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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05. 05-18-2023 Planning Commission Meeting MinturesCALL TO ORDER PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES City Hall -Council Chambers 525 North Third Avenue Pasco, Washington THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2023 6:30PM 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, Dana Crutchfield , Paul Mendez, Rachel Teel , Kim Lehrman, Jay Hendler and Jerry Cochran , a quorum was declared . Commissioners Excused : Abel Campos. Staff Present: Interim Community & Economic Development Director Jacob Gonzalez, Associate Planner Jeff Adams , and Administrative Assistant II Carmen Patrick. 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 li ve 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 clearl y 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 an y matter on tonight's agenda needs to be aired at this time or it will be waived. Chair Cochran asked if there were an y Planning Commission members who have a declaration at this time regarding any of the items on the agenda . Pl annin g Commi ss ion Meeting Mi nutes Page I of 8 May 18, 2023 ❖ 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 show s 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 Hendler mov ed to approv e the Planning Commission meeting minutes of April 20, 2023 , Commissioner Moffitt seconded , and the motion carried unanimously. OLD BUSINESS • Memo Shoreline Master Plan Periodic Update Jeffrey Adams stated his evening, our consultants, Ben and Laurel Floyd from White Bluffs Consulting will briefly review the comment matrix attached to the Planning Commission report and edits made to the Shoreline Master Program, which is also attached to your report. The Commission will then be invited to recommend the proposed changes to the City Council by vote. Mr. Floyd stated we've gone through this presentation and the changes that were proposed. We had the comment matrix before. You can see that's relatively minor comments. And rather than go through each of those items, I just want to wonder if you have any questions about any of those changes that are proposed that are before you in that comment response matrix. Comments/Questions from Commissioners: Commissioner Crutchfield asked about a comment that I kind of can make out here talks about a damage to the area that goes along the shoreline between Ivy Glades up to the Chiawana Park Boat Basin. It's noting that the maintenance personnel removed vegetation. Then the comment response, I'm assuming that's from the City about what they're going to do about that. So, I'm just wondering if there's more specifics , like who monitors it, when could we expect it to be mitigated, and who's in charge of that? It talks about a Shoreline administrator throughout this , and I'm assuming it's the City, but I did want to share this one thing that I know from down further on the shoreline where the slope comes pretty steep. There was some pretty major destruction to the shoreline there, with construction of concrete, retaining walls , placement of a large container for recreation of the parties . And it was allowed to continue with damage to the shoreline, even though there was a stop work order in place. So no one monitored it , to my knowledge, until it was brought to the attention of the City and as far as I know, it still isn't mitigated. So I wondered that's a lot of question , but I really wonder what we do with those kind of situations . Mr. Floyd answered I'll just say for the Shoreline Master Program itself, that is an example of Pl anni ng Com m ission Meeti ng Mi n utes Page 2 of 8 May 18, 2023 how it's implemented and managed and administered. We can only say so much in the actual program about how it should be administered. But then I'll tum it over to Jeff to talk about where the follow up is, because many of the comments that we received , you'll notice, are on this management administration part of this, which is really outside of the scope of what we're working on but is important for how this program works. It has to work effectively to protect the resources. Jacob Gonzalez interim Director of Community and Economic Development stated just wanted to supplement the information tonight. Absolutely , this is a concern that the City is taken seriously . As Mr. Floyd and Mr. Adams identified, there are actually provisions in the Pasco Municipal Code about what to do in violations of the Shoreline Master Program . City staff is coordinating with the Department of Administrative and Community Services about reaching back out to the individual who has identified the violation of the SMP and we are following up with that individual individually as we speak. So I just wanted to let the commission know that we followed up with the individual. It just so happened to be that it was a different department that we worked with that is actually applying the enforcement of the SMP. Commissioner Crutchfield continued one last question. It talks about substantial development and special use or variances. They do have to go through the Department of Ecology, right? Even though there is th is there's another check. Mr. Floyd answered yes. So substantial development permits can be issued by the City without ecology approval. But quite often, City or County staff reach out to Ecology if there's questions so it's done in a collaborative way. Variances and conditional uses require both City and Ecology approval. Commissioner Moffitt referenced questions on