairly confined circumstances, if you will, surrounding … and so from my perspective I would say we do need to tighten the language and certainly before next week. CommissionerKosusko : I agree with that assessment, and I’m wondering if maybe a slightly different name might help with that as well. I mean, we’re talking about an area that’s on Port Washington Narrows between the bridges. Is there a name that is more specific and isn’t as general? ChrisHugo : Back in July I was thinking of something like ‘Twin Bridges Centers Residential’ [laughter]… CommissionerKosusko : Yeah, ‘Narrows Residential’ or something… ChrisHugo : But that’s exactly right – I think we probably need to give it kind of a more parochial name to just protect its application. PaulRogerson : The next recommended change is one that is just providing for a blank spot that was in the earlier drafts. And in the earlier drafts, we indicated that an Oyster Bay Neighborhood Center existed, but there was never that section describing its general characteristics that you do see for the other centers. So that section’s now been added in the draft before you. It’s somewhat lengthy – I won’t try to go through it. Rather, once again, just to recommend that you read through that and be prepared to give us your feedback on it. In quick summary, though, I will say that there’s an emphasis in that description on a couple of opportunities that may be unique to the center, and this is not uncommon – most of our descriptions try to be specific and talk about the unique characteristics of the center being described. In this case, we do describe some of the opportunities for linkage through open space and trails to the Oyster Bay shoreline, to playfields over in the West Park area – in other words, there’s some emphasis on some unique opportunities there to connect this center with adjacent open spaces and recreational areas. And also, there’s a little more care taken to describe various height factors in the center so that views to Oyster Bay are preserved from all portions of the center. There’s some discussion that higher heights may be appropriate – if you can picture in your mind its location – may be appropriate on the southern edge of the center; that would be up against the hillside, whereas lower heights might be appropriate on the northern edge of the center – that is the portion of the center between Kitsap Way and the shoreline. So that heights are staggered similar to what’s done in the downtown area to protect views from most portions of the center northward to the Oyster Bay marine environment. So there’s some care taken to describe that opportunity in this center. Once again, I urge you to read that and see that you’re comfortable with it or be prepared to recommend some amendments during the hearing process. Any questions on that one? There is a description – this is a fairly lengthy discussion, I suspect; it’s a fairly lengthy section in your briefing paper. There’s a change in the recommended approach to Urban Growth Areas that you’ll see in the new draft. It takes place sort of in two areas: First of all, in the Introduction chapter, there’s now a discussion – not of urban growth areas; there previously was a discussion of Urban Growth Areas in the Introduction section – that’s gone, but what you see there now is a lot of verbiage that was there originally, but now it’s been pared to be just those paragraphs that refer to this eventual growth intent. That language existed previously, but now this is the only discussion of extra territorial areas that you’ll see in the Introduction section. So the introduction section now refers only to the eventual growth intent. The discussion of the Urban Growth Areas is now restricted to just the Land Use chapter, and in that description you’ll see that we now propose that the Urban Growth Area be the essentially, with very few differences, only the current, or the 1998 designated Urban Growth Area. This is primarily because we do not feel that at this we’re prepared to make the required demonstration of ability to provide urban services for a larger Urban Growth Area. In the Eventual Growth Intent section that I just mentioned, goes to some lengths to explain our interest in a larger area and our intent to work quickly to provide the necessary demonstration so that we can begin to propose a larger Urban Growth Area, but at this time we don’t think that we’re ready to do that, so you’re seeing now in the Land Use element a proposal that only includes a UGA essentially like what currently exists today. The one exception to that is the inclusion of Gorst in a proposal to expand our Urban Growth Area to Gorst. We do believe that the importance of Gorst is an entryway to the City; it’s just too important for us not to begin to have some planning influence over that area. Also, there’s a small section that’s sort of related to this in the Land Use area that does propose that joint planning areas continue to be negotiated with the County and we specifically mentioned the Erlands Point area and the Rocky Point area as areas where joint planning should be actively pursued in the immediate future. Again, that’s to prepare those areas for the most rapid possible inclusion in Urban Growth Areas. Are there questions on that? Finally, the only other change to the Comprehensive Plan that I’m aware of at this time is there are going to be, and you don’t have a copy of this, there are going to be some amendments to the water section in the Technical Appendices. The Public Works department has just recently, in the last week or so, brought me some updated numbers that come from the 2005 Water