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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03. 03-18-2023 Planning Commission Meeting MinutesPasco PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES City Hall - Council Chambers 525 North Third Avenue Pasco, Washington THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 2023 6.30 PM CALL TO ORDER City of Pasco Planning Commission meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m., by Chair Jerry Cochran. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Chair Cochran led the Pledge of Allegiance. ROLL CALL Commissioners Present: Rosa Torres, Mitchell Moffitt, Paul Mendez, Kim Lehrman, Rachel Teel, Jay Hendler and Jerry Cochran, a quorum was declared. Commissioners Absent: Abel Campos, Dana Crutchfield Staff Present: Community & Economic Development Director Rick White, and Planner Manager Jacob Gonzalez, Block Grand Administrator Kristin Webb. WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Chair Cochran explained the Planning Commission is an advisory board made up of volunteers appointed by City Council. He further explained the purpose of the Planning Commission was to provide recommendations to City Council regarding changes to the City's Comprehensive Plan, Land Use Updates, Block Grant Allocations and Zoning Code. The Planning Commission is tasked with considering the long-term growth and development of the community, the impact of land use decisions on community, livability, economic opportunity, housing affordability, public services, and the environment. Chair Cochran reminded the audience tonight's proceedings were being broadcast live on City of Pasco's Facebook page and on Charter Cable PSC Channel 191 and will be rebroadcast several times during the next month. He stated the meeting was also being recorded and could be watched on City of Pasco's website, which is Pasco-wa.gov. Click on the VIDEO ON DEMAND link and make your selection there. Chair Cochran stated copies of the meeting agenda were available on the back table. He then asked that everyone silence cell phones to prevent interruptions during the meeting. For those present this evening, when you are given the opportunity to address the Commission, please come to the podium, speak clearly into the microphone, and state your name and city of address for the record. Chair Cochran reminded the audience and the Planning Commission that Washington State Law requires public meetings like the one being held this evening not only be fair, but also appear to be fair. In addition, Washington State Law prohibits Planning Commission members from participating in discussions or decisions in which the member may have a direct interest or may be either benefited or harmed by the Planning Commission's decision. An objection to any Planning Commission member hearing any matter on tonight's agenda needs to be aired at this time or it will be waived. Chair Cochran asked if there were any Planning Commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of the items on the agenda. Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 1 of 7 March 16, 2023 4* No declarations were made. Chair Cochran asked if anyone in the audience objected to any Planning Commission member hearing any of the items on the agenda. $• None heard, record shows there were no declarations. Chair Cochran stated the Planning Commission needed and valued public input explaining it helped the Commission understand the issues more clearly and allowed for better recommendations to City Council. Furthermore, in many cases, this could be the only forum for the public to get facts and opinions placed into the official record and City Council will use to make the Commission's decision. He encouraged those present to take full advantage of this opportunity. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Commissioner Torres moved to approve the amended Planning Commission meeting minutes of January 25, 2023, Commissioner Moffitt seconded, and the motion carried unanimously. Commissioner Hendler move to approve the Planning Commission meeting minutes of February 16, 2023, Commissioner Mendez seconded, and the motion carried unanimously. OLD BUSINESS None PUBLIC HEARINGS A. Report 2022 Consolidated Annual Plan Evaluation Report (BGAP2023-001) Kristin Webb stated good evening, Chair and Planning Commission. The item before you tonight is the last step in the CDBG Grant cycle for program year 2022. There is a memo in your packet that goes into more detail. As a quick reference, the grant cycle begins in May, public hearings are conducted in June and July, and recommendations are sent to Council for approval. During the program year, activities are carried out in accordance with the approved plan. Three months after the end of the year. The CAPER, which is the Consolidated Annual Plan Evaluation Report, is due to HUD for reporting our progress and meeting the goals in the Annual Action Plan. To summarizes the Budget to Actual for the 2022 Annual Action Plan Goal Activities, by goal: 1. Affordable Housing 2. Community and Economic Development 3. Homeless Housing 4. Priority Public Services PR02 shows that activities use of the budget was $603,000. PR03 shows that all activities in 2022 were $5,022,224. This does include prior year's. expenses as well as the Peanuts Park project which was a total of $3.7 million for the Section 108 loan that we received. As you can see, there are some low percentages. This is due to the City of Pasco not receiving Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 7 March 16, 2023 the grant agreement until August of 2022, which means we were doing final draws in January of 2023, which are not reflected here as the reporting period is only from January to December of 2022. Budget to Actual for accomplishments