Good evening everyone. I call the July
15th, 2026 planning commission meeting
to order. The main purpose of tonight's
meeting is to hold a study session on
the city's work towards inclusion and
communication and to hear presentations
on the bike parking code, the electric
vehicle code, and the city's tree
retention and landscaping project.
Before we move on to the agenda, I'd
like to acknowledge our hybrid meeting
format. The city of both provides the
option to attend this meeting either in
person or remotely via Zoom.
For those participating in Zoom, please
note that the chat and question
functions are disabled to comply with
the Open Public Meeting Act. Public
comment is allowed both in person and
via Zoom. Those commenting will be
limited to 3 minutes. The city does not
tolerate verbal harassment. Please
remember this during your comments.
Zoom commenters and written submissions
were required by 300 p.m. today. Written
comments received by 3 p.m. have been
distributed to all commissioners and are
included in the record. This meeting is
being streamlined streamed live and the
live recorded for later viewing on the
city's YouTube channel. A call-in number
is provided for anyone listening by
phone. Staff will make every effort to
specify materials during presentations
for those joining by audio. At this
time, I will take a roll roll call for
commissioners. Commissioner Kieran
>> present.
>> Uh, Commissioner Morales is absent and
excused. Commissioner Westerbeck
>> here.
>> Commissioner Lever here.
>> Uh, Commissioner SS is absent and
excused. Commissioner Gufferson
>> here. Thank you.
>> Okay.
In addition, community development staff
attending tonight include deputy
director Christian Gats, planner
Jacquellyn Samson, community educ
engagement manager Mason uh Laa,
DEI manager Gabby Cona, planner Eric
Jazooi, civil civic spark fellow Jay
Huckkins, and senior planner Cameron
Coleman.
For all attendees,
speak clearly and pause frequently.
State your name before speaking. Mute
your microphone when not speaking. If
you are watching the live stream, please
mute it due to audio delay.
For commissioners, I will call on
members wishing to speak at designated
points during the presentation. Please
raise your hand to indicate you wish to
speak. Identify yourself before asking a
question, making a motion, seconding or
speaking in debate. Keep microphones
muted when not speaking.
We will begin today with public comment.
Written comments submitted by 3 p.m.
have been forwarded to commissioners. Um
there were not any for today.
Um we will call on those in the audience
or we would um to provide public comment
first. For Zoom commenters, we will call
on you next. If you are in the virtual
audience, please indicate your desire to
speak by using the raise hand function
and staff will panel you in. All
commenters will be limited to three
minutes. Is there anybody signed up or
in the audience wishing to speak besides
our presentations today?
>> There is no one in the audience and
there's no one in the Zoom audience uh
wishing to speak.
>> Okay. Um,
so hearing that there's no one who
wishes to speak today, we will move on.
Next is approval for the July 1st
minutes. Are there any corrections to
the minutes?
No. Okay. Uh, hearing none, the chair
will entertain a motion to approve the
July 1st mitten minutes as written. Is
there a motion?
Wonderful. Thank you,
>> Commissioner Kan. Commissioner Kieran, I
move to approve the minutes as
submitted.
>> Thank you, Commissioner Kieran. Is there
a second?
>> Commissioner Lever second.
>> It has been moved and seconded to appro
approve the July 1st minutes as written.
Is there any discussion?
Okay. Hearing none. Those in favor say
I.
>> I.
>> Okay. All opposed say no. The motion
carries and the minutes are approved.
Great. The first study session this
evening is presented by planner Jocelyn
Samson. Jacquellyn Samson, I'm so sorry.
Um, community engagement manager Mason
Laa and DEI coordinator Gabby Con.
Hi everyone. Today um we are here um my
name is Jaclyn Samson. I'm a planner
community development. I am joined with
Mason Laa who's a community engagement
manager as well as Gabby Kun who's a DEI
coordinator here coordinator here in the
city. Um we are here to present on
inclusion and communication in the city.
Um, at request from planning commission,
we were requested to have give more
information on just communication within
the city. Um, how marginalized
populations are reached out to and so
we're here today to just give you all
the information. Um, and hopefully
answer any other questions that you may
have.
Um, there is no action today. Um, the
purpose for the study session is just to
provide the planning commission
information on communication with
marginalized communities in the city.
So, I will pass it off to Mason.
>> Great. Thank you, Jacqueline. Hello,
commissioners. Pleasure to be here
tonight and tell you a little bit more
about how we communicate and engage with
our community. So, I'll start with an
overview. Overall, we proactively
connect with the community to keep folks
informed about the work that happens at
the city, right? And we look to also
engage them in helping us shape what the
future of BA looks like. And [snorts] we
do that through a couple different ways.
for keeping them informed. We
communicate across a variety of
channels, namely our social media
platforms. We also have an email
marketing program, so we directly email
folks. We have print newsletters that
get mailed across the entire community.
And we also have in-person experiences,
right, where folks can come and learn
more about the city as well as share
their feedback and provide input to help
shape policy and decision-m that you all
do. So this work is informed by the city
council's 2040 vision which really
serves as that overall roadmap for
everything that happens at the city and
for the communications and engagement
team. We take a look at that
holistically and make sure that all the
messages we share out with the community
as well as the opportunities we provide
for the community to engage with us are
really aligned with that vision and
providing the information needed at the
city to execute the vision. And the
communications and engagement team has
been busy this last year. We're a
relatively new team for the city and
we're continuing to grow and we're
focused on making sure we're modernizing
the ways that the city communicates and
engages with folks because we know how
different things are today. So with
that, I'll turn it over for any
questions.
Um, thank you so much. This is very
exciting. Can you help me better
understand who is the team and then what
does that really look like? And I do see
that the diversity and inclusion
coordinator Gabby is here helped me
understand the way that it is organized.
So I think I I realized lately I've been
providing or I have a better
understanding of how the feedback that I
can provide can really be related to the
operation. So knowing how challenging
outreach and engagement is and then
tracking all of that like what does the
FTE look like? How many positions like
who do you report to like just help me
understand.
>> Absolutely that's a great question. So
the team is structured as follows.
There's myself, the communications and
engagement manager, and then there are
three folks on our team. We have an
engagement coordinator. Their role is
really to work across the entire city
and connect with folks like Jacqueline
to find out, hey, what's going on in
your department? How are things
happening? How can we help support you?
Right? We also have a digital content
coordinator role, which is currently
being recruited for. This position is
mainly responsible for all of our social
media, our email, and our website
channels. So they take the information
that myself and our engagement
coordinator coordinate with all the city
and they put it out on those channels in
ways that make sense that are easy to
understand and are fun, right? Because
we want people to actually pay attention
to what we communicate. Third, the third
position we have is a website
specialist. They're really focused on
the back-end management of all those
digital platforms. We also as a city
have a cross- departmental engagement
team which has 16 members representing
all departments at the city and we meet
once a month to talk about hey at the
highest level what are we doing as a
whole city and then we break it down and
look at how are things going in your
department can you collaborate with
another department and then how can this
centralized team help support that work
» yes commissioner Kieran
>> yeah commissioner Kieran here um So what
have you found to be particularly
effective and does it vary by topic? Are
there certain things that you use for
you know one topic and something else
you use for something else?
>> Absolutely. So what you're you're saying
in uh lingo for the industry is called
channel segmentation. So what what
you're talking about is how do you
figure out what messages resonate in
which areas? One of the things that we
do is we take something that we need to
communicate on behalf of the city,
right? So in this case, it could be
something that the community development
department is working on and we'll say,
okay, what is the message that we need
to get out? Now, how do we tell it in
different ways that make sense for the
different channels we have and the
audiences that we know we connect with
on those channels? A great example of
this is for, you know, social media.
Instead of just taking the same content,
which we call, you know, copy, and
putting it across all of our channels in
the same way, we actually tell the story
a little bit differently. So, we have
activated a Reddit account for the city,
which is a great platform for us to
reach folks who don't engage elsewhere
because we can post in the community
subreddit. And we do that and we share
that information in a very different way
than we might on Instagram where we're
doing a short form video, which could
very well be Jacquine hanging out with a
selfie cam, right? Talking about what
the planning commission might be up to.
So, we we take information and we tell
the story very differently to make sure
it resonates with the folks that engage
with us in those different areas.
Yes, Commissioner Lever.
>> Thank you. Um, thank you for that answer
and the other one on the organization.
So, I have a question around like the
feedback that you do get and then the
audiences that you engage through your
different departments and your different
channels. uh sitting in these role like
I've seen so much feedback being
gathered and oftent times because we're
asking it asking about specific plans or
initiatives yet it might be there's that
correlation but it's not always so
obvious. So what are the ways in which
you kind of uh look at the feedback that
you're generating and the activation or
lack thereof to kind of really inform
the different audiences of things that
they may not be aware of through the
feedback that you're receiving because
it's the same message. Some people may
get it other people is just not
receiving it and that's a lot of work.
So what I'm hearing in terms of your
current infrastructure, there's a lot of
outputs, right? And making sure that you
are developing and creating, but how do
you actually analyze everything that is
getting out and what you're receiving
and how does that interplay with the
coordinator of diversity, equity,
inclusion around targeted outreach, uh,
underserved populations and yeah, that's
sort of
>> Yeah, absolutely. So we have an
engagement toolkit at the city which is
really a roadmap for how anyone who
works at the city can begin to work on
communications and engagement or manage
it themselves if they are as as a team.
We actually work very closely with Gabby
and with many others on staff to ensure
that all of our communications and
engagement programming has the the best
output that it can and also results in
the best input for the city. Right. And
that can be very challenging because as
you know um cities are in many lines of
business. We do so many different
things. You know, we're not one we're
not a retail brand that sells just
shoes, right? We we represent so many
different areas of of expertise and
infrastructure that it can be very
challenging to communicate all of those
in one place. So, when we work across
the entire city, we're really listening
to make sure that if something going on
in community development can be tied
together with something also happening
in public works, do we collaborate and
tell that story in a way that would make
sense to someone who doesn't work at the
city and doesn't understand maybe the
fine detail and difference between the
two, right? Um, we also make sure and we
in integrate a lot of best practices
into all of our content to ensure that
the messaging we put out is digestible
and understandable for a variety of
audiences to make sure it's as
accessible as possible. And that's
something that's very important to us.
Now, the second part of your question
was that that two-way street, right? How
do we engage? So, across all of our
channels, we often times lead with a
call to action, the CTA, which is, hey,
have questions about this or have an
opinion? here's how you can share it
back to the city, right? And we take
that information and anytime we get a
question or a comment on social media,
we we look at that comment or a question
and we try to answer it on that platform
so anyone else who may have the same
question or comment, right, can see the
response and then we take that and we
make sure to let the other folks in the
city know who are points of contact for
that area, hey, we got a question about
this. This is actually a great thing
that we might want to expand on. Can you
tell us more so we can do a follow-up
post or send a a follow-up email about
that project or program?
» Commissioner Westerbeck,
>> do you have a [clears throat] excuse me
a form of communication you found to be
the most effective or the one that gets
you uh the most results? I'm just
curious about that.
>> Absolutely. You know, social media is
the the topic dour, right? Everyone
likes to lean on it, but the problem is that it's also a volume game.
Everyone is on social media. And I'm
sure you if you are on any platforms
yourself have experienced the fatigue
that can come with that. And so I'm
answering your your question in a
roundabout way, which is to say we're
constantly analyzing all the different
ways we communicate and looking at what
makes sense. So I mentioned Reddit
earlier and Reddit's been a really
effective platform for us. We found that
um you know there's a a pretty diverse
audience who is who are active on Reddit
and a large swap of our community who
are active on Reddit. So when we post
about something like a road closure but
also an upcoming event and also hey did
you know there's a new building coming
downtown all those things can reach
folks who traditionally wouldn't
necessarily see it because our other
digital platforms like you know
traditional social media like Facebook
um Instagram the algorithms tend to
discriminate if you will against
information that might be boring quote
unquote right so the the solution to
that is actually the the nature of why
we have a digital content coordinator
which that role is entirely dedicated to
providing that storytelling in really
creative ways. If you look at um Wash
Dot as a good example, they do a great
job with their social media, right?
Because they are having fun with it and
that's entirely where we're going with
our platforms.
» There was a hand a hand raised.
>> Hi. Yes, I had my hand if that's okay.
Can you hear me?
>> Yes, of course. Go ahead.
>> Okay, perfect. Um, I just want to follow
up on the earlier commission uh
commissioner's question too about um how
do we specifically do outreach to
marginalized members of our community.
Um I'll talk a little bit more about it.
Um oh here, perfect. Um so one of the core tenants of the outreach that we
do here is understanding that um
equitable access to our services is a
foundational part of how we provide good
service um to our entire community. Um
and so we incorporate equity into
everything that we do. So, when we think
about the the tools that Mason had
mentioned earlier, um the um
communications plans, um we have a ton
of different resource guides that we
provide to all of our departments,
including our communications team, about
how do we make sure that the messages
that we're sending to our communities
are ones that really uphold our values.
And part of our values being having a
really welcoming community and building
the beloved community in both. Um, and
so we're we're very intentional about
ensuring that our communications team,
not only um the communications staff
that work in executive, but also the
communications team that is embedded in
all of our departments, um, meets quite
regularly with me um, as part of my
role. And then they also bring various
projects to me as well. Um, we have a
staff committee called the divein
committee. Uh, that's made up of staff
from almost all of our different
departments. Um, and they quite
frequently will bring a variety of
projects to me. Um, so that I can share
them with my um, connections. Um, and
one of the things that we found really
successful in doing community engagement
is understanding that um,
equity work in general can only move at
the speed of trust. Um and so as we work
in our community, um a key aspect of
really good high quality community
engagement for us is doing things like a
Lunar New Year festival with the library
or Hispanic Heritage Month event with um
a youth group because uh those those
like kind of oneoff activities really
bring um a wealth of trust and goodwill
in our community um that helps us make
connections that we can continue to rely
on. Um, and so those those events we
really see as major civic um civic
education opportunities uh to let people
know that there are connections that are
um at the city and if they ever have
questions or if they want to share
feedback they can reach out directly to
city staff. Um very oftent times um I
might be the only staff member that a
community member knows and so they'll
reach out to me directly to ask
something about their sewer maintenance.