draft, page 168 regarding the substantial development permit. My question is, if you look at this, the increases over the period of eight years is only $2 ,088 , which is approximately 30%. And I would like to know what the City's average property values are because to me that seems like a very low. My second question is why do we have this at all? If we're going to allow people to, for example, build a dock and say if you build a dock cheaply , maybe throw some 55 gallon drums together and some 2 x 1 O's, and as long as you're under this value, hey, no problem , you don't need a permit. Mr. Floyd answered first of all , the figure for the dock or for the substantial development permit threshold comes from the State Office of Financial Management, and I believe it's indexed to the consumer price index that is probably based out of the Seattle market and it has gone up quite a bit. I understand there's maybe a lag, but I think it's as of July 2022 was the latest update. So , you've got almost a year of cost increases that haven't been reflected and this is already indexed . So , when OFM changes the threshold, it automatically becomes the new threshold for the City, even if it says in there that it's only $8,000. So, it's automatically indexed . Second is we have specific standards in other sections of the SMP for docks and you can't just do a couple of barrels , it has to be an approved dock. There 're specific lighting requirements , there's specific grading requirements , material requirements , dimensions , and it's pretty easy to get above that threshold . Now you also are on the McNary Pool , which is regulated by the US Army Corps of Engineers , and there's only so many new docks that they're allowing , and you Pl annin g Commission Meeting M inutes Page 3 of 8 May 18 , 2023 may already be beyond that. Once this program is adopted , the City has been told by the state that they're likely a very good candidate for receiving money to prepare a user guide. And in the user guide, that's a great place to talk about what we've just discussed. And so , we can take a note of that and assuming that we'll be helping with that in the future, we can make sure that gets included. Commissioner Lehrman pointed out to Commissioner Moffitt's where to find the information regarding docks and a hyperlink . So , you'll take action tonight, and you can even take action if you feel comfortable and are ready to say the council would approve it , subject to state support for it. But we'll share the draft red lines. We'll share the comment and response matrix. There's a whole bunch of affidavits for the publication for the hearing, the SEP A State Environmental Policy Act checklist. So, there's about nine or ten things that are part of that package. We'll send that to Ecology and ask them to make an initial determination on whether the SMP as updated complies with the law and the regulation. Ecology has 30 days to make their detennination and then they'll come back to us , and they might have one or two required changes, maybe none, and then they might have some recommended changes, and then we'll , as a staff, consider whether there's enough substance there to bring back to you or if it's just minor things and it's just little cleanup. And doesn't materially change your recommendation , then we could go to the adoption process with the council , and then it goes to Ecology , and there's an appeal period after that for , like , 15 days, and then it becomes final. Commission er L ehrman moved th e Planning Commission recommend staff deliver all SMP update docum ents as p er attached in th e Ma y 18, 2023 , Planning Commission report to Washington State Departm ent of Ecology for initial determination , Commissioner Moffitt seconded, motion passed unanimously . PUBLIC HEARINGS None WORSHOP • Memo Housing Action and Implementation Plan Good evening, members of the Planning Commission excited to be here virtually this evening to share with you some preliminary results associated with the Housing Action Implementation Plan . The intent of this presentation this evening is to provide a general overview of where we're at with the Housing Action Plan , and particularly with regards to the current housing conditions , which we'll spend most of our time on this evening, along with some preliminary strategies that have been identified between staff and our consulting team. So one of the things that we're required to do associated with the RCWS with the Housing Action Plan, is to conduct a current housing assessment of who lives in Pasco and what's the housing like in Pasco , which is one of the fastest growing cities in the Pacific Northwest. ► Population in Pasco 2022: 80 , 180 ► Median Age in Pasco 2021: 29.9 Pl annin g Commi ssio n M eetin g M inu tes Page 4 of8 M ay 18, 202 3 ► Median HH Income in 2022: $70, 400 ► Population Growth: Pasco 18 , 919 AAGR: 2.53%; Franklin County 20, 187 AAGR: 2.11% Three fourths of households in the City of Pasco are owner occupied, about one quarter are renter occupied , and the home ownership rate is significantly higher among our households that are age 35 and older. One of the indicators that maybe lead to the high ownership rate, which is really quite higher than the state average, is particularly due to the land use policies at the City of Pasco, where significant amount of the housing stock are single family detached units. I think that's the correlation between the availability of available rental units and the renters, as you can see on the screen here. Data from the building permits: ► The single