for 2022 Activities Only totals are reported through quarterly reports from the subrecipients, which include Code Enforcement with how many citizen cases were closed, the Civic Centers, Senior Centers, YMCA, The Arc of Tri-Cities, and the scholarship programs with respect to economic opportunities. Jobs, which normally are reported by Pasco Specialty Kitchen, are not reported this year as they did not apply for any of the 2022 funds. As far as businesses, the City of Pasco has a facade program which hasn't been utilized in the last several years, but currently has two facade projects which started in 2022 and will be completed in the next couple of weeks. $• Comments/Questions from Commissioners Commissioner Moffitt asked, in the cases where we don't use the money that is given, which is very few, is that a use it or lose it or does the City still get to retain that and use it at a later date? Kristin Webb stated it just depends. We have a public works project where they're going to be expanding the Lewis Street from second to fifth with sidewalks and benches, etc. They haven't used that money in the last three years, however that money still is allocated to them, and they will have up until six years to use that money or HUD will then take it back from us. Commissioner Torres asked there is quite a bit of difference between the budget and the expenditures. Can you maybe give a little bit of context on maybe some high level reasons why that was? Kristin Webb answered for example with the Public Facility Improvements. That was because we had a Section 108 loan, and it was for $3.7 million. So that money was budgeted in 2020 and it actually wasn't expended. So, some of the budgeted to actual is because of prior year budget money that we have. And some of the projects just take a while for them to spend the money. Last year HUD didn't give us our agreement until August. This year, just a couple of weeks ago, we did get our funding letter, how much we're going to get, but then we were told in a meeting that they're hoping we'll have the agreements before August this year. Chair Cochran asked, looking at page three and four of the report. Are there strategies to encourage more proposals or grant requests in the areas that we're under executing on goal attainment? Kristin Webb answered it's pretty much it's whatever applications we get. When we do the RFP in May, we do try to target people that we think will be spending the money, but if they don't apply, we can't obviously make them. And a lot of people defer from applying because Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 3 of 7 March 16, 2023 HUD requires a lot of paperwork. You have to have a lot of documentation. Chair Cochran continued, the other thing is, I think when you present these to us earlier in the year, you always align them with the goal here that they're going to achieve. And maybe it's also us paying attention to if we can, in some cases, prioritizing ones that are way under executing versus ones that are way over executing. Kristin Webb stated yes. And you all have that authority. When we bring you the applications in June, I always give you guys a copy of the applications. You get a copy of what they're requesting, how much money we have to budget, and then we bring you back the staff recommendation. And you all can always change that. If there's another avenue that you would rather us go. Chair Cochran asked when you give these to us in June, could you give us these percentage attainment numbers and goals as part of the package, then we can focus more on prioritizing higher on some of the lower executing. Kristin Webb continued, and those goals are actually for the five year consolidated plan. So, you have to remember, this started in 2020. So, in 2024, we're actually going to start creating our new plan. Commissioner Lehrman stated you had mentioned about the difficulty that people have getting through the HUD process. Can you foresee that our community members and residents could use in receiving training or guidance in order to be able to get through the HUD process, in order to be able to apply for applications for housing? Kristin Webb answered in our packet, when we send it out, it actually does have requirements. So, if they are not a 5013C, they cannot apply for these monies. Rick White added and Commissioner Lehrman, I might add that it's probably not a very complex task once you've gone through it once, but it does require keeping a lot of records and keeping them in a manner that will facilitate the monitoring that Kristin just mentioned. I think that's where it gets difficult for especially organizations that are short staffed. It consumes a lot of time, keeping the record straight and having everything you need. It's not that complex, it just is tedious. Kristin Webb commented that in the application, it does say that if they need technical assistance, they can reach out to me, and I can give them some guidance of how they should word things or how they should break it up. Chair Cochran opened the public hearing, hearing none, he closed this public item. Commissioner Mott moved the Planning commission close the public hearing and recommend the City Manager approve the 2022 Consolidated Annual Plan Evaluation Report as presented. Seconded by Commissioner Hendler, motion passed unanimously. Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 4 of 7 March 16, 2023 WORSHOP A. Memo Housing Action and Implementation Plan Jacob Gonzalez stated good evening. Planning Commission members heard a brief presentation about Pasco's first ever Housing Action and Implementation Plan. City of Pasco is one of several communities across the state that applied and received grant funding from the Washington State Department of Commerce to produce a Housing Action Plan. The intent of the plan is to be an actionable policy document that outlines how to meet Pasco's housing needs, be based on data and analysis, grounded in inclusive and robust public opportunities and process, and providing a comprehensive roadmap to implement effective and feasible housing strategies tailored to the community here in Pasco. Goals/Purpose of Housing Action Plan: ➢ Encourage construction of additional affordable and market rate housing in a greater variety of housing types and at prices that are accessible to a greater variety of incomes. ➢ Be an actional policy document that outlines how to meet Pasco's housing demands ➢ Provide comprehensive road map to implement cohesive, effective, and practical strategies tailored to Pasco. The intent of the Housing Action Plan is to inform our Comprehensive Plan and vice versa, particularly with the housing elements, the capital facilities element, and certainly the land use element. And although it was only a couple of years ago that we adopted our major Comprehensive Plan, staff will be back before you within the next year, beginning to lay the groundwork for the development of our next major update of the Comprehensive Plan, which will have an out year horizon year of 2045. Plan Requirements/Process: ➢ Housing Needs Assessment ➢ Community Stakeholder Engagement ➢ Housing Policy Framework Review ➢ Housing Strategy Development ➢ Strategies to Minimize Displacement ➢ Implementation and Monitoring Highlighting some of the progress already made. You're aware, obviously, of the House Bill 1923 Code Amendments that essentially reallowed missing middle housing, duplexes, triplexes, really opened up our zoning code, including ADU's, with a lot of flexibility. We were one of very few communities actually, at least in this part of the state, that took advantage of the sales and use tax credit, which is monies directed back to the City of Pasco that we can use for affordable housing or to support the construction of new housing maintenance, rehabilitation. And that's one where I think between the Community Development Block Grant program could take advantage and try to use our resources efficiently to make some exciting projects happen. I think this commission is aware that over the last several years the City has been fortunate to have been selected to work with the New York University Ferment Center of Housing and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to really get into the policy analysis of good housing policy removing barriers, identifying new ones, and also the Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 7 March 16, 2023 relationship between housing and public health. In December of 2022, was our first of two or three housing stakeholder workshops. It was the intent of the City and our consultant team to make sure that we really reached out to a broad group of stakeholders. So, we didn't want it to be one sided and we wanted it to ensure that the voices of many were represented. Feedback received: ➢ Chronic homelessness is an issue ➢ Hotels are serving as permanent housing for many, but there is no way to quantify ➢ No starter homes are available in Pasco, forcing residents to leave ➢ Housing insecurity is a real concern for many (e.g., K-12 system students) ➢ Increasing concern for student renters ➢ A need to increase multi -family home supply, and a severe lack of rental units ➢ High -occupancy or overcrowded housing can be a nuisance if not managed carefully ➢ Not many affordable housing community organizations or agencies locally ➢ Too many growth regulations (GMA, Impact Fees, Time for approval) ➢ There is an affordable housing crisis in Pasco; minimum wage cannot support housing costs One big thing that's coming up quite a bit with all the industrial growth that Pasco is experiencing is workforce housing. What is workforce housing? Certainly for those new employers, employees at Amazon and Darigold, etc., the need to address housing and transportation accessibility together, so be more comprehensive in our policy development, the need for more community land trust, the need for tenant protection laws, the need to simply increase access to stable housing. Again, that's where we can take advantage of some of the work Kristen is doing on the Community Development Block Program to make sure to align the allocation of those funds with rehabbing housing units to make sure that they're able to stay in a habitable manner that remains in the cycle of availability. We have completed a lot of our housing existing data, for example, our analysis indicates that smaller households with less than four people have increased over the last decade. So, the amount of folks living in each household that's decreased is increasing. There's an increase in the age of the householders themselves and a decrease in the householders that are younger, which may mean that it's difficult for younger households to get into housing ownership. Home ownership a scary number, and that more than half of our renters who are seniors are cost burden, meaning that they are spending more than 30% of their income on housing, and 5% of all of our households are severely overcrowded. Next Steps: ➢ Public Survey -April ➢ 2nd Housing Stakeholder Workshop -April -May ➢ Draft Plan -late spring/early summer. OTHER BUSINESS None Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 7 March 16, 2023 ADJOURNMENT Chair Cochran stated with no other business, I recommend a motion to adjourn. Commissioner Moffitt made the motion to adjourn the meeting, it was seconded by Commissioner Hendler. Passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 7:15 pm. Is ectfulysubsen Patrick, Administrative Assistant II Community & Economic Development Department Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 7 March 16, 2023