Um, and while I don't know anything
about sewer maintenance, I do know the
folks of the city and I know the
mechanisms in the city um, for who I can
connect them with. So, we really see
that those really intangible
relationships are one of our best tools.
Um, and we we try to maintain those as
best as possible through really um,
building trust in the community. Um,
part of that is guided by our diversity,
equity, and inclusion belonging roadmap.
Um, our the current plan we're working
off of, which you can find on our
website at buffalo.govde backdei.
Um that part part of that plan is the
2023 through 2026 roadmap. We're
currently in the process of um building
the next iteration of that and we'll
continue to do that throughout the rest
of this year. Um but it really provides
a look into like the tangible steps and
action items that the city can take um
to create a more equitable environment.
is divided into five different goal
areas. Um some of which are more
internal and staff focused because we
know that we're also um one of the
really large employers in the city of
both and in our community. And so it's
also really important that our staff
feel like they're um that they have
equitable opportunity here. Um and so we really try to to make our our
diversity, equity, and inclusion program
very actionoriented. Um there are also
several initiatives that the program is
currently working on that you won't find
in the DEI road map. Um one of the major
reasons that it's called a road map um
is because we hope that it stays
responsive. Um and like Google Maps, if
it tells you that a road's closed, you
don't just charge ahead. um when we go
through our DEI initiatives and we find
that something isn't really what our
community wants or it's not what our
community needs and we're hearing that
from our community, we adjust um and we
adjust based on um budget and staff
capacity too. So um we haven't had too
many changes in the DEI road map uh that
have delayed projects, but we have had a
lot added to it that wasn't originally
in that when we were thinking about this
road map in 2022. Um and so we've been
able to stay really flexible. Um, in
your packet I included some of the
initiatives that I thought were most
relevant to this group. So, some of that
is our language access plan has had a
lot of work done on it. Um, and we do a
lot of outreach and training with our
staff related to language access and
ensuring that they know how to use
interpretation and translation resources
that are available to them. Um, we just
rolled out a new program for city staff
related to bilingual pay. um so that we
can not only recruit a really diverse
workforce, but that we can best serve
our community. So when you walk into
city hall, you're more likely to
encounter somebody who speaks the
language that you speak. Um and then we
also this last year created the DEI
advisory committee. So it functions a
little bit like a board and commission.
Um though it is not uh a council board
or commission, it's actually advises
staff directly. Um, and that's a group
of 14 individuals who uh represent uh
various identities in our community. Um,
and have the opportunity to give a ton
of feedback on projects throughout the
city. Um, so all of our departments have
come and just like I'm doing here,
they've presented to the DEI advisory
committee. They've asked for questions,
they've gotten feedback, and then as we
continue going through uh planning
initiatives, um those big plans are
brought to the DEI advisory committee.
So, for example, um one of our
departments, the police department is
currently um exploring bodywn cameras
and that's being brought to our DEI
advisory committee so that we can have
an opportunity to give some feedback and
the hope is that that's really a two-way
street so that members of the DEI
advisory committee will go out and share
that um with the communities that they
feel most connected with um in both. Um
so, that was a lot um of monologuing.
So, please let me know if you have any
questions. Um, I am always happy uh to
answer any questions that you might have
about our budding DEI program.
» Commissioner Lever,
>> thank you. That's super helpful. Um, I
have two questions around that are more
like technical. So, when it comes to the communications and the DEI and the
technology, where are you with AI and
then how are you using it or leveraging
or planning on using it? Do you have a
policy in place knowing that it's kind
of here to stay and how does that impact
your day-to-day? And then the other one
is around the accessibility. I think as
I was listening to this uh for the web
accessibility deadline to make sure that
the websites I know the deadline was um
extended to make sure that it it
complies with the title two of ADA. Uh
is that under your shop? And if so, how is that one going in terms of um the
review that needed to happen?
Gabby, do you want to start with
>> Sure, I can start. Um, uh, yeah. So, um,
the city does have a, uh, generative AI
use policy, um, that was finalized, I
believe, last year. Um, I did have the
opportunity to look through that policy.
Um, and one of the things that was
called out in that policy is um an
understanding that AI um has been known
to repeat uh stereotypes and um
just uh sorry I'm coming off of a
migraine. It's been known to repeat
stereotypes and harmful biases that
we've seen um that humans carry and have
built into AI because at its core AI is
built by humans. Um, and so there is
part of our policy is uh an
understanding that city staff at the end
of the day are responsible for reviewing
anything that they use to use AI to um
create and that they're viewing it with
an equity mindset to understand um and
look for any uh duplicated biases or
anything that might come out of um using
programs trained on historically biased
material. Um so we did try to build
equity into that policy as much as
possible. Um, and I'll hand it over to
Mason to talk about AI and
communications work.
>> Thanks, Gabby. So, we employ a AI in a
variety of ways that are really helpful
for us, but we have also been in
consultation with Gabby and others at
the city to make sure that we're doing
that and responsibly. And one of the
things that AI can be really beneficial
for, especially when it comes to
communications or engagement, is taking
technical or complex language and
simplifying it. So to be as accessible
and digestible as possible with our
content and our communications and our
messaging, we try to make sure we're
talking about city operations and
updates in plain language. So it's
digestible for folks at varying um
levels of of English proficiency, right?
Um the thing that's important about AI
is you don't want to use AI to translate
documents because it's not certified to
do so responsibly. So we don't do that.
But we also have a shared model here
where we're a small team for
communications and engagement and we
work with every department. So sometimes
we'll be working with a traffic engineer
for instance. So someone who's very
technically minded and brilliant at what
they do, but they're not necessarily a
communications professional. That's what
they have us for, right? So we may get
complex technical information from a
traffic engineer. And we can use AI to
help assist us in putting in plain
language. So not only do we understand
it, but then we can make sure that the
messaging we're providing to the
community about whatever the work is is
also digestible by them. But in order to
be responsible, we make sure that that
gets reviewed by the original source to
ensure it is accurate and compliant.
Right. So that's one example of how we
might use AI. We also use it from a
productivity standpoint. It's very
helpful for helping draft content, for
helping um revise or or amalgamate
content. Um and we talk a lot about the
use of AI and our cross-d departmental
engagement team. So folks like
Jacqueline who sits on that committee um
is also hearing about how we as the
communications and engagement team are
using it and then they can implement it
in their work as well.
And for the uh compliance with the other
>> I can follow up on that part. I'll start
and then right I'll hand it back to
Mason. Um so uh we actually don't hold
ADA compliance under the DEI umbrella.
Our philosophy for diversity, equity,
and inclusion is really that um it is a
cultural shift in mindset um and that shift in mindset doesn't do its
best uh through a compliance lens. Um
and so we actually hold compliance for
ADA in our HR department which is
separate from our diversity, equity and
inclusion program. That said, um part of
my workload is around building a culture
of inclusion and accessibility in the
city of both. Um and so I have consulted
on some of the uh aspects around ADA. um
or some of the aspects around disability
inclusion and really meaningful
disability inclusion that goes beyond
just the bare minimum of legally
compliant but really what it looks like
to build a community where disabled
folks are welcomed and included and can
participate fully in their government
and their community. Um, and so we talk
a lot about that through like the
cultural lens, but then through the
actual um, compliance lens, uh, I
typically hand that over to our ADA
coordinator and Mason's team to work
through some of the the new updates to
the ADA or the new enforcement and
compliance dates.
>> Great. And thank you, Commissioner. I
know you asked about the WCAG
compliance, right, which is our web
accessibility mandate from the
Department of Justice. So, at the city,
we've been talking about this for a
while now and ensuring that we are
compliant. It is a complex body of
policy, right? Um, and so the the way
that it applies to us is is kind of
twofold. So, there's products that we
produce ourselves that we need to make
sure are compliant. So, that's certain
digital content, PDFs for example. Um,
but then there are platforms we utilize
like our website, like engage both,
which are actually thirdparty vendor
systems. So, we need to make sure that
we're communicating and connecting with
them to see how are they going to become
compliant, right? Because we don't
actually manage um the system that we
may communicate on. So, fortunately, the
vendors that we use, we've been in early
contact with and um we're not the only
public agency dealing with us, right?
So, they've been ahead of the ship. Um
and there's a lot of work happening with
those platforms to make sure that they
are compliant. We've been um our website
platform and engage both are also
already compliant with the current
guidelines. The tricky part for us then
is for our staff, we have many folks who
are utilizing those platforms, helping
manage the content on those platforms.
And so the platform itself may be
compliant, but we need to make sure that
the inputs we provide are also
compliant, which is where we've been
developing the guidance we're going to
be sharing internally at the city to
help folks across um all departments
make sure that when they're using these
platforms, we can ensure the integrity
of their compliance. Yeah.
Okay. Well, I thank you. This has been u
really uh really elucidating. Um I I
have a few questions. Um this is such a
great um rich con con um subject area
that um yeah, I just have a few things I
wanted to kind of sink my teeth into. Um
I was wondering, you guys have done a
great job in outreach um online and
through the mail. How do you reach out
more to people who are homebound,
non-mobile, or um less present in the
community online?
>> I'm going to have Gabby answer that, but
I'm going to share some some context
from the communication side, and I'm
sure Gabby, you'll have you'll third
party input. Um, we absolutely recognize
that we, you know, our entire community
is not in a vacuum. We're not siloed,
right? We don't have one platform that
reaches everybody. So, of course, when
we throw something up on social media
that does really well, that's great. and
we can look at those numbers and say
that was a lot of reach but we don't
necessarily know exactly who those folks
are and we absolutely know that we're
not reaching everyone in the community.
So, we take a holistic approach at
making sure that we don't just
communicate on our owned channels,
things that we directly manage, but we
work with our community- based
organizations to be ambassadors because
often times we know that folks in the
community, especially if they're uh less
connected, right, may have a connection
point with a church or a religious
organization or a service organization
or a provider um or even a recreation
group, right? And so we try to to
maintain really strong relationships
with different community based
organizations and when we have a large
initiative we do outreach with them to
say can you please share this because we
want to hear from your folks about this
project this initiative and this um
something that we work really closely
with the community development
department on Gabby anything to add on
that.
No, I think this just um really hearkens
back to the importance of those really
um strong relationships on our community
and actually working with trusted
community leaders um far more than if
information is coming directly from city
staff members. We know that the webs
that we've built in the community of
folks that know that we will take their
feedback seriously um and then will
advocate for us. So when we do something
like a survey or we're looking for
feedback, um just like Mason said, the
service providers that we have in our
community do a really great job of
spreading the word. We do very
community, we do very targeted community
specific outreach to those service
providers. Um, and we work really
closely with our human services
coordinator, Anand, um, who is also
within the executive department. And
he's able to he has a huge list of
service providers in the Buffalo
community who are able to to reach folks
that we might not otherwise be able to
engage with for those reasons.
» Yeah. Um, and then I'll go over
community engagement within community
development. Um basically community
engagement is very important within the
long range planning efforts in um within
the city. Um we
try to do a variety of different
outreach methods in order to get
feedback on different projects um coming
from different residents or people come
into both. Um we do that through both um
in person as well as virtual. Um some
virtual examples, we have our engage
both bath website that um we have um
different surveys on there. Um different
ways for people to give feedback what by making an account um on that
platform. Um we've also had different
focus groups where people can meet both
virtually and we've also had focus
groups in person um where um people can
have input on different projects. Um,
for example, for a housing action plan,
we've had different focus groups
targeting different populations going
from students um to the elderly to
homeowners just to make sure that we can
um get a large range of opinions on the
housing action plan. Um, we've tabled
different community events as well. Um,
for examples, we the chai holy event
over in um um the downtown park here in
Pabell as well as um different events at
UDub bothl. we've t tabled as like
sustain mania um different environmental
um programs as well. So trying to really
meet where the people are is very
important to us. Um we in order to get
that um feedback on different longrange
projects. Um an examp
place feedback um giving tours around
downtown. Um, so we really want to
prioritize that engagement um with
historically underrepresented people and
marginalized people by being able to
create a large range of um engagement
activities and ways for people to
connect and um to get their voice out
whether that is online or us meeting
them where they're at.
Um yeah, and there's no action required
today. Um the purpose of purpose of this
study session was just to provide the
planning commission information on
communication with marginalized
communities in in the city [snorts] and
that yeah
um well thank you so very much and I
really enjoy all the content that's out
there and I have the opportunity to go
to some of your tableling events and
everything. So that is really wonderful
and I am just so pleased to hear that
you do have a robust communications team
and hopefully that will continue to get
bigger because we are communicating all
the time on our phone. So thank you so
much.
» Um if I may just ask a a few more
questions. I was wondering how do you
guys um measure success? Do you have
certain benchmarks when you're
communicating for a certain percentage
of representation through your outreach
or what do those um assessment and
benchmarks look like?
>> Just hearkening back to a question I was
asked when I was interviewing for this
job. Um you know as a team I think we've
I've instilled a really good policy on
this which is the numbers are one part
of the story but they're not the whole
and what I mean by that is we measure
success by looking at analytics. So the
hard data, right, the the quantitative
data that we can gather about our
different channels and that might tell
us something, but we're we as
communicators are intuitive enough to
know that we don't reach everyone in the
community, right? We look very closely
at the qualitative feedback that we're
able to gather from folks in the
community such as those community- based
organizations. So a good example of
this, when we have an in-person event
and folks show up, we will often ask
like, "Oh, great. How'd you hear about
it?" Right? um, oh, what what made you
come out today? And we we log that
mentally, but we actually do track that
feedback because what we're trying to
understand is how are we actually
connecting with people and are the
messages that we're sharing out reaching
a representative body of our community?