Comprehensive Plan update that they’re currently working on that enabled that section to be more up-to-date, and I’ll be amending it in the near future; certainly before final adoption by the Council. I want to assure you at this time, they don’t have any impact on our ability to demonstrate ability to serve; in fact, they improve our ability to make that demonstration, they’ve just given more up-to-date data in that regard. Lastly, the City did receive the preliminary Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Comprehensive Plan yesterday. I’m not able to provide you copies of it – it was a preliminary draft for our review and comment back to the consultant, and believe me we had a number of them. They were sent to the consultant at 5:00 today. What that means is we will have the published draft Environmental Impact Statement or Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement available at your hearing next week. It has to be published on Friday of this week to maintain the schedule for Council adoption by December 1 and that’s a long story but I have to play that out for you. It does have to be formally published by this Friday, meaning that you will have the published version of the Environmental Impact Statement for your consideration at your hearing next week. We’ll also be getting a copy of that to you in your packet. Ideally, that means before the weekend. ChrisHugo : …or Saturday morning when we’re running around. [laughter] PaulRogerson : Hand delivering it so make sure you have your robes on! [laughter] That’s the completion of the briefing and I guess I should repeat what I said at the outset: This briefing will be augmented, per some of the comments tonight, per additional detail, any _________ staff report that formally presents these same changes for you public hearing next week. ChrisHugo : Just to kind of clarify, again when you go back to the action that you took on the draft plan originally, you passed a motion as a preliminary recommendation subject to a final hearing with the zoning package. We’re still staying with that original protocol. CommissionerStreissguth : Thank you, Paul. Next on our agenda is Interim Zoning, so Paul, do we hear from you again on that? PaulRogerson : There are, once again, two items that pertain to this agenda item on the table before you. One is a five-page staff report entitled ‘Initial Zoning Package’, and the other thing is a stapled packet of draft zoning chapters, essentially, that the staff report refers to. Once again, this is an initial briefing on a complex subject, so there’s no way I can go into this in the detail that it really deserves at this time. The real purpose of this briefing is to give you a quick overview, hand you these materials that you can begin to study and digest. Being aware that we, right now, propose to present these to you for a public hearing in November – so not at your next meeting, your October 26, but at your regular November meeting, anticipate a public hearing to consider the package of zoning amendments that are implementing the Comprehensive Plan. At this time just let me give you a quick overview of what you’re looking at in this package. First of all, you’re going to see, if you’re perceptive and are reasonably familiar with the current zoning code, which you may or may not be [laughter], but certainly staff would notice that the numbering system that you’re looking at is entirely different from what you’ve seen in the City’s current zoning code. The numbering system is a more traditional, if you will, numbering system; it’s very similar to what you see in many cities and there’s a fairly detailed explanation at the beginning of your staff report as to the reasons this is being proposed and the relative advantages of it and that sort of thing. I won’t belabor that other than to warn you that you’re looking at a different numbering system than the current city code uses and that’s intentional; there’s some reasons that we believe that it’s a good idea. Also, you’re going to notice throughout all the chapters that I’m going to review here are a couple of basic changes in format. These chapters now begin to have lists of permitted uses, and in some cases, list of conditional uses right in the chapter rather than displaying a reference table like the current code does. This is for a couple of reasons, once again I’m not going to belabor this point either, let’s just say we believe it makes this more user friendly at the front counter; we have a better product to hand people that explains fully what a particular zoning district is all about – that’s actually the primary reason. It also prevents all of us, including staff who use this product regularly, so much flipping back and forth between sections. When we open a chapter and want to understand what’s possible in this particular zone district, we only have, primarily, one place to go to get the basic information. Those are two of the big reasons and that, once again, is discussed in a little more length in the staff report. More importantly, what you are looking at in the stapled package of zoning changes are six proposed new chapters. You’re going to see, in this package, a new chapter called the Initial Neighborhood Centers zone or INC, and note the word ‘Initial’; this is intended to be just that – the initial approach to zoning for neighborhood centers that will most likely be supplanted in the future by zoning that’s developed through that sub-area planning process that involves the neighborhood associating with each of these centers. So this is the initial, sort of base approach to making sure that development in centers locations