family housing stock dominates the housing availability in the City of Pasco. ► There's been a decrease over the last five years more than the previous five years between 2010 and 2020 in the amount of multifamily units available, although we expect that number to dramatically increase over the next several years due to the private market meeting the demands of the growth and also the recent changes to the City zoning code to increase and accommodate a variety of family and housing availability. Regarding the increase of median household income, that income growth has not been felt by all residents of our community. Equally certainly, there's some room to grow in terms of ensuring that that income growth is being experienced by all of our members. It's important to note, I think, in conjunction with the Housing Action Implementation Plan, I think in July , we will probably be ready to share with the commission at least a draft of the Economic Development Strategy that is being prepared also by the City of Pasco . And I think what we'll be able to delineate is sort of the relationship between the jobs in Pasco and the incomes associated with those jobs in Pasco . So, what does affordable mean? The Department of Housing and Urban Development defines affordable housing as households that expend 30% or less of their household income on household costs. City of Pasco: ► Average Rent: $1,272; Affordable to households making $50, 880 ► Median Sale Price: $386,000; Affordable to households making $96,500 Renters and owners both experienced income growth between 2010 and 2021 , but the magnitude of the changes differs by tenure and renters are the most vulnerable to the rising cost of housing. This can be due to a variety of factors, including just the limited availability of rental homes on the market, certainly something that we will be looking at into the future. Who is impacted by housing is based on their employment in terms of the employment sector. So there is certainly a lot more room for us to make some improvements , identify some policy solutions, identify, and mitigate those gaps for our residents in the City. Pl annin g Commi ss ion Meeting Minutes Page 5 of 8 May 18, 2023 Needs: ► 15,000+ new housing units by 2040 ► Increase housing options for increased younger householders ► More housing for lower and middle income earners ► Housing options for seniors Strategies: ► Continued evaluation of potential regulatory barriers o Code amendments ► Housing Incentives o Subsidies o Regulatory relief o Increased flexibility o Fee Credits/Reductions ► Preservation of Housing Stock o Incentives o Subsidies ► Completed/On-going Regulatory Changes o ADU's allowed city wide o Missing Middle allowed 80%+ of zoned residential o Flexible standard increased near: public schools, parks and recreational facilities , health related services, public transportation, civic/government facilities o Residential Design Standards (In progress) o Updating Community Development Block Grant Policies o Anti-Displacement Policies We do not want to take a one size fits all approach. So what works in one city may not work in Pasco , but what this has shown is that there is a significant need and feasibility for us to hire staff that are focused on housing, increase our community engagement efforts , train staff not only at the City , but with our partner agencies on just the general awareness of available housing resources, partnering with our public agencies such as the school district chambers and economic development partners about housing opportunities and just continued work on the overall housing challenges we're facing in the community. Comments/Questions from Commissioners: Commissioner Crutchfield stated her concerns as the City was built to accommodate a certain amount of growth. We only have so much capacity for traffic, sewer, again , to accommodate and I hope that is being looked at by planning department since it is proposing this aggressive growth. I have a problem with part of this information that says they want to identify incentives to private developers via bonus densities and exemptions from certain development standards. Also , you may have a completely dead lawn next to one that is well taken care of and so I find that we're not even really taking care of those already established places. Also , I would hope the city would really look at those kinds of developments with a stem eye and safety for all. Jacob Gonzalez answered each county is responsible for allocating growth projections to each Pl ann in g Commission Meeting Minutes Page 6 of 8 May 18, 2023 of the jurisdictions within each county. So, we work closely with our partners literally across the street at Franklin County during our comprehensive planning years . Allocate that percentage that will be for Pasco and our neighboring communities do the same. Those are all derived out of the Washington State Growth Management Act. The forecast numbers themselves are delineated from the forecast team at the Washington State Department of Office of Financial Management. In tenns of the long range planning with regards to infrastructure, particularly transportation , water, sewer, irrigation, etc., I think it's safe to say that for the first time in a very long time , that the City of Pasco actually has all of our major long range planning efforts aligned together. And so when we work closely with the Department of Public Works and also the Division of Development Review Services, we all are using generally the same forecasting numbers. And certainly, there are