And that's so hard to identify just by
looking at the numbers, right? So, it's
a combination of analyzing performance
of social media posts, right? or a open
rate of an email campaign that we've
done, but matching that and benchmarking
it with the feedback that we're getting
from staff and from attendees and
looking at where are the gaps or is
there overlap that we can maybe lean
into. Um, and actually getting on Reddit
was beyond just being a good best
practice was the result of understanding
we need to change our social media
strategy to match how the community is
changing the ways they engage on those
platforms, right?
Um along those lines, can I was really
um intrigued by what Gabby said about um
building webs and can you tell me a
little bit more about how you establish
some of those connections with um you
know
churches or people who may not be able
to be online. very often the
marginalized people or those who are not
represented is because they don't aren't
comfortable in public or can't come to
uh can't use the regular channels of
communication. So, um I was really
interested to hear I'd be interested to
hear more about building these webs
input from those populations who have a
harder time um connecting with our
government. Can you tell me a little bit
about that?
>> Yeah, absolutely. Um those webs start
really organically and sometimes a
little boringly. Um the I think
philosophy really started out of our
proclamation process which I don't know
how familiar folks are in the audience
with the idea of proclamations. Um but
we realized very very early on that our
equity or our community and cultural
proclamations were best done when they
were written by the community members
that really had those lived experiences.
And so we started going out in the
community and actually asking for them
to take part in writing those
proclamations. And from there we started
developing these like very um specific
touch points for community members that
we might not otherwise engage with. So
we were really intentional. we went out
and we found folks that represented
those identities and not just like
community members but folks that were
associated with some sort of community
organization um that was related to
advocacy or related to that cultural
experience. Um and so in using what is
kind of a boring government process and
turning it into a civic education and
engagement activity um we started
building trust in the community and then
from there um they just go out. So, we
try really hard not to work with the
same um the same cultural group twice
for a proclamation. And so, then we've
been able to build kind of um a a uh
rolodex of folks who are active in our
community who have specific identities
that we want represented and the
feedback that we're looking to to bring
in. And then um we touch base with them
really regularly. So, we have um I have
calendar reminders set up um and our
team has calendar reminders set up that
is like, "Hey, if you haven't heard from
somebody in a couple months, um check in
with them, send them an email, ask what
kind of projects they're working on." Um
and so really that person-toperson
connection, um meeting folks for coffee.
I think in the first six months that I
started working with the city, I was
meeting people for coffee like multiple
times a week. um just to really put that human interaction into place. Um so
that they knew that they had somebody at
the city that they could ask their
questions to and even if I didn't have
the answer, I'd be able to find the
answer. Um and once you have, you know,
five or six folks in the community who
really trust you and have worked with
you, they'll start vouching for you. Um
and saying, "Hey, actually, I know I
heard you're working on this project.
Have you considered this perspective? I
know somebody in the community who might
be interested." Um, so it really is like
very personto person. It's slowgoing
work. Um, but we found that it's really meaningful in getting um,
trusted, lasting um, mutually beneficial
relationships in our community. Um, that
can be sustained over multiple years and
new employees. Um, one of the things
that can be really difficult sometimes
for an organization is when um, one
person makes as a ton of relationships
in the community, but those
relationships are really reliant on that
one person being in that one role. Um,
and so we try as much as possible to
share those relationships with multiple
staff members so that that web can stay
really strong even if um, a staff member
leaves or if a community member leaves
the city. I hope that answered your
question.
>> Yeah, absolutely. That was really
helpful.
Commissioner Gustoson.
>> Hi, Sarah Gustoson here. I'm grateful
for a lot of things. First of all, I'm
grateful for the very substantive
questions that my fellow commissioners
are asking because these questions have
really allowed us to see how well this
work has been going. If we take a moment
to reflect on what's happening here, um,
coordinator Gabby,
manager Mason, senior planner
Jacqueline, the work you've been
describing, building trust through these
cultural events, letting equity move at
the speed of trust, using new tools like
Reddit and AI, but taking accountability
for them. This is just what both needs.
Gratefulness to everyone. Thank you.
Uh thank you, Commissioner Gerson. Um I
just have a few more um quick quick
notes that I really I feel like um as
Commissioner Gerson said, uh getting the
answers to would just go on further to
um highlight the great works you guys
are doing. You talk about um a culture
of inclusion which is fantastic. It's
very impermeable and
for a lot of people is just pie in the
sky like oh those are beautiful words.
what you're what does that mean? And I
really pick up, you know, through the
documentation I've seen through so many
events and um some of the the things
you're doing to reach out to um [snorts]
cultural inclusion is phenomenal, but of
course cultural isn't our only um isn't the only marginalized populations
we're trying to draw in. And some of um
there are so many other
less colorful populations
um such as uh the mentally ill um those
people who are homeless that it can be
harder to host a party um around and how what what efforts are you making
out? Can you talk to me more about
creating a culture of inclusion in our
city when I mean, [snorts] you know,
[clears throat]
it sounds insurmountable, but I I know
you guys have have techniques and
process already.
» Well, the good news is is those
challenges are um things that we work
on, right? And we've made progress on.
Gabby, did you want to jump in with
something?
>> Oh, you can go. If you got something to
say first, I can.
>> Sure. Well, you know, when we talk about
communications, um something that you
may be painting with your question is a
lot of it to say, "Hey, good news. This
is happening or we want your feedback on
this." But there's also many times um
that we have to communicate urgently or
quickly with the community and we know
we can't reach everyone. Um especially
when you're talking about folks who may
be dealing with um different levels of access to information um or who may
be unhoused, those can be very
challenging folks to to reach, right?
because we don't necessarily know how
they engage with us. A print mailer
isn't going to make it to them, right?
We don't know what their access to
social media may be. So, we don't ignore
the fact that again the the web of
ambassadorship in our community through
relationships is a really important um
communications tool and a listening
tool. And I feel um strongly that the
work that we've done and the partnership
we have with Gabby and with Anand, we
talk very regularly about how can we
make sure that we both have our eyes and
ears um in different corners of the
community and that we recognize that not
everyone has the same level of access to
engage with us. Right. [snorts] So
that's a a philosophical approach that
we take in the way that we communicate
and I think that um a lot of the
relationship building that that Gabby's
been speaking to has has helped make
progress in that area. Gabby.
Um yeah, that's almost exactly what I
was going to say. Our human services um
program is really a major way that we do
that. So um we very regularly uh we have
a monthly human services um forum that
our human services coordinator leads and
that brings in um leaders of human
services organizations throughout the
entire King and Snowomish County area um
serving both residents. Um I think at
our last human services forum we had
like 70 plus um leaders of human
services organizations at those and
those are the folks that are working
directly with our community members
dayto-day. So at the city we aren't
doing that oneto-one work um of
providing services but they are um and
so we do have these um scheduled touch
points with them uh where they're
learning about projects they are um here
they're uh giving the feedback that they
are hearing out in the community back to
the city. Um, so we have kind of this
closed loop that we have um with folks
that are actually the ones that are
serving folks at organizations um for
folks that are experiencing food and
housing in security um who need
emergency funding. Um so for for any of
our organizations, they are um actively
participating in engagement with the
city already. Um and that's been
incredibly crucial when we think about
some of these big plans um that we we
want their feedback on. um but we don't
know where to get it. We are working
directly with the organizations that are
supporting them. Um we also specifically
when we think about disability advocacy
um we have really close relationships
with our disability um advocacy and
activism um and support programs in the
city of both. We work very closely with
Kindering uh the Alyssa Bernett Center
and together we shine. Um and so they've
been really really really strong
partners with us. We actually um I co-e
a class at the Alyssa Bernett Center
quarterly. Um they have a disability
self- advocacy class that we're heavily
involved in. Um, and so we really do try
to ensure that when we think about a
culture of inclusion, we're thinking
about all different aspects of the human
experience, whether that be um, class,
race, ability, um, origin of birth, like
so many different um, um, so many
different lived experiences, experience
marginalization in different ways, and
they overlap in very different ways. Um,
and so we try to be incredibly
considerate of all the different ways
that we can uh best reach out to our
city and make sure that everybody feels
included and is heard.
» Uh, thank you. That's a really helpful
um to know about. Along those same
lines, um as uh as part of the DEI
office, you know, I keep reflecting back
to this event in um I believe it was a
federal way just um a couple weeks ago
um between the police and the mentally
ill man. Um
how
do you work at all with law enforcement?
And I I believe that at one point law
enforcement had a a PACE officer or um a
crisis intervention team member, but I
haven't heard anything about that
recently. Do you work with a crisis
intervention team member and do you work
with law enforcement at all?
>> So I do. So the Basel Police Department
is when we think about the um one of the
departments within our city government
that I help advise, serve, train,
consult with. Um, I do work with them
quite heavily. Um, I'm working on
projects with them right now. Um, and we
talk a lot about training and
recruitment for law enforcement
officers. Um, and so yes, I do
absolutely work with them quite heavily.
Um, and then we do have a regional
crisis response team. Um, and that is
um, it serves multiple cities within our
region. Um, but it does um, work in with
the Basel Police Department quite
heavily. Uh I've worked with them on
projects um uh here and there, but
they're oftentimes out in the field. Um
and so I don't work with them um I would
say like routinely, but I have worked
with them before. I know their names. I
know like who they are um and have
interact with them. Um but I don't work
with them on a day-to-day basis.
» Thank you. Um Commissioner Lever, did
you have a comment you'd like to make?
>> Yeah, thank you. So I I guess uh the one
thing that I um I'd like maybe like um
offer a suggestion. I know often times
we talk about community and who might
not be at the table who who is the
community and there's a lot of that up
that comes our way through the different
presentations and it always seems to
come from different sources or uh
points. So even as we are discussing
today what it means to communicate like
really sort of having that one template
that can be incorporated in every
document that we receive just to really
remind us of who is it that we're
talking about because even as you're uh
mentioning sort of like the own house
and others even we know that we may not
know exactly how many own house may be
within our city uh but there are some
data points that we can reference to and
rather than and I think it'll be super
helpful for us to always remember who is
not at the table, but we want to really
honor their presence through the data
points that you do have and try to
standardize that. uh so that it's almost
like it drilling it to us because we
always talk about okay who is not at the
table and to your point some people may
respond to one particular initiative but
not the other and the more that we
understand who's not really who do we
need and is not there and then who is
way too much in there that will be super
helpful and I think if we could just
have something that could be standard
and and that will help us really
understand the who uh will be a helpful
tool just thank you
Commissioners, further comments,
questions?
Well, I know that this has been very beneficial towards me. Um,
very um very appreciative of everything
you've um helped us understand today. Um
and uh again, we look forward to hearing
more from you. Don't be strangers to um
the commission. We are we're always
interested in um what you're hearing
from all aspects of community.
>> Excellent. Thank you, commissioners.
Appreciate it.
» [snorts]
>> Okay. Again, thank you to um planner
Samson, manager Leivera, and coordinator
Cona. Um the next is [clears throat] an
update on the bike parking code from
planner um Eric Jazooi.
Thank you, planner Jazooi.
» Thank you, chair and commissioners. Uh if you can just bear with me just
have to open my presentation. Thank you.
[snorts]
Okay. Uh, yes. Hello, commissioners. Um,
I'm Eric Jazooi, the long range planner
with the community development
department,
and I am here
presenting on uh draft proposed bike
parking standards.
No action is required today. This is
simply a study session on uh staff's
preliminary proposal and and discussion
among commissioners, questions and the
like.
The goal of this code update project is
to ensure optimal bike parking standards
are applied for new development or
redevelopment.
In my presentation, I'll be walking you
through the background information, some
data points, the draft proposed code
amendments, and opening it up for
planning disc planning commission
discussion at the end.
First, some background.
In December 2024, the comprehensive plan
update was adopted and it incorporated a
lot of new policies and and
information. Uh, one of those is was
policies was to emphasize travel by
non-auto modes including biking, walking
and transit and additionally requiring
new development where applicable to
incorporate appropriate design features
such as bicycle and micromobility
parking.
In 2025, mid 2025, the planning
commission and city council heard and
city council approved the repeal of
motor vehicle parking minimums as an
implementation action from the comp plan
update. At the same time that ordinance
established initial bike parking
standards in the code
since the initial bike parking standards
were adopted. This was about I believe
June mid 2025. The department has
received multiple project applications
and observed that the standards resulted
in quite large quantities of bicycle
parking being required.
So the community development department
proposed revisiting the existing bike
parking standards with planning
commission in May where we held an
initial study session to get your
preliminary feedback.
We heard a variety of comments and
questions and I hope that these
summarize at least the major points we
heard from planning commission to
collect both specific data on bike
parking usage.
uh that proximity to bike facilities and
transit um stations is important. Focus
on focusing on the quality of bike
parking and the accessibility of bike
parking uh among many other areas of
interest listed here.
One of those requests from planning
commission involved collecting some
basic local data. So since May, we
conducted a survey to sample bike
parking information using telephone and
observational methods.
For the survey, we sampled a wide
variety of land uses both in downtown
and suburban areas of the city.
More information on this data is in
attachment two of your staff of the
staff report. Uh but summarized here for
uh long-term bike parking, we observed
for residential uses that around 20% of
residents used the bike any existing
long-term bike parking. Uh or uh said
another way, about 25% of the dwelling
units uh utilized bike parking spaces
for non-residential uses. This could be
commercial, civic,
uh recreation, things like that. uh
maybe not in this case recreation but
office as another example. We observed
quite a wide range um the bounds of
which were between zero uh of those
long-term spaces were used and up to 15%
were used. Um again for for more
information on which land uses had which
uh you can look at attachment 2.
for short-term bike parking. This
observation involved driving around the
city and trying to find um bike racks
that were visible from the street or a
publicly accessible area where I found
bike racks in that in those locations. I
logged um the land use and found that
between none and one bike bike bike was
parked there at this specific point in
time.