doesn’t preclude the future success of the center. It doesn’t fully implement the forum base approach that Chris described; it is more of a standard Euclidian approach that still has a list of permitted uses, but does begin to have some development standards that we believe encourage and preserve the pedestrian nature of the planning area and a couple things like that. To repeat something I think I’m saying for the third time, I’m not going to go through each of these districts in detail; the staff report does summarize some of the highlights of each one and, of course, you have the complete chapter in your hand to begin to look how it works. You have the similar zone called the Initial District Center zone; once again, a more traditional style zone chapter that is just that – a place holder for district centers. You have a Wheaton Way Redevelopment Corridor zone. I think I don’t need to say additional things other than it’s, once again, a more standard style zoning package that includes permitted uses, site standards, development standards, some architectural standards, even, that are typically an incentive sort of approach. In other words, if you do this and this and this, you can get a little more site coverage. So we tend to try to make it as incentive driven as possible and you’ll notice that as you read through it. There’s also a new zone called the Commercial Corridor zone or CC zone. If you recall, the Commercial Corridor designation in the Comprehensive Plan applies almost entirely to the Kitsap Way area so this is a zone that implements the corridor designation that applies to the Kitsap Way area. There’s a new R-10 zone; this is the largest piece of this package. The R-10 zone is that new residential zone which folds together the SR-1, SR-2 and SR-3 zones and is basically that background residential designation that is the lion’s share of area in the city. A couple quick notes on that: The density allowed in R- 10 is indicated by the name – it’s up to ten units an acre. Most of the city right now, most of the residential areas of the city are actually designated SR-3 and currently allow up to eight units an acre so as you may recall from our discussions during the Comprehensive Plan exercise, this isn’t a large change in permissible density and the other standards and setbacks, heights, things like that – in this R-10 zone at the current moment, at least, are very similar to what you’d find right now, today, in the SR-3 zone. So not a lot of radical changes; the big change here is the application of this approach to a wider portion of the city. Remember, we’re eliminating some of the MF zones, for example. That’s the news – the applicable R-10 zone isn’t a big change over SR-3. There’s also a couple of fun sections back here that aren’t so much related – well, I take that back. I was going to say they’re not so much related to Comprehensive Plan implementation, but that’s not actually true. You’re seeing a chapter towards the back of your packet called ‘Essential Public Facilities Excluding Secure Community Transition Facilities’. And then after that, another chapter that says, ‘Siting of Secure Transition Facilities’. So there’s two chapters having to do with different types of essential public facilities as defined by State law. And this is a requirement of the Growth Management Act that we have a siting process for essential public facilities. The reason you’re seeing two chapters here is that one of the chapters presents a siting process for all essential public facilities except secure community transition facilities. The second chapter is a unique chapter that applies just to the siting of secure community transition facilities and I’ve stumbled on that enough times that I’m hoping I can say it again [laughter], but if you recall the SCTS are those sex-offender transition facilities that have been mandated by the federal court decision that about six counties around the state and the jurisdictions within better have a process for siting or else the State can preempt and site anywhere it wants. So that’s something you discussed here a year ago. My recollection - and I have to verify this - my recollection is you actually had a public hearing on these here and recommended them forwarded to the Council. Council never took action on them and so now we’re preparing them back as part of your exercise because we actually do have goals and two policies in the Comprehensive Plan that says you need to create this, essentially, public facilities assignment so this is an implementing step for the Comprehensive Plan and something we’ve been prepared to do for over a year. Finally, just a quick note: In the packet you’re going to see, also, a chapter that, quite frankly, I didn’t mean to include. We are working on a number of other technical changes to the zoning code that are necessitated by the changes I’ve discussed with you. You’ll be seeing those at a later date, but you’ll also notice in the packet a chapter on permitting process in which we’re working to simplify and streamline the permitting process; see an elimination of the use of Type I, Type II, Type III permits and all that sort of thing. That’s something that is not directly related to implementation of the Comprehensive Plan except, perhaps, type ___ generally and that the Comp Plan does say make the permit experience an easier thing for people to get through. So, I guess I’m taking my own words back – it does in probably a less direct way than things like this does so far, have something to do with implementing the Comprehensive Plan. Point being that wasn’t intended to be part of this initial package, but we’ll