some incentives that we can maybe evaluate and identify that maybe a practical and reasonable for growth in the City of Pasco. But by no means would those incentives be used to deteriorate or produce levels of service with regards to traffic, transportation, safety, or infrastructure that is less than the adopted level of service standard. So while there may be incentives that may be provided or recommended to the Planning Commission in the future about accommodating increased growth, certainly none of those would be to the extent that would deteriorate the levels of service that we experience on our roadways or on our infrastructure today. It's important to note that I think staff certainly has an eye on the growing transportation challenges across the city, the entire City along those lines . Staff will continue to bring back to the Planning Commission policy recommendations and code regulations that continue to address those challenges to increase access , increased connectivity, increased safety, etc. What's often lost about the housing discussion is that the second highest household expenditure outside of the household cost itself is the cost of transportation. And so, staff certainly is well aware. We welcome your comments , we encourage those comments. But by no means will we offer incentives or exemptions that would deteriorate the infrastructure credibility for residents or businesses in the City of Pasco. Commissioner Lehnnan stated I noticed that it says on page two that there were 825 responses from the survey April through May. I was wondering, in the past we've seen a lot of surveys go out. How does that number 825 compare to past surveys? Is that an increase about standard or below what you've seen in the past? Jacob Gonzalez answered, unfortunately, that's a pretty high number. We are excited that we had the staff report was drafted last week, so we're closer to 900. But ideally, we'd love to have a much higher number of responses in any survey or any engagement effort. We're never going to capture the entire community. But by no means will staff use this to be representative of the entire community, because it certainly is not. I think ideally, we would have much higher participation. I think what it really demonstrates is that there's more work to do in terms of increasing our engagement with members of the community. Commissioner Lehnnan stated you had mentioned about an increase in community engagement and hiring a new staff member to help out with that. Will that also include help promoting the community block grants to be able to possibly help educate and provide in multiple languages Planning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 7 of 8 May 18, 2023 so we can be able to attract a greater diversity of our residents to be able to capitalize on the same opportunities as others may? Jacob Gonzalez stated I think so. I think what we're going to be able to take advantage of, of the Housing Action Plan is a much more definitive set of recommendations that actually get us to these solutions versus broad based policy recommendations because, quite frankly , we've already addressed a lot of the regulatory changes . This Planning Commission has been a big part of that. Because of those successes , we can now move forward towards , I think, the more tangible recommendations , such as maybe hiring more staff or looking at reprioritizing our existing programs. I do know that in particular, our staff working with the Community Development Block Grant Program are working with our marketing team to identify some methods to increase engagement variety over across a variety of mediums to make sure that the community members are aware of that program. OTHER BUSINESS • Memo 2022 Comprehensive Plan Amendment Docket Jacob Gonzalez stated this is just a brief summary of what was accomplished during the 2022 cycle. The City Council adopted several ordinances , numbers 4649 through 4663 last month, I think , 15 out of 16 Comprehensive Plan Amendments that you saw over the duration of 2022 and the earlier parts of 2023 . Next you will see the privately initiated amendments that were adopted by Council. There was one amendment, that was continued for the 2023 docket because of the pending environmental review. But outside of that item , all of the other private and City initiated items were recommended by the City Council for approval and those are now essentially in effect. So what we will begin to see now over the next several months and likely several years, are the corresponding rezones associated with these land use amendments. The 22 docket is now complete and now we work on the 23 docket. And I think you'll be happy to know that we've only got two applications . One is the one that was continued from the 22 cycle. And then we have one new application . That period ended on May 1. And we expect to bring these two items back to you this summer and early fall , 2023. But really just an opportunity for us to thank the Planning Commission for your extensive involvement and effort in probably one of the larger dockets adopted in the state in recent time. Thank you for your time. ADJOURNMENT Chair Cochran stated with no other business, I recommend a motion to adjourn. Commissio ner L ehrman made the motion to adjourn the meeting, it was seconded by Commissioner Moffitt. Pass ed unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 7:35 pm . Carmen Patrick , A ministrative Assistant II Community & Economic Development Department P lannin g Commission Meet in g Min utes Page 8 of8 May 18, 2023