So pretty low uh in my opinion.
Okay. The proposed draft amendments uh
after reviewing the background
information, best practices, other
jurisdictions approaches and the data
staff prepared and the data staff
prepared some draft proposed code
amendments for your consideration today.
Something to keep in mind before I dive
into the proposed changes is about the
existing code. Uh it applies
bike parking is required for any
occupancy permit of a new or enlarged
building. So that would be a a new
construction situation or for a change
of use in any existing building. Um the
current code is somewhat limited.
There's a a list of four land uses in
there that have to provide bike parking.
That would be multif family housing,
commercial uses, office uses, and
attended off- streetet parking uses. So
that would be a parking garage, paid
parking garage situation.
Besides that, no other uses are required
to provide bike parking in today's code.
[clears throat]
So the first proposed change for your
consideration is the applicability of
the regulations.
Staff is proposing to require the
provision of bike parking for any
proposal within a quarter mile walking
distance of an existing bike facility or
a planned bike facility or a bus rapid
transit high-capacity transit station.
That would be like the uh stride line on
522.
And you can see a map of those
facilities on the right side of this
slide. There's bus st bus stops. Um most
of the very thick lines are are proposed
or planned um bike facilities and some
of the less bold lines, thinner lines
are existing.
[snorts]
Next, the proposed code would apply bike
parking rules to additional land use
types such as or including those excuse
me, additional land use types as listed
here. uh for example dormitories,
government services, industrial uses,
health and social services uh and so on.
None of these are currently required to
provide bike parking today.
While the regula the regulations would
be broadened as mentioned previously,
they would also incorporate recognition
of special cases.
First, there would be reductions allowed
for STEP housing, which is defined as
supportive housing, transitional
housing, emergency housing, and housing
for people with disabilities.
Recognizing that those situations may
have uh less demand for bicycle parking.
Also, deviations would be allowed to the
uh to the proposed quantities
uh as long as an applicant submitted
sufficient evidence that they um could
provide less bike parking than required.
Next, exemptions. The proposed draft
code would establish certain land uses
to be exempt from providing bike
parking. Um,
single unit housing, that be single
family housing or a townhouse, senior
housing,
vehicle oriented uses like a gas station
or a automaintenance shop, parks, golf
courses, although [snorts] I have ridden
my bike to a golf course and played
golf, but not a common activity. So um
food trucks, outdoor dining, other
exemptions in the proposal, agricultural
uses, utilities, transportation
facilities, mortuaries and cemeteries,
essential public facilities and fire and
police stations.
[clears throat] Uh other special cases
uh that are in the proposal
is when there are large mixeduse
developments. Um, these would have bike
parking quantities determined by the
director based on the specific mix of
uses, context,
um, location, things like that. [snorts]
And any land uses, I tried to be
exhaustive in the proposed code, but if
there's anything that's not in there,
um, those would be again determined by
the community development director
looking at, um, similar land uses and
intensities and characteristics.
Lastly, the proposal would eliminate an
existing exemption. This is something we
heard from planning commission in May.
Um uh the current exemption allow uh ex
current uh regulation exempts small
buildings under 2500 square ft uh from
providing bike parking. We heard that
there may be small uses that should have
a space or two. So um we propose to
delete that exemption based on planning
commission's feedback.
Okay. So, first the quantity
requirements.
Uh these this is I know kind of a lot of
text and and numbers and things. So, um
at the end I'm happy to to walk you
through any of these in specific uh
cases.
But the proposal would generally reduce
the required or the proposal would
reduce the required amount for multif
family residential shown here.
It would also clarify the amount
required for co-living units as that's
not currently uh listed in the use maybe
multif family in the current code.
Affordable housing would be required to
provide one and a half times the
residential quantity. Uh understanding
that potentially people may um rely more
on their bikes in those types of land
uses.
Uh again, supportive transitional
housing, emergency housing, and housing
for people with disabilities uh would be
permitted for half the residential
quantities in the first two rows
depending on whether that step housing
is as a co-living or a multifamily type
building. Um in any case, two spaces
would be required regardless uh of what
these calculations result in.
Next list of uses
would apply long-term bike parking
requirements to non-residential uses
based on the pro based on the proportion
of employees. So, in the proposal, we
established uh one bike parking space
per 20 employees or staff. [snorts]
Uh this is different than what's common
uh in other places where it's based on
the square footage. We thought this was
a little bit more straightforward and
easier to understand
for those uses here that are currently
regulated. So there's kind of some uses
added and some uses that that currently
have to provide bike parking. Those
currently regulated here, which is
specifically retail, uh eating and
drinking establishments,
um
the requirements proposed would
generally be lower than today.
for office use, which is currently
regulated, it would actually result in a
little bit more bike parking required.
Um, making an assumption of of square
footage per employee.
Uh, an added use, some added uses that would now be required to provide
bike parking, business and personal
service, um, recreation, culture and
entertainment, and industrial.
Last quantity slides. So, thank you for
bearing with me here. Uh, these are all
new uses uh that would propose be
proposed to be added into the code. Once
again, uh the long-term spaces based on
the number of employees [snorts] and
short-term uh parking standards are are
established as well, of course. Um and I would say in in these cases and
the ones previously, they all sort of
result in a a lesser or sort of a lower
end um compared to other jurisdictions.
um parking requirements. So, it's kind
of a a recognition of again that that
basic data collection we did around both
seeing that um [snorts] bicycle use at
non-residential locations is is limited.
Another comment we heard from planning
commission in May is to focus on quality
over quantity. So, we added regulations
to that end. Specifically, making sure
that these bike parking spaces are
easily to easy to access by people with
different abilities. Uh, specifically,
you shouldn't have to lift your bike
very high or over your head in order to
use the spaces
or ascend stairs with your bike, for
example. Also, the bike racks must fully
support bikes, making them easier to
use. And then the regulations include
guidance or recommendations um to
include but this is not required again
what we heard from planning commission
bicycle supportive amenities such as
showers, lockers, repair stations.
Another component of the bike parking
discussion we've had centers around some
added regulatory flexibility.
The proposal would eliminate a
requirement that short-term bike parking
has to be within 50 ft of front
entrances recognizing that that is
challenging and can lead to some uh
unusual spaces and in front areas. So we
are still retaining it as a qualitative
requirement but not a quantitative
requirement. the full first bullet
point.
Also allowing um reductions. If there's
any on street bike parking, of course,
then they would be able to net out any
um short-term bike parking requirement
that they had to provide.
Some short-term spaces can be located in
recreation spa, required recreation
space or open spaces limited. I think
it's about 10%
of the open space. also adding um the
permitted another permitted type of
long-term bike parking as lockers. We
see these um quite prodigiously around
transit stations, for example. And these
could be lockers uh within a building
for example, not necessarily just on the
street like this example.
Also, um we can we would allow netting
out of your requirements if you provide
bike parking in the unit. Now there has
some qualifiers and there needs to be a
very clear space for um the bike in the
unit and again you cannot just say oh
they'll climb some stairs carry it up
and you know maneuver by um uh by the by
the bins to get it in there. So there
has to be a very easy um pathway to to
maneuver the bike um elevator if it's on
a second floor for example.
And lastly, we would allow further
conversion of existing vehicle parking
um if an applicant chose to want to go
that way. [snorts]
[sighs and gasps]
Other kind of various [clears throat]
changes recognizing and accommodating
other personal microobility devices such
as scooters in the requirements, making
sure that those can be accommodated. Uh
safe, we heard about safety and and how
to to incorporate that. Um, one of the
things we found is is uh can add a
requirement to prohibit blocking
pedestrian routes um for the when they
lock the the bike up.
Also a note just sort of about kind of
code minutia. We are um proposing to
kind of centralize all the bike parking
in this section and delete what's in the
downtown um bike parking standards. Um
those downtown standards are are a bit
more stringent. Um, so again, just just
for your awareness
and there's just other kind of general
code cleanup and improvements and
fine-tuning and things.
Okay. Um, I do want to go through like I
did some calculations on various land
uses and projects so that we can
translate like these percentages into
the real world. But maybe I'll pause and
take some questions on what I've
presented so far.
Commissioners.
>> Yes, Commissioner Gon.
>> Couple of thoughts. Um, I'm not sure
about exempting parks. A lot of people
ride to parks. Um, I think there should
be some facility there. Uh, food trucks.
I understand an individual food truck,
but if we go and have a food truck pod
in this corner here, I think there
should certainly be something
accommodating there. Whoops. So, there's
that. Um, you look at poolled
facilities. For instance, if businesses
on Main Street had a rack, [snorts]
could that serve them all?
» I mean, there would not be a limitation.
uh we would not prohibit that I guess
and you know I think there's one of the
proposed standards says you have to
provide short-term bike parking near the
front entrance again there's no foot
distance and then combined with another
uh regulation we're adding is that you
can net out existing or if you want to
install on street bike parking so we
would look maybe again Main Street
example is the next door business have a
on street space like that would be fine
to net out and now maybe that's such a
small use they don't have to provide
>> the frontage so
>> okay
>> yes
>> and are you looking to somehow address
the rental ebikes and scooters you do
see them scattered about
>> not in this proposal
um I believe there is some work by the
public works department on a
microobility strategy
And um I think that that may address
that. I'm not super sure.
>> Okay.
And finally in um you talk about um
quarter mile walking distance as far as
the applicability. That seems a little
short for a bicycle. I mean you could
riding a quarter mile on a bike is
really nothing. So you might look at
broadening that out a little bit. And I do, excuse [clears throat] me, I do
think bicycle use is changing with the
rise of ebikes. And I'll just say based
on personal experience, I walk by the
middle school Henry Park Middle School
every day with my dog. And for a long
time, there were very few bikes there,
much to my disappointment. Uh but I've
noted in the last year or so increasing
numbers of ebikes. So I think you may
see some changes. Things may be
different in a couple years than they
are now. as they come, prices come down,
they're more and more in use. So, I'd
say keep your m keep your eyes on that.
>> Thank you.
>> Uh, thank you, Commissioner. And I
appreciate the feedback and I'll I'll
take that back to the team. Um, I do
want to follow up on just one of your
comments if that's all right. Um,
on the quarter mile or half mile uh
radius, um, let me just show you the map
that I had. So, I I wanted to have it
for this meeting, but I couldn't quite
figure figure it out uh yet. I figured
it out today, but wasn't in time. So, I
wanted to sort of draw that that quarter
mile around these facilities
um
because I I have a hunch that it may be
covering almost the whole city.
extremely small pockets maybe of like a
culde-sac at the top of a hill at the
end of a street might not be covered um
by that quarter mile walk to a planned
bike facility. But um if we're talking
about half mile again I I want to do
this mapping exercise but I have a
feeling we're talking about that's just
going to blanket the whole city. Now,
um, so my follow-up question is, what do
you think about maybe just striking this
applicability and just saying it's not
limited? If we were talking about a half
mile, let's just make it simple.
>> I always like simple. [snorts]
>> Just to clarify, is that being it's more
about uh use and building type,
occupancy type instead of distance?
Because you got the list, you know, all
the places it applies. Is it sort of
saying we'll just leave it with that or
just omit the one quarter mile?
>> Yeah. So, so under what I've we have
prepared for you today, there would be
the first question to an applicant is, your site within a/4 mile walking
distance of these? They say no, okay, no
bike parking, you're good. They say yes,
then yes, what's your land use? If it's
here, here's your requirement. So yeah,
if uh if the commission is supportive of
Commissioner Kieran's um approach, then
we can strike that first step and and
again just be simply land use based uh
requirement.
» Sounds good to me.
>> Thank you.
>> Sounds good to me, too.
>> Looks like we have Yeah, broad agreement
there.
Commissioner Lavner. Um thank you and
thank you so much for the sample uh that
you provided for the survey that was
amazing. Thank you. I have a question
and I believe you shared some data uh on
like forecasting on like usage. So when
I think about both and I still see still
pretty much like maybe still suburbia uh
but we are moving more into urban area.
What are the forecasting for like bike
use? because we know that right now
maybe we're not using them as much but
with the ebikes and population trending
changes. What does that look like? Do
you have any I I remember you kind of
shared something around that? Do you
think the bike usage is going to
increase in both is going to remain the
same? Um overall I'm pretty supportive
of what you presented over here and I
really it makes sense.
>> But yeah, seeing your survey results and
what I see I don't think we're biking
much. Hello.
>> And that's one of my discussion
questions at the end. I I think and I've
sort of been consider we've been
considering this through the process is
do we and this is something we do as
planners is do we think about today's
conditions and plan for that or do we
think about how the city wants to be in
20 years and plan for that. So um that's
kind of a question for the commission.
Now, uh I will say I I'm not aware of
any bicycling use forecasts that the
city has prepared. Um I do know that the
bike plan um contains a vision statement
that is pretty strong and you know
envisions bicycling as a major mode of
transportation in the city. Um
so
anything else I want to say? Um, I think
we also know that, um, you know, in
regards to short-term bike parking, you
saw not not too much usage that I think
that kind of speaks to
that people maybe don't use their bikes
so much for basic transportation, going
shopping and things like that. But um
there is some some significant
residential bicycle ownership and uh I
did pull data from Strava uh and you
know which essentially records mostly
recreational bicycle usage and obviously
we have the Berg Gillan Trail uh we have
other uh the North North Creek Trail. So
um I would say you know quite a notable
use of of recreational bicycling in the
city. Um, I'm sorry I don't have any
specific numbers, but that's sort of my information.
>> Commissioner Westerbeck,
>> first of all, are you is there more
presentation or should we just do
comments now?