decide at a later whether we bring it to you in November or slightly later than that. My apologies for it being there and confusing the issue but it probably is a fun thing to be aware of. CommissionerKosusko : So, should we write on it ‘Don’t look at this’? [laughter] PaulRogerson : Actually, maybe it’s a good reminder that besides the six or so chapters I just quickly mentioned, there is a large set of technical changes that will be coming along quickly after this first go-around in which we do have to correct references in the plan, change some processes so that it now makes sense with these new chapters and things like that. It’s a forewarning that there’s a lot of technical work on the zoning code coming up soon. Any questions? CommissionerKennedy : It just seems to me that, on the related changes portion, if we could do that chunk in the next sitting after the first hearing, it would be maybe a littler easier, not only for us to keep everything straight, but for the public as well. PaulRogerson : We’ve had a lot of discussion with staff about that – we’re still struggling with it. We have an agreement with staff that we ought to avoid confusing you and confusing the Council when it’s time for them to look at this, by mixing Comprehensive Plan implementation stuff with stuff that isn’t really Comprehensive Plan implementation. I mean, they should be separate packages so you don’t get confused. There are a couple of issues where it’s hard to discern where that line is – this Essential Public Facilities stuff might be one of those - so we’ll do our best to keep them separate and not confuse you, but be forewarned that there’s ________ find the boundary between these things sometimes. You’re going to see stuff that seems like technical stuff but in fact really has to be done now so we don’t create illogical references and connections or lack of connections in the zoning code. Any questions? ChrisHugo : I’d like to note that when you go through this you’ll see citations of the BMC within the text and you just have to ignore those because they’re just place holders right now – they haven’t been all cross-referenced. Maybe Paul said that enough but if you’re trying to figure out OK, when it says to go to section such-and-such, don’t try and find it. PaulRogerson : ‘Go to chapter 21.XX.xx’ because we’re fully aware that’s likely to change, or has already, and you’re not going to find it. ChrisHugo : And I see references here to ordinance provisions like senior housing and adaptive re-use that are not the real location, so just kind of ignore those. The other thing I’d like to just say is that I’d like to acknowledge all of the team and Robert Grumbach who’s not here. Robert did a lot of the R-10 work and he’s on our current planning staff and Paul and Dri and Matthew – Matthew’s been primarily putting the Comp Plan together and get it into what now looks to me like a real plan document and Dri’s been helping out anywhere she can and still doing environmental reviews and trying to do some Critical Areas work and then Paul’s had this burden of trying to guide the plan through and get the zoning package together on really short notice and try and get a supplemental EIS out of our consultant, which has also been a chore. It’s all coming together – we’re still on schedule and it’s going to be a minor miracle, I think. PaulRogerson : Staff will be sleeping through the months of January, February and March. [laughter] ChrisHugo : And that’s another thing I’d just like to comment on is that the whole zoning package isn’t going to come to you and the Council at once because it’s just unfair to do it that way. It’s unfair to you, it’s unfair to the public, it’s unfair to the Council to - give everything good deliberative discussion and consideration before action. So we’re bringing these things along in most important chunks first. The biggest area of our potential non-compliance would be this old zoning, the single-family zoning that starts out allowing lots of one acre and on all three of the SF zones, the single-family that Paul referred to, allow lot sizes bigger than what the hearings boards have ruled appropriate. Two of them allow one-acre lots and the third one allows a [one] third acre lot. PaulRogerson : I should correct my earlier statement when I said almost all the standards, heights and that sort of thing that you’ll see in the R-10 zone are just the same standards that you saw in the SR-3 zone. That’s not true – Robert Grumbach actually has gone back and corrected some of those most important difficulties by changing lot sizes, for example, so you will see new standards in the R-10 zone in key locations, at least. ChrisHugo : And we have taken a rather bold, but I think a rather deliberate and appropriate approach on maximum lot sizes as well, that you can go down to a certain small lot, which is right now it’s dividing up an acre into ten pieces – that’s the R-10 – and that gives you a 4,300 square foot lot. I think today the small size is 5,000? We allow 5,000 in some of those zones – I’m not sure… But anyway, that would get us down to something that at least is getting pretty urban, but it’s not Poulsbo Place. Poulsbo Place lots are down to closer to 3,000. In fact, 4,300 is the average lot size being platted today in the greater Portland metropolitan Urban Growth Area. That’s their average lot size. So, we could still look at some refinements of this over time, once we get some good examples of 10-unit per acre things, then we could maybe go to twelve or thirteen at some point with smaller lots. Another approach would be just to adopt a cottage housing ordinance which is getting