>> There's more on talking about the
quantities. So,
>> okay. Yeah,
>> I'll just make general comments. First
of all, [clears throat] um, I thought
the the code we had was pretty, you
know, maybe a little little heavy and so
I had been a critic of this, but I've bike commuted on and off for gosh
since the 80s. So, yeah. um much like
Cher Kieran and probably almost every
job I've had I've accumulated at least
during the the nicer months. So at the
same time I also manage some apartments
and and things like that. So I see the
long-term parking being the really
important one. Everybody everybody's got
a bike and they want a place to put it
even if they don't ride it very often.
And then more and more I'm seeing they
are the the more difficult bikes to move
ebikes and things things like that. So
I'm really I went I read through all
everything. I think this is a massive
just see change improvement and I think
it's a great starting point. I think if
we do see um like my wife works at a
high school and as Cher Kieran said at
the high school there's so many more
kids riding um ebikes now. I mean
they're mostly trying not to pedal.
They're just basically scooters for them
but nonetheless they're doing that
instead of getting driven or whatever.
So that's pretty cool. And um so they're
wrestling with that at the schools I
think. But everybody's got a place to
put their bike. But um so
[clears throat] the long-term and
putting the emphasis on the long-term
storage for multif family and uh places
where people are want to store their
bikes, I think is really key. I'm glad
we're we're kind of focusing on that. Um
yeah, the short term makes sense to me.
And I think it is just like
[clears throat] any code in a few years
if we see a lot of uptake of ebikes or
even analog normal bikes we just you
know we tweak the code a little bit and
say oh we actually finally might need
some more racks. So I think it's a great
place to start. I think it's going to
help um [clears throat] with my
developer hat on um projects get done um
and you know maybe the the bike rooms
will be a little more easy to uh provide
for the long-term parking or inside the
unit or whatever. So overall, I'm just
really thrilled. I read every every word
of this. It's fantastic. I thought I thought it was a really good
um um overhaul. Um so I appreciate the
work a lot and that you guys have been
so responsive as well.
If I could just ask for something like
an office building, what does long-term
parking look like versus short-term
parking if people don't live there?
Right. Um I'm sorry I didn't include um
nice photos like I did in May, but the long-term parking for uh well I'll speak to city hall because I bike
here actually. So uh down in the parking
garage as you enter over there, there's
just a a cyclone fence cage um with a a
little padlock on it and then some some
metal metal racks you can lock your bike
to. So um that's what I've seen is sort
of the basic um approach is just in the
parking garage uh you know secured
space. It can be a storage room like
let's say a restaurant auxiliary space
um for the long term again um some
examples and then shortterm uh is that
simple sort of U rack or something like
that um by the front door or near the
frontage the front sidewalk whatever um
for just visitors or guests.
So, [snorts] what I'm hearing is the
level of security um long-term will have
more security versus the short term. Is
that what I'm hearing?
>> That's correct. And yeah, assuming you
know people leave their bikes there for
longer, they want more security.
» Um I actually just had one more
question. Um it was I'd love to hear the
thinking around not mandating parking
for parks. That really surprised me, but
I'm sure there's something I'm
overlooking there.
I would say it it was less common in
reviewing um other jurisdictions codes.
Another factor uh we considered is,
you know, typically parks are publicly
owned and, you know, the city um parks
department or the King County um parks
department would
factor in and probably include some
level of bike parking regardless. So, um
it's something we can add certainly if
that's the commission's wish. um we just
didn't see it as as a significant need.
But
that's all.
Um, just from my perspective, it seems
like of all the places in our community,
a park is is where we would see a lot of
people um, riding their [clears throat]
bikes, too. as we've been discussing
that recreation
um biking is um
is uh we have a lot of it in this
community and a park seems like a great
place to take a rest to
you know get some water and um for
people who are riding their bikes. So it
makes sense to me that we would at least
mandate some parking um for bikes. uh it
seems like, you know, a good starting
place and ending place for people taking
um bike rides with their family and
riding to community events and stuff
like that. So that that was my only
other comment.
» Commissioner Wester, did you have a
>> Okay.
So, uh
>> Oh, Commissioner Gersonson.
>> Hi, Sarah Gustoson here. Um, before I
make my point, I'm honestly curious. Has
anyone else here tried to bike or bike
commute as a resident of one of those
big downtown apartment buildings? I
have, but I don't want to assume that my
experience is universal before jumping
in.
Okay, I will go ahead on the code. I
raised this last session and I didn't
see it reflected yet. Um, so I'll put it
on the record. When I lived downtown for
nine months in 2023, 2024 and tried to
bike around the city, my apartment's
bike parking was full, but it was full
of underused bikes that barely ever
moved. So, I often had nowhere to lock
my bike. Right now, we're putting real
thought into car parking management.
um the same problem we see on our
streets where parking with no
enforcement means cars sit indefinitely.
Let's consider that in relation to
bikes. This code builds the spaces but
says nothing about parking management,
no responsible party, no process for
clearing abandoned or unused bikes. A
space that's permanently occupied um
isn't really a space. So that I I have
some more thoughts, but I'd like to see
how that lands. Thank you, [snorts]
» Commissioner West.
>> I'll just concur because I know
Commissioner August and I chatted about
that because I I would have loved to
have provided you space that I didn't
have any, but [laughter] um I uh I have
can see into some of those garages and
see that Yeah. like some of them just
sit forever. So, I think it's a it's a
key issue. I mean, maybe um you know,
this is getting really into the weeds.
You know, part of that management would
be they would um assign spots or
something like that and then and then
manage them um in some way, but I don't
know if that's going to be the perview
of the city or they encourage the the
apartment uh ownership to do that that
sort of management. So, I can't say I I
know a code that would cover that right
now, but I I I hear you cuz I was going
to say a few minutes ago, this sort of
relates. I worked at the University of
Washington for about a year and I rode
my bike again during the warmer months,
but um they had so many people as who
worked at the University of Washington
all over because they've got buildings
everywhere and this is in Seattle, not
the UDub Bathl. They were there was
almost a crisis. they were frantically
trying to find money to build more um
secure bike parking um because people
were coming and going daily. And I uh I
could see that in 5 10 20 years those
apartments might be more like that where
every like you say
Sarah that uh each space is precious. So
um we we might we might get there
eventually. We're not there now but we
might get there eventually. So that
management issue might come up.
Thank you, Commissioner Rest, for um all
those comments and for remembering when
I tried to rent bike parking space from
you. Um
I think there's some simple solutions
here. For example, if um a bike could be
tagged and if it isn't moved in a week
or two weeks, then um the bike could be
impounded or ideally there would be a
warning first to the person. But I think
there's some low tech solutions that
could happen to make sure that these
spaces that we're pushing so hard for um
actually do what they're supposed to do.
Um also another thing I wanted to bring
up was my building was built in 2016
um and seem to have no distinction
between short and long-term parkings. So
what we see is zero demand in this
survey might be just zero supply. And do
we know what surveyed sites predate the
latest standards? Maybe what I saw
wasn't universal. Um so yes, those
[clears throat] two questions. Can we do
um easy solutions here? And um what is
the difference between where I was in
newer buildings?
» Uh so regarding your I hear that uh
comment commissioner Gustde definitely.
Um, if I can clarify in your first
question, are you referring to
short-term sort of bike parking in the
frontage or or the long-term like locked
secured space or both?
>> Either or because where I was it was
just a long lines of cramped bikes, many
of which were dusty and there was no
distinction.
>> Okay.
» I I will we'll take that comment uh and
discuss it internally. I would say um at
least as it pertains to the proposed
code before you today
if you wish to increase the amount of
residential bike parking that's that's
an option available to you. Um
would be one way of addressing that that
comment. Um
» you know um thank you for that. I do
think it would be the same as the
parking issue that we encounter on our
streets where the more we give, the more
people use it. And the real issue is not
about how many parking spaces we
provide, it's how we manage them.
» I hear that. Thank you.
>> Thank you,
>> Commissioner Westbick. Just to chime in
there, I I know the building you're
talking about, um, Commissioner
Gustoson, and I have to think now I'm
thinking about those racks. They're
double height. They're not secure. You
have to use your lock. I don't think the
new code would even allow them anymore
as as long-term secure parking. So, not
that it's a moot point at all because
it's going to exist. They're not going
to probably change it. But I think that
with the new code, uh the short-term
that wouldn't necessarily be short-term
parking and it wouldn't um probably
comply with the long-term requirements.
So, that's where I think this code could
be an upgrade. Probably is an upgrade.
But then it also begs a question. Say
there's room for 100 bikes or something.
Um is it like a storage unit almost in
some buildings where they'd say, "Yeah,
you're assigned, you know, spot A13."
>> Um granted, u and maybe that has to be
an extra, you know, 50 bucks a month or
something like that. And and and then
maybe that starts to become a an equity
issue. They have to pay more to store
their bike or something, but they have
to pay for parking spots, too. So, I
don't know. I'm just trying to think of
how you would um how would you make it
unattractive to leave a bike um in a
precious spot using this new code. Um
>> just spitballing a little bit.
>> Thank you.
» Um Commissioner Gustiffson, I don't
think I responded to your second
question. If if you might repeat that
for me, please.
>> Yes, thank you so much. Sarah Gustiffson
here. My question dubtales with
what Commissioner Westerbeck was saying
about the difference between new and old
ones, new and old buildings. My thought
is what buildings were you surveying?
And if you were surveying old buildings
with older standards,
um how it is that really fair for the
data? Um, if you're only surveying the
newer buildings with the newer
standards, then um, and they're still
comp there's no usage when the bike
racks might be state-of-the-art, they
might be managed. Well, that's a
different data point. Um but what I'm
suspecting is that my data point holds
which is that um
some of the problems that we see in the
old older buildings are going to happen
again in the newer buildings unless we
really are careful about our code and
our management.
>> Got it.
>> Sorry. [laughter]
[snorts] So,
that's a great question and I appreciate
you taking the data I presented with a
grain of salt because it was um a very
basic survey and definitely not
scientific. I'm not submitting it to any
journals or anything.
>> Um so, I did try my best uh in the time
I had to take a a variety of situations
and in land uses. So, um I surveyed new
development, new residential, mixeduse
development downtown, um old apartment,
garden apartments, um in the Canyon Park
area,
new uh retail spaces in or uh yeah, new
retail spaces um in North Creek, old
strip malls. [snorts] Uh so, it's the
wide variety. Um, and again, not a
multitude, but at least a variety of
samples here.
So, I hope that gives you a little bit
more confidence. Um, I also presented
the
absolute numbers and not just the
percentages in attachment two. So, you
can draw your own conclusions as to did
they provide enough long-term spaces,
did they provide enough short-term
spaces, how many um I included the
number of employees if that was a a
commercial use or the number of
residents, too. So,
I tried to present as objective data as
I can. Um, again, not not an amazing uh
graduate research project, but the best
I can do here. So,
Oh, thank you. I mean, it it's it's
great. I really appreciate you getting
out there on seeing what things are. Um,
and this is a good start.
» Uh, Commissioner Robson here. I think
one thing it's important to note
regarding parking enforcement is that
when we're talking about parking
enforcement in the city, um, for cars,
we're talking about on city streets, in
public areas. we actually aren't talking
about in people's driveways and people's
apartment complexes
um or any of the other private um
parking garages. Um I know the apartment
building I lived in, there was that one
jerk who just had his car in the worst
place ever and he always parked it there
and collected dust. It looked like a
greenhouse. Um and but that's a private
issue. Um, and I think when we're coming
talking about building development,
these are these are private primarily
private um businesses, private homes or
multif family homes. Um, and so parking
enforcement in those cases is up to the
owner is not um up to the city in any
way, shape, or form. We can um mandate
that they uh um I appreciate that we can
mandate long-term spaces and short-term
spaces. I think that's great and so
important and although I I I am uh
agreeing with staff, I think we might
have hit it a little heavy to um to
begin with. So, I appreciate this
rolling back on the numbers a little
bit. Um,
but when it comes to parking enforcement
on private property, I think that that's
maybe something
um that is more nuanced and certainly
not part of this code that we're working
on right now.
Unless I'm wrong, in which case, please
tell me.
>> I think you've you've hit it. I mean,
the issue of um what happens on private
property, especially after development,
after we approve occupancy, is a thorny
issue. Um and I'm sure the attorney will
want me to stop talking right there.
[laughter]
Um in regards to on street parking, that
is in city purview certainly and and the
management of that um is as well. Um
that's public works department though as
well. So I know uh the public works
director wants me to stop talking on
that matter right now as well. Yeah.
>> So that's all I'll say there.
Yes. Commissioner Gerson. Hi Sarah
Gustoson here. So [clears throat] my
thought is if we can mandate exactly how
many spaces and what type for a private
building, can we mandate that the
building submit a parking management
plan during um uh permitting and
construction? How abandoned bikes get
identified and cleared? That's not new
authority to me. It seems like the same
authority that is already in this draft.
What are your thoughts on that?
>> I think we can definitely look into
that. Um you're you're right that there
is precedent for
um some sort of agreement and things
like that post development. Um again not
my area of expertise but but we'll look
into that and uh let you know.
>> Great. Thank you so much.
» Okay. Uh great feedback and questions
and comments. I we really appreciate it.
um presented some quantities and um
if those made sense to you, great. You
can tune this part out. I wanted to we
wanted to include this just for the
people that kind of need to see the the
reality of of the rules. So,
I tried to collect some various types of
projects, land uses, and show you how
the the ratios or the percentages might
calculate out for those.
So, the first example here is a
multi-unit, multif family residential
development. This is one that's uh
proposed but not built. And under the
old requirement, and in fact, the
project proposed 235 long-term spaces
for 321 units and 65 short-term spaces.
Uh there's
and so that that's again what's in the
project proposal and and the old
represents the old requirement or the
existing requirement, excuse me. The new
proposed requirement would result in a
bit less here. So 155 long-term spaces
and 16 short-term. So food for thought.
Um
[clears throat] a small mixeduse
development. This one would be in
downtown both. that's proposed
and again the I really I'm sorry I said
old requirement existing requirement
[snorts] uh but um it would require 24
long-term spaces and six short-term
spaces for for 1900 foot retail and 22
dwelling units. New requirement quite
similar actually just a few some fewer
short-term spaces.
low-income housing. This is once again
another proposed development in
downtown. 201
uh office space
sort of retail type social service space
existing requirement 180 long-term
spaces and 40 short-term. The proposed
requirement really unfortunate wording
129 spaces and 14 short-term spaces.
Dormatory example. This is Udub both.
They're already constructed. Obviously,
our rules won't apply. This is just an
example. So, existing requirement
doesn't apply to dorms whatsoever.
Proposed requirement in this case with
1400 beds or some somewhat to the
equivalent of 376 dwelling units would
include 103 bike parking spaces in
long-term and 128 short-term.
That seems like a place some students
are going to have bikes.
>> You think so?
>> Yeah. Right.
» A co-l livingiving type space. This I
don't think there's any like this in
Seattle but or I'm sorry in both but
this one is in Seattle. Sort of
efficiency units. Uh very small
residential units. Uh this one has 60
sleeping units, bedrooms, whatever you
want to call it. No parking existing
brothel requirement. If this were to be
in both would uh apply 30 long-term
spaces, six short-term proposed
requirement 15. So cut that in half and
then two short-term in this case.
This is in Seattle. Hopefully they have
some more bike parking. I I think but
uh various commercial examples here for
you. So I got the Gratzy
Italian restaurant both ever highway on
the left smaller sort of restaurant
under the existing requirement if this
were to be built today. Two long-term
spaces two short-term spaces proposed
requirement. Same thing Safeway on both
lever highway as well. Larger
supermarket example
we're assuming around 20 employees in
this supermarket. I don't have that
exact data but with that assumption
existing requirement four long-term for
those employees and then for visitors
shoppers 10 short-term under the
proposal it would be fewer long-term
spaces same amount of short-term spaces
interrupt for a second commissioner
Westerbeck here I think about places
like the nails and spa you know that
space um especially with the way we
planned towns you know like Main Street
100 years ago it was often the building
covers the entire uh property. And so
the only place you could do a rack was
either carve something out of the store
of the space which the landlord or the
owner is probably not going to want or
put it on the sidewalk. So is that where
the flexibility of the of the the code
comes in a little bit because you don't
really want a block sidewalk. you need
what fiveT clear for and if the co if
the uh the rack doesn't get used much
does someone want a rack you know
sticking a couple feet out in the
sidewalk. So I think there's going to be
some interesting um situations uh when
you do a change of use in a building
like that. Oh yeah you're probably
thinking about it but I'm just I'm
looking at that going oh where do you
put the rack if that was the whole the
property was edgeto edge the building
was edge to edge on the property.
Appreciate that comment. Certainly uh a
interesting thought process. Uh
absolutely. I think this is you know
perhaps why one that exemption original
exemption was in there maybe you know
these very very very small scale uses.
So once again you know commission if if
the proposal you think is um not
appropriate in any way we would
appreciate any of that feedback. Um but
I think my feedback would be just uh
that the um the director can has has a
discretion probably to wave it I think
and what is in that in the code. But I
only read through it once, so I don't
have it memorized yet. But I would I
don't know if you'd make um make that a
slightly more robust part of the code
saying um you know in a change of use
situation where there is no place to
bike to put a bike rack, you know, the
um difference is given to the uh the
applicant or something like that. Or,
you know, um you can show that there's a municipal provided rack, you know,
nearby or something like that. I don't I don't have a a solution, but I
would think
>> most places are going to have a a a
Safeway, a Gratzi, whatever. They're
going to have parking spaces they could
take over. It's not an issue at all. And
I think this is going to be pretty
niche, but there's going to be a few
that are going to come up through the
years, especially with change of use
where you're going to be like, we don't
literally don't have a place to put a
bike rack. So, I would just hope that
they would they would give that out
freely when it was super obvious the the
exemption.
>> Thank you.
I don't want people to have a bike rack
accessible, but like where are they
going to put it? And maybe they've got
parking spots uh for the nails of spa. I
don't know that that property, but there
are going to be somewhere they don't at
all.
>> If I if I could weigh in, you know, we
could look at we could look at those zones that have zero foot
setbacks. That's where the flexibility
would exist. Safeway, this example, does
not have zero zero foot setback. There's
plenty of space on that site for them to
accommodate a bike rack. So, we could
look at a correlation of how the the
form uh adjusts to where where racks
could be located.
>> Great. Again, I would love for there to
be a rack for, you know, I ride bikes. I
get it. And I' I've been that person
looking for a stop sign or something to
block a bike to. So, I I totally
sympathize. I I've been that person. I'm
just sometimes there are going to be
some cases, like you said, Christian, in
zero lot line or or existing condition
situations. I've got an ADA adaptive
reuse project in another city and the
property is literally the the building
goes edge to edge, corner to corner and
covers the whole property. And so, um,
they're not required to put in bike
racks, but they would have a hard time.
They could put them on the roof, maybe.
[laughter] I don't know where they're
going to put them.
» Thank you, Commissioner. Um, yeah,
please feel free to stop me if you want
to talk about any of these. I'll
proceed.
entertainment uses. We got Pop Kenny
Stadium over there, 120,000 square foot
stadium, 3500 seats. In this scenario,
we're assuming about 35 staff there.
Don't don't uh look into that number. I
don't know exactly, you know, how many
staff. So, just for this uh this game,
the existing requirement does not apply
to stadiums in both.
The proposed requirement would
recreation, culture, entertainment,
sports uses, things like that. Two
long-term spaces for those 35 potential
employees and 70 short-term for the
guests.
Another entertainment use. This theater
is not in both, but I think it looks
like your old generic cinniplex, so I
included it. About a thousand seats in
these types of theaters. We're assuming
50 employees. Current standards don't
apply. Proposed standards would uh
provide three long-term spaces for those
employees and 20 short-term for movie
goers.
Lodging, no requirement today. proposed
requirement, three spaces for those
about 50 employees and four short-term
spaces. If anyone flew in from SeaTac
and decided to bike to both, they can
park their bike here.
Again, I'm going to chime in. I can
speak to that. I, as someone who's done
a lot of bike events, maybe others have
too. Sounds like you cycle. I've also
stayed at a lot of different hotels and
Airbnbs and things like that where um
but particularly hotels where um I was
worried about having my bike, you know,
bolted to the roof, my car or something
like that. So, I'd bring it in the room
or I'd look for um and I know like we
would go to to Whistler, especially in
the summer and they have ski and bike
rooms for, you know, the expensive
mountain bikes and stuff. I love that.
was great. They had the cage
already there. So, they were thinking
about that 20, 30 years ago. So it'd be good when they start building new
hotels be thinking about surprising
number of people bring a bike and they
arrive with a car.
I imagine you were thinking about maybe
office space. We got good old city hall
on the left. I do know exact numbers for
that or almost exact. 270 parking
spaces, 53,000 square feet and about 148
employees.
Um, I have a couple numbers here. So, I
in the hypothetical scenario applied the
existing bike parking requirement which
would result in five long-term spaces,
three short-term. We do also have bike
parking here at city hall, which I
mentioned, went through and counted
those 24 long-term racks down in the
garage and 18 short-term uh scattered
around the perimeter. The proposed
requirement in an office like city hall
would result in seven long-term spaces
for those 148 employees and three
short-term spaces for uh office
visitors.
Um, another good data point on city hall
because, you know, we know this
information. Uh, I counted in a very
pleasant summer day down in the
long-term spaces spaces, we had um 20,
I'm sorry, uh, eight bikes in that
long-term um, parking in the eight out
of 24. And then short-term, I don't know
if I've really ever seen a bike parked
in the racks around city hall. Maybe
there's one, but
uh, taking on the right side, we have
just kind of your standard office park
type office.
I think this is actually one in both
Seattle Genetics. So, biotech. Uh they
have about 500,000 square ft of of
office space across several buildings.
And we're we're estimating about 1500
employees.
Existing requirement 50 spaces for those
employees,
25 [clears throat] short-term spaces for
whoever wants to visit a biotech office.
And the proposed requirement would
actually, as I mentioned earlier, be a
little more than today, 75. And then
same number of short-term spaces.
Health and social services. We got the
Kaiser Permanente Clinic over in North
Creek. I believe existing requirement
does not apply to any health services.
proposal would establish two long-term
for those 30 staff and two short-term
for someone that injured themselves and
wants to bike to the hospital.
[laughter]
>> I have I have also back to the hospital
by the way. So,
Absolutely.
» Yep.
>> It's useful
>> education. Uh again, this is something I
think we heard from at least one
commissioner on um applying some bike
parking to uh schools.
And again, no no requirement today. Uh
this is both high I took as an example.
about 1,800 students and about 100
staff, 72 classrooms. Proposal would
have five long-term spaces for those
teachers and staff and 72 for um
short-term for the students to use.
Uh okay, last uh project example,
industrial use. uh this is not in both
some distribution center who knows where
very large uh about 1500 employees in in
this type of facility so proposal I mean
sorry existing code does not require
today proposed code would have 75 spaces
for those 1500 employees and two
short-term for visitors to the
distribution center or storage or other
industrial use.
Okay, I have some just questions to
prompt feedback. Some of this we've
talked about. You don't even have to
answer these. This is just what we
thought maybe would prompt some
discussion. So um I think generally we
establish lower quantities and um
commissioners were talking about well do
we plan for today or plan for the
future? So do you think we should go
higher? Um, are there other ways that I
think Commissioner Gustiffson Gustoson
talked about this is is the quality um
of the facilities and the usage of the
facilities. Other ways we can we can
address kind of the quality of bike
parking. Um also of course we had some
discussion around the exemptions uh that
are proposed and changing that and um
perhaps uh adding more strict
regulations around cargo bikes and and
scooters and things as well
or any other questions discussion the
commission wish wishes to have.
Commissioner Gustin,
>> Sarah Gustoson here. I am floating an
idea because I am concerned about um
setting standards and then
not out of bad intentions, the standards
decreasing over time. I wonder if it's
possible to post bike parking procedures
near the bike so that if folks don't see
those standards being met, they can flag
it to the city. Um, I think it might be
easier to monitor whether
um [clears throat]
something is posted there might be
easier than monitoring ongoing what the
actual um day-to-day is. That might be a
idea to think about or not.
>> I I will I just want to chime in there.
We can we can notify the public works
department of the the comments around
bike parking management in the rightway
as it relates to the rightway when it
does come to private property. It it
really is as chair uh Robson mentioned
it is a a private property issue um that
we can identify the the best practice um
we could look at methods to provide
education and materials but it's only as
good as the management of that of that
building and the the residents in that
building to to follow that. Um so we can look into it and we can follow up on on these points um at the
next at the next study session.
» Thanks.
» Um just as a data point and I'm sure you
guys have considered this but I wanted
to float it anyway. Um, the quality of a
bike parking spot, I'm sure, has a lot
to do with how often I know h has to do
how often people ride their bikes,
especially as bikes become almost as
expensive as cars. Um, people do not
want to park their bikes with a flimsy
bike lock where they can't where they
can't see it. Um, where you can just
take the parking thing with you and put
it in your car and worry about fixing
that. I mean, because I have seen a a
bike parking spot where it wasn't even
bolted to the ground. You could just
pick it up and take it with the bike.
Um, I I know that people have said, "I I
love riding my bike. I don't ride it
because I don't want my bike stolen or
messed with." And so
I do think that
um if we want people to use our bike
parking, we want people to increase um
their biking, we want to make um it a
reality, uh bike parking a reality, we
need to consider um the quality. What
are we going to do to ensure that when
people are putting in bike parking, it's usable. It's not
theoretical bike parking, but but actual
bike parking that people feel
comfortable using. And I I don't know
what the answer to that is, but I think
it's something maybe we should um
reflect on as we consider these um codes
[clears throat]
to that point and correct me if I'm
wrong. Um I did read through about the
um the requirement seemed pretty
thorough about bike rooms, cage cages,
mid minimum heights, art to ceiling,
etc., etc., etc. And again, speaking to
my Udub experience, those were the only
ones that were in demand. Um I rode my
bike the first time and I used one of
those really heavy I've got this really
heavy, you know, tempered steel lock,
etc., etc., And I went through the
wheels and everything and still my um
some of my um colleagues who also rode
bikes they're like you parked it outside
like and there were literally parts out
there cuz we've all seen this right
wheels that weren't locked and so they
took everything but the wheel and I'm
literally locking up next to these you
know extra bike parts that were left
over from stolen bikes. So I can see why
they were freaked out because there was
a lottery debate to get those those
caged in the bike room spots. Um, so
again, F flogging that horse. I think
it's in the code though, right? Now that
you've got that for the for the
long-term spots has to be pretty robust.
>> Long term. Yes. It sounds like
Commissioner Robson's speaking more
towards the short term, right?
>> So, you're talking short term. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. I was going to say longterm.
Sounds like we got that locked up pretty
good, but yeah, shortterm.
>> Locked up. Nice.
>> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Short term. I
mean, I I think that's a tough one
because
um you know, it's going to be hard to
offer a bike locker, a bike room,
whatever for I'm going to run in the
store for an hour. So, because you're
not as invested in like, all right, I
work here or I live here, so I'm going
to get a key. I got a special spot and
I'm like invested, you know? So, not
saying you shouldn't do it. I'm just
saying like that sounds like a little
tougher nut to crack.
Well, that's the end of my presentation.
Unless there's other comments,
questions, thoughts, I will
>> Excellent work.
>> Yeah, thank you so much. I did want to
mention thank you for including the um
examples and illustrations because I
know that commissioners have been asking
and so I just we really appreciate you
listening and accommodating that request
because it's super it's super helpful.
So, thank you for that.
>> Clint, thank you.