real popular around where you can get down to 3,000 – 4,000 square foot lots and do that under certain conditions and we would apply that close to centers, or something, another form or maybe in an environmentally sensitive area where they could really get some efficient land use in just a small part of the site. I also noticed that as we got down to the maximum lot sizes of 8,700, there’s a provision in there that you can actually have a bigger lot if your lot also includes a critical area, which is, I think that’s a very good relief valve. So if you plat at five units per acre, which is the minimum, maybe above Tracyton, out there in the woods in the hills and ravines, you could plat it at five lots per acre and even have some of those lots be bigger than 8,700 square feet if they go down a ravine. I think that’s well accounted for in here, so that’s all good work. There’s a lot to consume, here, and I think the first way to look at these kinds of things is to just kind of go through them and just kind of do it in a cursory way and just see how it feels when you’re reading through things. It’s hard to compare standards from existing to new and all. In some cases you can go back and get some support from the plan and say ‘Do we have plan zoning consistency?’ and you see that, I think, in the LDR, Low Density Residential and the new R-10 zone.I can see a lot of correlation there between what the plan’s talking about in the standards that show up in the ordinance. Any other advice about how to approach this from staff? PaulRogerson : I think for Wheaton Way, the Commercial Corridor and the center zones, you’re not going to see precedence or comparisons that you can make with existing zoning, so as Chris just said, if you look at the description of those areas in the Comprehensive Plan and see if we picked up the key pieces and somehow translated those to a regulatory framework, that’s the key. ChrisHugo : I think the thing that’s really exciting that we’re just on the cusp of is when you look at the Comp Plan map and you see all of that kind of salmon-orange - all of that is the existing SF zones and all of the higher density residential zones that aren’t associated with a center. And so, boy, if you can compare that to the spottiness of this (gestures to previous density map)… PaulRogerson : All these other colors mixed in those areas are a higher density residential/multi-family zones with different densities. ChrisHugo : And all of those zones go away and those properties, or even some cases, structures, become non-conforming, so that’s going to be one of the biggest decision points – to adopt this idea that we essentially have this low density residential background defined at five to ten units per acre and that all multi-family that’s legal be above that is associated with a center or a corridor. There will be a lot complained of about that, we recognize, but there’s also people who are ready to talk about the business of being non-conforming; that it doesn’t jeopardize your property interest; you can still insure your property, you can sell you property, and using non-conforming rights provisions, even allow you some opportunity … I’ve seen cases where you can actually expand your use or expand your non-conformity and have an advantage over an adjacent property owner that has conforming property that doesn’t have that right. I’ve always questioned that, but I’ve seen codes that even go that far as well. But the real key thing is that as a property owner you can maintain a property, you can sell it, you can insure it, you can do everything with it, you just can’t continue to grow it. CommissionerStreissguth : Any questions, Commissioners? Thank you, staff, for all your hard work on this. It’s very exciting to have something to be reviewing and to see us moving forward with this. Commissioner Streissguth : Calendar for proposed hearings – do we have a proposal? PaulRogerson : I’ve already mentioned that we’re proposing that you consider the first zoning package at your regular meeting of November 16. Beyond that, we don’t have a recommendation beyond that at this point. You’ve got a hearing coming up on October 26 and then we’re proposing that one on November 16. That would be the extent of our recommendation at this time. th CommissionerStreissguth : And the hearing on the 26 is on the changes to the Comp Plan? PaulRogerson : Exactly; the changes to the Comprehensive Plan only and that will be accompanied by the draft supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for your reference. CommissionerStreissguth : I did not bring my Day Timer with me, but I guess I would maybe like to ask the Commission to consider whether or not we would like to have a th workshop prior to the hearing on the 16; that would place our public hearing on November 16for zoning. We haven’t spent any time …. I don’t know what your thoughts are on that but I’m kind of thinking that after we’ve done initial review of this, we’ll have a number of questions, things for clarification before we move to public hearing. What are your thoughts on that? CommissionerKosusko : Are we expecting or thinking that on November 16 we’ll say yes and pass it on to the Council, because they need to start looking at it beginning of December in order to get through it. ChrisHugo : It’s hard to tell where they’ll be at in the budget process in early December. They’ll get the Comp Plan done, we hope, the first of December (a Wednesday), so that’s the ‘drop-dead’ night; that’s why I thought it was probably a Wednesday. They should be done with the Comp Plan by then; they probably won’t be done with the budget until a week