» And once again, thank you for being so
responsive to I'm sure applicants
wereounding you a bit as well. But, um,
it looks like a really, um, robustly re
um, you know, updated bike plan. I or
bike storage and, uh, parking plan. I
appreciate it very much.
Our
uh third presentation is from um Civic
Spark fellow Jay Huckkins and the
electric vehicle parking requirements.
And
>> while I pull up these slides for Jay,
I'm going to just give an introduction.
So Jay is our current civic spark
fellow. Uh you may remember Emily from
before.
>> Uh she's been doing a lot of work on
electric vehicles. Um and
we will run through this. We do have two
other items. So, I just want to make sure we're we know we're going to not blast through it, but
we are going to we were very ambitious
with tonight's
>> tonight's meeting. We wanted to get it
done before the end of the end of the
summer, before our our recess.
Um, with that, uh, I'll hand it over to
Jay and we will work through this and I
will drive the slides for you.
>> All right. Thank you so much and thank
you for the introduction. Good evening,
planning commissioners. So, I'm going to
talk to you about the electric vehicle
code and some potential updates that we
could make. Um, so just to be clear, no
action required. The purpose of this
study session is to provide the planning
commission with context on city EV code
and potential infrastructure standards
to be included within BMC 12.16,
parking, loading, transit access, and
pedestrian circulation.
Next slide please.
So this is just the overall agenda. We
can go ahead and move on.
So just to start with some discussion
questions to get your minds active
before we dive into the material. Um
this is basically the questions that I
would love to hear information from you
on. So um this is basically what we're
going to go through tonight within these
slides. So overview EV ready
requirements for multif family housing
should we increase requirements for
areas like grocery stores uh commercial
zones
um what should we do about affordable
housing should we provide any exemptions
for that
um which incentives could we use to
encourage EV charger installation
and then what do we think about level
three versus level two chargers could
one level three charger sort of work in
place of multiple level twos. Um yeah,
so some overall definition so you know
what I'm talking about. Um EV ready
parking stalls
208 to 240 volt dedicated branch
circuit. Uh they don't have a charger
installed yet though, but they have all
the conduit ready. And then electric
vehicle supply equipment is the electric
vehicle charger. And here in the state
of Washington has to be able to supply
current of 208 to 240 volts.
EV capable
not super of interest to us for this
presentation, but it is part of the
Washington state requirements.
Next slide, please.
All right. So, I'm going to start by
just providing some context. Why are we
talking about this stuff right now? Um,
so the climate action plan was passed in
November
of this year and uh or actually 2025 and
um it outlines different uh goals that
we can use to try to uh decarbonize
transportation. So transportation is our
largest polluting sector in both and
also in Washington state. So this is of
really high interest to city of both and
Washington state and our general
community. So I've put here sort of
where we're at with these and it was
also in the packet in progress. The
second one down is currently what we're
talking about. Next slide please.
So to provide some context, this is
electric vehicle registrations in
Washington state up to 2025.
So you're seeing a huge growth in
battery electric vehicles.
Um a little bit less of adoption for
plug-in hybrid, which makes sense.
People are going for fully electric.
Um next slide.
This is city of both. So, same type of
graph, but both almost has an even
steeper increase in battery electric
vehicles. So, this is a really great
sign. People are interested in driving
electric. I'm sure that gas prices has
something to do with that as well. Um,
and
see if there's anything else.
Yeah, next slide.
So Washington state is the 18th largest
state but ranks fourth in number of
fully electric vehicles. So we're at the
forefront here. So we need to be
considering how we plan ahead uh
especially with charging
and there's been a lot of data showing
that people are hesitant to buy an
electric vehicle if they don't see a
charger readily available to them. But
people are hesitant to install chargers
if they don't see plenty of electric
vehicles driving around. So it is kind
of a chicken or egg difficult decision
to make. So by putting some city
regulations we can kind of support this
process. Um
so this is just looking at city hall.
Here we have four charging stations as
you may know uh which is eight charging
points and this is the data that we
currently have on those stations as of
July 8th 2026.
I did the math that's about 18 to 20
sessions a day for that period of time.
Uh that's quite a bit. So certain areas
will have more obviously but I think
this is higher than average and a lot of
kilowatt hours consumed. Um so this is
showing that demand is super high.
There's a lot of need and there's not
necessarily the infrastructure to
support that need. We are one agency in
both brothel and we have this much
usage. So this is just more evidence we
need to be kind of considering the
landscape of this as we move forward.
So obviously we want to hear from the
community. So much of our work is based
in community feedback. What do people
want? What do they want to see? So we've
done a couple surveys. Uh we did some
surveys prior to the climate action plan
which is referenced here as well. And
then one just this past month in May
which already has I think around 130
responses. So, it's been very active and
people really prioritize pollution
reduction especially for health reasons
and they think that more charging
stations are going to be critical for
increasing EV adoption throughout both.
In addition, they want to see them
mostly at shopping centers. So, kind
tying back to grocery stores being top
spot for chargers. Um, and you can see
the data and how it ranks here in this
slide.
All right, next slide, please.
This is another way that we collected
data over the past few months. Um, I
believe this went live in February, so
we've been getting less and less
responses to it over time, but initially
we had a lot of activity. This is an
interactive map where people can put
where they would like to see a charger.
And all of the orange points are where
there are existing chargers. Um I
believe they are all public. Um
and then I grabbed some charge hub data
which you can see in the upper corner.
approximately 99 public chargers within
city limits
um are actually ports that is so less
chargers. Uh each charger usually has
two ports. Um so not a whole lot of
public charging available based on the
demand that I showed you as far as that
kind of exponential growth trend.
Um but yeah, really interesting way to
kind of collect feedback from people.
And the majority of these points were
um convenience store areas, grocery
stores, the library was a huge one. Most
people want chargers at the library.
And yeah, next slide.
So
getting into the code,
these are our current electric vehicle
standards for the state of Washington
based on the different zoning groups. So
tonight we're going to speak mostly
about commercial
and uh residential specifically
multifamily housing. So you see that as
group R the line on the bottom
10% installed 25 ready and 10% capable
the majority of other ones are all 10%
for each
and yeah let's move to the next slide.
So possible actions kind of got a sneak
peek in the discussion questions, but
this is based on my research and what
we've come up with here at the city. My
team uh this is kind of what we propose
could be a good way to meet the demand
that the city has for charging. So
increase EV ready percent requirements
for multif family housing potentially
provide exempt for affordable
increase EV ready or installed for
commercial lots. We're going to need to
decide which and how much. Um allow
developers to reduce the amount of EV
dedicated stalls if they install a level
three charger. reminder that level three
is the faster charger, so people will
have shorter dwell times. And then
incentives to encourage developers to
install more EV charging, whether that's
EV ready, capable, or fully operational.
Next slide, please.
All right, so we're going to just kind
of get into the details of each of these
topics and reference some survey data as
well. So based on our research
uh it's shown from the surveys that
people prefer to charge at home and
those who are still driving gas powered
vehicles can see themselves charging at
home versus elsewhere. Um and the
majority don't have access to charging
wherever they're living currently.
And then
the increase of EV ready requirements uh
would be for multifamily residential
developments which would include
apartments, condominiums,
uh mixed use residential but would not
include single family housing or uh town
homes or things of that nature. Would be
for uh yeah multi-unit
uh developments.
Okay, next slide.
So really the benefit of increasing EV
ready requirements is that you're making
it easier for apartment owners to go
ahead and install chargers as the need
comes about. So we are not the first to
be thinking about this. Other
jurisdictions in the area have already
done this or they're planning to.
Notably, we have King County at 40%,
we have Isiqua 30 and they're actually
making requirements for existing
multifamily as well. So, they're needing
to go back and retrofit. [snorts] And
then Redmond has, I believe, the highest
right now at 90%.
And then if you look at any code in uh
Canada, the majority are at 100% EV
ready in their uh multif family parking
spaces.
So
let's talk about money a little bit.
We'll talk about it more later, but
basically retrofit costs are quite a bit
more than if you put the conduit or get
yourself ready while you're building the
building. Um, it's a hard sell to
developers. Obviously, they don't want
to necessarily spend more money upfront,
but it will save time and money in the
long run.
Okay,
next slide.
So, affordable housing is another
consideration in city of both. I know
that we're really interested in making
affordable housing available. We want
that in our downtown. Uh we want people
to come and live here as easily as
possible. Uh a lot of different kinds of
people as well from different areas and
backgrounds. And so we don't want to
start enforcing code that doesn't
consider that reality. Um so there are
some areas that have made exemptions
with their electric vehicle code for
affordable housing.
I know the city of Isiqua is considering
this as they move forward with
strengthening their EV code.
Um, but the majority of state codes,
Washington and California included,
don't make exemptions for affordable
housing.
One concern with this is just that
we really want to make sure that
electric vehicle charger access is for
everyone, not just people who can afford
and to live in buildings that have it.
So by exempting affordable housing,
you're potentially blocking access to
chargers in that location. So some ideas
that we've had is like providing
technical assistance for those buildings
once they're built to then get grant
funding to install or during the
installation process. we can match that
up with their development process and
try to try to provide some services to
them so they're able to have chargers
but they're not stuck with the burden
upfront of those extra costs. So, uh
something else I'd love your feedback on
as we move forward.
Next slide.
Okay, more money. The fun part. So, um,
a lot of people are concerned about how
much more this is going to cost.
So I have broken this down as best as
possible to show
how much it would be for what it is now
for the existing requirement and then if
we raised it to 45 45% EV ready and then
it shows the cost for building it during
construction and then what it would cost
to do it as a retrofit afterwards.
Electric vehicles are not going
anywhere. I can't stress that enough.
They're going to keep growing. They're
going to continuously get more popular
and there's going to need to be charging
for them. It's like a phone. If it
doesn't have a charger, it doesn't work.
So, the state code is almost guaranteed
to get more stringent. So, we're really
doing our developments a service if we
help them get their infrastructure ready
ahead of time. So it is going to be more
of an upfront cost for them, but they're
going to save money in the long run. So
if we raised to 45%
for a parking lot with 40 spaces,
18 would be EV ready and it would cost
that $27,000.
Um,
but if you waited until after
the building has already been built, it
would be that 72,000. So hopefully that
breakdown makes sense. I do have the
cost per parking space as well there at
the bottom. And then the uh price
increase from the 25 to the 45. So
hopefully that makes sense. And is there
anything else I wanted to say on that?
Oh, I did want to mention that we're
also going to be supporting the city by
having less permitting and utility
considerations over time, too. Retrofit
is harder to
deal with permitting and the utility is
going to come out and have to do a new
service request and assessment for the
conduit and all that. So there are some
uh efficiency benefits as well to uh
providing enforcement up front. Okay,
next slide.
Great. So we talked about this a little
bit earlier but coming back to
commercial public charging. So there was
a recent study done by electric era
which is a company that helps people
install and plan and figure out where to
put electric vehicle chargers. And this
is some of the data that they showed
that uh EV chargers have seven times the
amount of
utilization if they are near 11 or more
amenities and grocery stores see the
highest median charging sessions per day
at 42. So we talked about here at city
hall we get 18 to 20 grocery stores are
42. So that is where there needs to be
more chargers is basically what the
research is showing. So
proposing to increase EV code standards
for zones that are general commercial
multi-use commercial or multi-use
employment um and those like grocery
stores are within that. Other amenity
types are within those zonings. Um and
53.4% 4% of survey respondents
want to see additional charging sess
stations near shopping centers. So
there's need uh
we are thinking that this can apply to
grocery store or or amenity tenants that
have parking lots that are 100 stalls
[clears throat]
or more
uh so as not to put too much of a burden
on some smaller local businesses.
Um,
yeah, I think that's everything.
So, here's some examples. There's not
too many, but the top is the current
existing standards. And then, uh, again,
Canada leading the way. Uh, we are
following behind. So they have 15 and 25
and then
Vancouver a little bit lower fully
installed but higher EV ready. So, sort
of different approaches, but getting at
uh what we're presenting here as far as
targeting these zones where chargers are
really needed
and
to address concerns that these
developments may have as far as taking
up too many of their parking spaces with
EV charging,
this is a proposed solution to that. So
instead of having
multiple level two chargers,
allowing developers to install a level
three charger instead. So f the faster
charging will serve more people, more
vehicles throughout the day. Uh and so
you're still getting high utilization,
high amount of charge sessions, but
you're not taking up as many spaces. So,
the amount of level two chargers that
could be replaced by a level three
charger, there needs to be more research
done on that uh to decide how much that
ratio would be, but this is a potential
solution for developers as far as a
concern of taking up too many parking
spaces.
Next slide.
Okay. So,
incentives. This would be not regulation
necessarily by the city. This would be a
way to encourage people to take the
actions we want to see and install more
EV charging or EV ready. Uh the city of
Redmond has an affordable housing and
green building incentive program that we
appreciate here at city of Balfl and
like the the setup of. And so this could
be a recommendation that we make as far
as how we could organize
uh an electric vehicle incentive
program. And I would stress that it
would probably make the most sense to
have it be an incentive that could work
for a lot of different sustainable um uh
initiatives that we have like solar or
uh green buildings, energy efficiency
upgrades and things like that. We would
try to use this same point system so
that it's very universal across all of
our code. And that's something we've
discussed as a team and think would work
pretty well. We would need to talk about
how many points things would be, what
types of incentives we would use. I put
a few ideas on the side and they're
controversial. I understand. [laughter]
So, we would need to decide, you know,
um expedited permit review and and what
would
kind of meet that uh balance that out.
So,
that's one idea that we have as far as
incentives. I think if we do incentives,
it would be our recommendation that it
would work alongside some sort of code
as well. So it would be sort of a
dual-fold approach at helping encourage
people and require people to
install electric vehicle charging.
Next slide, please.