or two later. [There is some background discussion on dates] That was to have everything done by December 1 and I don’t think that we’re going to have everything done by December 1 on zoning and if somebody wants to appeal this, that wouldn’t bother me. We’ll be done by the time they catch up. Any time in mid-December, I think, we could do it. I’d really almost like to wait and see where they are in the budget process, so maybe if we wait a couple weeks before we set the December Council date. th So we could still go on the 16 [of November] for our Planning Commission. th PaulRogerson : You’re talking about a pre-hearing workshop on the 16 – I think this is advisable in that this is a project in progress and will be improving this product continuously between now and then, so we want to make sure you’re aware of every improvement that’s been made up to the last minute, so it would be advisable to meet the day before. CommissionerStreissguth : Day before or week before? Is the week before pushing staff’s schedule a little too tight? I mean, I just say that we only have four Commissioners here and usually we stick with the Tuesday schedule – that’s sort of a th known … I have no idea what Monday the 15 looks like as far as a special workshop. ChrisHugo : We’ll only have one building in November and we won’t have Wednesday’s available. th CommissionerKosusko : We have this large packet already – if it came to the 9 of November and that’s all we had, we would still have a lot to talk about, so I almost ndnd wonder if maybe we should do it on the 2 and talk about this packet of stuff on the 2 … CommissionerStreissguth : …and then, perhaps, do an update, maybe, schedule say a th 5:00 workshop on the 16 before we move into hearing to review any changes or something. th CommissionerKosusko : October 26, we’re having a hearing on the Comp Plan. So we’ll be done with that and send that to Council. CommissionerKennedy : I would suggest that we meet and have a study session the th week before the November 16 meeting. nd PaulRogerson : A calendar note: November 2 is election night. CommissionerKennedy : So that we will at least be familiar enough with everything to actually be able to hold the public hearing and take that information in and then move the process forward as best we can at that point. I mean, the public input could – there could be something there that makes us back-pedal and go ‘Whoops – maybe we need to redraft this and introduce something here a little bit different because we don’t have that input yet. But I would like to be familiar with at least what we have. CommissionerStreissguth : Judith [Friedberg-Nerf], any thoughts? th CommissionerFriedbergNerf -: I agree, the 9 looks like a workable day – it gives th enough time to raise questions to do more study before the public hearing on the 16. CommissionerStreissguth : I think we have consensus on that; we’ll do a study th session/workshop on the 9. And we promise, Dri, not to keep you too late if you have an early morning flight the next morning [laughter]. CommissionerKennedy : A question of Chris: When we have a study session, do we th do that here (Council Chambers, 4 Street) or can we have that over at the office where it’s warm? ChrisHugo : We can do it any place that’s accessible to a visible public, so that could thth be… on the 9 we could do it even on the 6 Floor, if we can make it accessible, of the new building [Norm Dicks Government Center], it’s a study session. It can be done, possibly, in one of the two conference rooms or maybe even in our own – well, no, probably the Council or Mayor’s conference room. Or maybe downstairs where it’s still warm and nice. So we’ll look into that. We’re still not sure who’s running the new building yet, when it comes to meetings so we’re still kind of dancing around that. CommissionerStreissguth : Just to kind of review what we’ve agreed to in terms of a calendar for hearings and moving forward, we’ll have our public hearing next week on thth the 26 for changes to the Comprehensive Plan; on the 9 of November we’ll have a th study session; 16 will be the hearing for initial zoning. MatthewKeough , Growth Planner, City of Bremerton: Commissioner Streissguth, if I could just point out – next Tuesday, don’t forget, that’s our public hearing and it’s going to be in the new chambers in the Norm Dicks building. We’d appreciate if could get in there just a few minutes ahead of time because there’s going to be a lot of wooing and that kind of thing while _______ comfortable in your chairs and we ask you to be patient with us and of course the facilities, because we’re the first to use it, which is exciting. We started promoting it like the new plan, the new vision of Bremerton, come to the new facility, be part of this moment. So we’re going to try to do some advertising, even though it’s only a week away and I like that we’re using the new chambers, but you’ll want to come a little bit early and hope this room will be set up well enough. Unfortunately, we’re handicapped without some of the luxuries of recording devices and things, but we’re going to make the most of that room. ChrisHugo : Well, that’s great! You guys are going to have the first public meeting in this room – that’s great. [General joking about commemorating the event, laughter] VI. Business Meeting A.Chairman’s Report: None. B. Director’s Report: ChrisHugo : The good news is is that we still have an annexation planner, current planner, in our budget and I think that’s going through the Council this year; it didn’t make it through last year as they tried to balance the budget in the last hours before presentation to the Council, but this year I think it is making it all the way through with good support both from the administration and the Council. So that’s good. And we know that there’s some interest out in Navy Yard City for annexations because of the crematory issue and we’ll also be looking and starting dialogue with places like Gorst and maybe putting out some feelers in Rocky Point and other peripheral areas. We’ll just see how sturdy this new person is, I guess. Mostly, the process will be based on a program of information, education, dialogue, getting out there and talking with people, seeing where there’s interest and then crafting some possibilities, as well as helping us coordinate the documentation that we need to support our even larger expanded Urban Growth Areas as described in the plan. That will all be happening as well as reorganizing some of the tasks within the department to allow Dri to do her primary assignment which is getting the updates on the CAO [Critical Areas Ordinance] and shorelines and keeping the current planning, the permitting project review of land use and environmental issues going along as well as it has in the past, but we’ve lost a little bit of ground on that. So all of that’s good news. Dri, I’d like you to get up and explain your note because she needs some help and she’s the best person to sell her own needs. Dri Ralph, Environmental Planner, City of Bremerton : As you all know we should be in the process of updating our Critical Area Ordinance and as part of that process, I’ve had a couple of interns that’s put together a huge amount of information with Best Available Science and I’ve looked through a lot of it so far and reviewed the County’s plan that they have proposed – their draft of their Critical Area Ordinance. Really, as of December 1, as one of our implementation devices for our comp plan, we’re supposed to have adopted a Critical Area Ordinance. At this point, we’re not going to make that deadline, but hopefully it will come soon, like the zoning package does, at the beginning of the first of the year. That said, we need one or two planning commission members who are willing to sit on a committee to draft that into review, the Best Available Science and review those development standards which really have a very significant on the ground impact for development in our city whether it’s because of slopes or wetlands or aquifer recharge areas or habitat – whatever those things may be. Part of the process, we will have to do some public outreach, but it will be much more limited in scope than the county process or other things just because of our resources and what we have. And I’m planning on taking on a significant burden of getting you drafts to actually review the drafts and explain which science I kind of chose and if you question that to have that dialogue, but it’ll require some technical review of technical documents and white papers and local science like – fun stuff! I would love to have either one or two volunteers from the Commission to do that and part of that dialogue that we’ll need to have is selecting a citizen advisory committee to help with that process as well. People who can also get into reviewing the science and talking realistically about the implementation of incorporating that Best Available Science. I don’t know if you want to decide tonight or wait until your next meeting, but be thinking about who can commit to – not a ton of meetings, but several and this will also include one of the things that makes it more complicated is it will have to include some shoreline master program updates with view corridors as the primary thing to look at, and bulkheads. Commissioner Kosusko : When do you think this time period will happen? Is it in December? Is it in November? Is it in January? Commissioner Streissguth : Do you have a start date and then a duration in a sense of the number of …. Dri Ralph : I would think end of November as a first meeting and then making it a pretty condensed schedule. Commissioner Kosusko : So it’ll extend a month? Dri Ralph : I would say end of January, realistically, with probably four or five meetings in that time period. Commissioner Streissguth : Well Commissioners, volunteers? Chris Hugo : I would like to say that when you look at the papers and you kind of pay attention to the development world, planning world, critical areas regulations are the number one hot button in the state right now – border to border in this state. It’s very contentious; it’s also somewhat confusing because the issue of Best Available Science is one that’s not strictly defined. Nobody has really nailed that down so perfectly. So you’re kind of in this loosey-goosey world on this subject and the only thing is is that we at least have the benefit of what others have been doing and so that is what Dri will focus on, is to try and lead us down the right path. It is really interesting. Dri Ralph : And also I would expect us to take advantage of the work that the County’s already done and try and be as close, jurisdictionally aligned as far as our buffers and other things that are really contentious like Chris is saying.Really take advantage of that and if there’s something egregiously wrong, move another direction, but if not, really, just because we have limited resources – I mean, we’re not going to hire consultants to do this, we’re not going to challenge the science. We’re going to kind of incorporate what we have and make it realistic for Bremerton. Chris Hugo : Isn’t there a summit coming up or something? th Dri Ralph : On the 27 (Wednesday, at Central Kitsap Junior High School), the County is having a kind of scientific forum discussing Best Available Science and if one of you chooses before that point to be a part of this, that would be a great event to attend. Commissioner Streissguth : Looking at the calendar, if Dri is looking at the end of November for a target date for the first meeting, I think that certainly by our meeting on th the 16 we should have some commitment to Dri – hopefully it would occur before that. Chris Hugo : The final thing I’d like to talk about is the State annexation advisory committee that I serve on representing the cities of Kitsap County. It’s a very interesting group – mostly planners, but a couple of elected officials and there was one Planning Commissioner at the last meeting. The topics range all across the board on things that inhibit annexations occurring as they’re expected to under GMA. I think the interesting this is how much focus there is on equity issues, development standards, revenues, things like that, where the money’s flowing. One of the things that the Association of Washington Cities is pretty committed to in terms of legislation is, again, trying to get an addition to the law that provides for unilateral annexation by cities when the cities and the counties have engaged in joint planning for urban growth in a UGA and the plan is done and everything’s staged, then the city can just say, ‘OK, the time is now’. That would really fully implement the whole notion: The cities prepare for urban growth, propose urban growth boundaries, demonstrate service capacities.The county confirms all of this by drawing a line – this would be the next step is that , OK, then at some point when that area is fully planned and organized and ready for the transference of governance, then the cities can go forward and get it done. Right now, just the opposite happens – we have every obstacle you can imagine in the way of the City taking a pro- active position there. So, it’s a process that’s been driven very well by the State Department of Community Trade and Economic Development; they’re preparing a good report that will include legislative action that’s recommended by the committee and I’ll be happy to get you all copies of that when it’s finally produced and see at least what some of the opportunities are. Some of the strategies may be short term, some of them may be out there as things for local governments to be pushing as part of their legislative packages through their delegations, as well. C. Old Business: None D. New Business: None Commissioner Streissguth : Before we adjourn, I do want to thank staff one more time for all of your work on the initial zoning and Matthew, I think the formatting looks really great on the Comp Plan, so great job. Matthew Keough : I apologize, it’s not fully complete – the City Services is not addressed. The exciting thing is it’s all on the City web page and people you know who are looking to get more involved – we really have a nice web page going right now. The Land Use chapter, for example, is broken down into sections that you can download just the map or just certain elements. All those graphics are much better in color Chris Hugo: I’d like to make one other kind of editorial comment: Once the Council’s done with this, most other jurisdictions, when the New Year comes, they start looking at the next year’s plan amendment process again, and we don’t unless we want to. We get two years through every update cycle and unless there’s something that’s glaring that we’ve missed and just needs attention and that I can go to the Council and ask them to open up the process that year. I’m really glad for that because when we’re done, we really want to be done for a while. Commissioner Streissguth : I almost forgot – I did have another question for our Director, and I was hoping that you’d give us an update on moving; when ..? th Dri Ralph : The 26. [laughter] Commissioner Streissguth : I thought that was the case! So do we get to come early for our tour? Chris Hugo: I think that we need to have our department all boxed up by Friday [11/22] and then over Monday and Tuesday the movers …. Commissioner Kennedy : So should we, like bring balloons and pizza? [laughter] Chris Hugo: That would be wonderful! I don’t know where you’ll find any of us because I’m not so sure we know where all of us will be. Paul Rogerson : That does bring up a real practical matter. If you need to get a hold of thth us on either Monday the 25 or 26 it’ll be somewhat difficult. If you have questions that you want to get through e-mail, try to do it on Friday. Matthew Keough : And I think we will use our voice mails to give you ways to reach us – our cell phones and things – because people will get our voice mails and they won’t find us. Paul Rogerson : As far as e-mailing documents and that sort of thing, we will be sort of out of the loop for updates, there. Chris Hugo : Our general incoming phone line for the department will stay in affect for those two days. They’re cutting all of the other City Hall and Permit Center lines so the 473-5275, and also that will kick over to Valarie Wolf’s phone, that’s really the only phones that will be working in the permit center for those two days. And we’ll hope that on Wednesday, you dial numbers as always and somebody up at our desk in City Hall answers – we hope it’s us [laughter]. [General discussion and joking about moving and phones not working] VII. Adjournment Meeting was adjourned at 6:53 p.m. The next special meeting is scheduled for October 26, 2004. Respectfully submitted by: _______________________________________ Executive Secretary Approved by: _______________________________________ Linda Streissguth, Vice-Chairman