So in review, we have some gaps that we
see. There's growing demand without
necessarily any network growth. uh
there's some but we need more chargers
and then the state code minimums that
exist now are unl unlikely to keep up
with the projected charging demand. So
this presentation is our first attempt
at making some suggestions some ideas
based on researching what other
jurisdictions are doing to try to
address these gaps.
Next slide.
And these are the same questions as
before.
Um, and I'd love to hear your feedback.
Commissioner Westerbeck here. Great
presentation. Really glad we're tackling
this. Um, I can't help but think about
my experiences. I do occasional small
development projects like four unit
size. For the last seven years or so, I
just consider EV ready the minimum for
all the granted we're only doing four,
five, six, seven parking spots, but it
doesn't I remember talking to my
electrician about it back in 2018 or 17.
They said it doesn't really cost us
much. It's not going to cost us as the
buyer much to do it at construction to
have the the conduit placed and wire it
to each of the if it's assigned. For
example, one building we have, well,
actually the last two buildings, they
were assigned parking and um so they're
paying for the energy they use if they
use their, you know, assigned spot. And
it's easy and it doesn't actually, you
know, we're we're working with pretty
tight budgets. Um and it didn't have a
ton of cost. To me, it's just a
no-brainer. We just do it period. And um
yeah, so I'm pro add more. Um, I think
the higher numbers are good. Um,
that 45 I was thinking like we had 10
20% and some I'm thinking let's d let's
at least double those. Um, so um and
I've talked to people around downtown
both here, some other cities, Redmond
because I've actually got a project in
Redmond so I recognize some of that
code. Um and um yeah, people live in
apartments frequently, you know, they're
um they're comfortably financially
comfortable, but they're like, "Well, I,
you know, I don't want to get an EV. I
want one, but I I don't know that I'm
going to be able to charge it
consistently." It's like some people
have range anxiety, some people have
charger anxiety. So any everything you
said has has resonated with with with my
experience both both building housing as
well as talking to people who want to
have have an EV and and are not sure if
they can um especially in some of the
big buildings like we were talking about
with the bike parking. So just a few
comments there. So like yes yes on those
first couple questions. Um and then that
was really compelling that you that you
wrote up about learned about the the
grocery stores and the strip malls and
things like that. Um, so that seems imperative. The affordable
housing, um, I don't know that we should
do exceptions. I I tend to feel that,
um, I've worked with with Habitat for
Humanity a bit on some projects and they
always feel like those their their
clients should have the same benefits
that, like you said a minute ago, people
with more money have. And so knowing
that if it's done at construction, it's
not terribly expensive. They should be
at least EV ready, a pretty high
percentage of those units so that they,
you know, we want everyone to be
eventually adopting, you know, um,
electric technology for their cars, I
think, as a society and it fits into our environmental goals in the city. So,
uh, the direction of all this and the
really thorough research here is
fantastic. I'm, you know, pro increasing
these and I'm super sensitive to how it
increases project costs. Something I
talk about with the planning staff and public works and everything all the
time. But that's why I'm really saying
like the if we can minimize the retrofit
and really emphasize and then in do like
I think we're gonna we'll have to be
probably creative about the I think
you've got a good list of kind of
allocart maybe green point uh green you
know points almost like the energy code
does um to incentivize those so that
it's not a huge increase cost um because
they're going to get um you know a
reduction in cost elsewhere uh on the
project uh and that's I think especially
in and at a time when I think and we've
discussed this planning commission
multiple times the last couple years
even market rate housing isn't penciling
out very well. So affordable is going to
be really a hard sell. So we might have
to get kind of aggressive with um okay
we want you to do the the EV ready and
we're going to be you know really
willing to work with you on our allocart
list of incentives to get these things
installed and done. Um, so sort of some
random thoughts there, but I really like
the direction here and I'm pro
increasing because I think you said,
like you said, it's it's here to stay. I
mean, everybody I know is trying to, you
know, move away from ICE cars and get to
EVs.
>> Thank you for your comments,
» Commissioner Kieran.
>> Well, I I'll second everything
Commissioner West said. Uh I I think
having them be EV ready is really
important. Um again, initial
installation versus retrofit is just a
huge difference. So should definitely go
that way. And I really like the idea of
it being part of a green building
application package, you know, and and
looking at the incentives for that
building to be green with this being an
important component of it. So I'd be
interested in seeing how you go down
that path. Um, I wonder if how much of a
problem there is with turnover. Do
people just use them as parking spaces?
Get there, plug it in, and stay. Uh,
kind of like the bicycle uh question.
They take a space, but don't use it.
>> That was one of my notes I forgot to
bring up. Thank you.
>> Yeah. Um, so I I don't have a suggestion
or solution, but it's a question I have
that I think you should consider and see
what other people are doing. And
finally, you did mention business uh
benefit. I think restaurants could
really benefit from this. People, you
know, who are driving, they look for a
place to charge and if they can stop and
charge, they're going to go in and have,
you know, something to eat or, you know,
cup of coffee or whatever. So, I do
think it it's a benefit to the business
that they could really take advantage of
and I think that should be highlighted.
You know, I know my son lives in
Portland. He has an EV. he comes here,
he doesn't always make it, but he's got
a restaurant he knows has a charger and
they make a stop there. So, um, you
know, that should be really recognized
and highlighted. So, thank you for your
work on this.
>> Yeah, thank you. And I can speak to a
little bit as far as uh dwell time. Here
at city hall, it's around 3 and a half
hours and then people tend to stay an
additional hour after their car is done
charging. So, a lot of fee structures,
one similar to what we actually just
passed last night in city council has a
overtime fee so that if you continue to
stay there, you start getting charged
more money. So, that can help turnover
continue so people move along. Um, and
then to speak to restaurants, fast food
chains was very high on the list after
grocery stores. People really like to go
to fast food places to charge and then
eat. Um, and that's another reason why I
think potentially encouraging level
three chargers in like downtown general
commercial could be great because it
would have a high turnover and would
bring more customers to those downtown
areas.
» Um, I'm not an EV expert at this point.
Um, I I remember that not all cars could
use the level three originally. Are more
cars able to um so that the viable the
viability of trading one for two L2s is worth it?
>> Yeah, that's a really great question
actually and something that I've been
considering. I think looking at that
sort of exponential growth of battery
electric vehicles. Those are the ones
that can use L3 chargers, the faster
chargers. And then there actually some
newer uh technology coming out now where
you can have a hybrid that can use a
fast charger. They're more rare and
they're definitely still very expensive,
but over time I imagine they'll they'll
get cheaper. So, uh, in Washington state
and city of both, there are more and
more cars that can use level three
chargers, but that being said, we still
need to have plenty of level two
chargers because there are plenty of
people that have uh cars that only work
with those types of chargers. So, we
want to make sure we don't leave them
behind.
>> Commissioner Lver, did you
>> uh Yes, I echo everything that I just
heard. I really like it. I have a
question about the scenario of not
making these changes with the demand
growing. Is it that then the market will
crash because we just don't have enough
places to plug it or like how
dark it looks if we don't do this
actually because it's almost like okay
it sounds like we have to do it and we
have to do it now and there's just no
other
path right and yes to do it but
>> yeah I mean that's a great question I
haven't done a whole lot of research
into dystopian options, but um I think
that likely it would just mean less
people want to be here in both. They
aren't going to want to come here as
much. And I think that's not what we
want. Um people are going to be less
likely to live here. I think with the
way that the housing market, the housing
market is going and the way that gas
prices are going, there's going to be a
huge amount of people that are living in
multifamily housing who own electric
vehicles. And so if City of Buffalo
doesn't have that, they're just not
going to live here because other places
nearby are are doing this. Yeah.
>> And and just to to add to that, the the
growth projections that we we know that
we talked about around this table uh and
the work that was completed in 2024, we
anticipate that growth of multifamily
and then all of the things that will go
with it, mixeduse, commercial, uh to be
coming along as well. So, we'd miss out
on on that opportunity if we delay this uh this idea at least and kind of
figure it out and identify what the best
uh threshold is.
>> Yeah. I would also just add that
likely if we don't do this now, people
are going to try to do it later and
that's when the retrofit costs come in
and the complicated utility plans and
difficult permitting scenarios. So
that's kind of why we're trying to think
about it early.
>> Um just one thing that I do want to um
echo on the affordability piece. I
actually do believe that we shouldn't
have the exception precisely for that
because then it will be something that
may create even more of a disadvantage.
So um yeah, that's my other strong
comment. And and the good thing about
that because we got rid of parking
minimums,
it's it's the park the percentage of EV
stalls is based on the the number of
stalls proposed. So we don't identify
market rate versus affordable have to
provide X number of stalls for those
different uses. So um some cities do
have that and they do need to they are
grappling with what to do. We're just
saying
development decides how many parking
stalls total they want to construct and
then these percentages would just look
at okay you you put in 50 stalls for
however many units you wanted here's the
percentage that you need to follow. So
it wouldn't it wouldn't have an impact
without doing anything.
Okay, seeing no further questions or
comments from commissioners.
Uh yeah, did you get enough feedback
from us?
» Yeah, I think that's a really good
start. I appreciate your comments on
affordable housing. That feels clear. We
can move forward that way. Discuss with
my team. Um
yeah, I really appreciate your time
tonight. I think that's great.
>> Well, thank you for your very
wellressearched presentation for us
today. Um it's an exciting avenue for us
to begin considering um the green
building codes as some of the
commissioners. I think you can see some
interest there. So, thank you. Thank you
for that presentation.
>> Great information.
>> Yeah,
>> it was great. We look forward to
discussing it further in the future.
>> Thank you. Um the final study session
tonight is an update on the tree code
from senior planner Cameron Coleman.
>> Finally, you guys get to go.
>> And as I want to take the opportunity as
they as they take their seats, you all
know Cameron, I want to introduce
Gabriella Gozarian who is our new urban
forester, both's first urban forester.
Very excited to have her join the team.
uh as they as they kick off the intro,
I'm gonna I'm gonna pull up the slides
and drive from from over here. So
Um, while Christian is uh finishing
getting the slides pulled up, I can give
just a brief intro um for this item. Um,
I know we're getting late here, so this
will be a pretty brief update. Um,
mostly just want to provide you all with
an update on the engagement work
associated with the tree code updates
and how we'll be taking that feedback um
to inform the draft code that we'll be
working on over the August recess and
then bringing back to you all uh later
this year.
And next slide.
[snorts and laughter]
Um okay. So just in terms of status
update um as I mentioned we have
finished the first round of uh
engagement which involved a uh internal
workshop with city staff and subject
matter experts across various
departments. Uh we also hosted um a
series of focus group meetings uh with
members of the public um and we'll be
utilizing that information to help
inform um the initial uh code drafting.
Next slide please.
Um so our internal workshop we held in
May. Um we had about 25 participants in
total um covering staff from community
development, public works, parks and
recreation, uh fire and emergency
management.
Next slide.
And then for the uh focus group
meetings, we held two sessions in June.
Uh an afternoon session and an evening
one to accommodate um different
schedules. And um in order to recruit
participants for these focus groups, um
we uh did promotion in April and May uh
leading up to those through our various
city channels and had signups on through
engage both for that. and we ended up
having 50 signups in total. Not all of
those uh ended up showing up at our
first focus groups, but we had 21
participants in total across the two
sessions. Um and we do have uh those 50
signups contacts that we'll be keeping
in touch with throughout this process.
And so once we have draft code um
developed, we'll be reaching out to them
to schedule that second round of focus
group with all of those participants.
Um so I wanted to just kind of run
through how we went about these uh
workshops and focus groups. Um so uh
what we did was kind of create a
hypothetical development scenario that
is fairly uh typical of what we are
seeing here in both. Um, and then had
participants kind of review uh a
proposed tree retention and uh site plan
for a proposed development uh using our
existing code and seeing how that plays
out in this particular scenario to help
identify where um things are working
well, where there are existing
challenges and how we could improve our
existing code. So for the uh development
exercise, the example we used was a
single family lot about an acre in size
um that is proposing to be redeveloped
for town homes. Um this particular
example could accommodate up to uh 25
units per acre. That would be their max
density limit and they're proposing 20
town homes. So slightly below that. Um
and then up on your screen here is the
uh hypothetical tree retention plan. So
this is typically what we would see
during the review process where um as
part of the plan set they're identifying
existing trees on site, those that are
proposed to be uh retained on site um
and those that would be removed to
accommodate uh the new development.
Um we shared with participants our
existing code requirements, definitions
for significant trees and the percentage
requirements.
Um and then asked them to kind of work
through the table in the bottom right
looking at number of trees retained. Uh
our particular code looks at the total
DBH of the site. So tallying up all of
the trees and their sizes.
um it's 20% of that that has to be
retained. Um so you'll see in this
example they did meet that requirement
with 22% uh that third column there of
uh uh total DBH retained on site. And
then if you go to the next slide um
it'll show kind of how that proposed
layout would potentially work out. Um,
and again, this is hypothetical and made
in Canva and not an engineered design.
So, some of this um is not exactly what
we would see in a typical plan set, but
at least gives people kind of an rough
idea of uh the types of things that
might be going through an engineer or
architect's mind as they are working on
um how they could potentially lay out a
site. while meeting these requirements.
Um,
couple other things uh that we talked
about were our existing landscaping
requirements. And so, uh, we do have,
uh, buffer requirements, particularly
for multif family developments, uh, when
adjacent to certain zones. And so um
that also impacts the number of
potential trees that get planted on site
as well.
Next slide.
Um so uh as part of the exercise I also
include the section of our code uh that
talks about what criteria um should be
prioritized as part of that tree
retention process. So, how do we decide
which trees to keep other than just, you
know, what uh we can accommodate as part
of the proposed development? And so,
currently that includes things like uh
continuous overstory, uh trees located
next to streams and other critical
areas, uh trees that maintain or enhance
the feathered edge or ridgetops,
um trees that are in good health and
have the highest likelihood of survival.
um those that are incorporated as part
of low impact development. Uh and then
finally trees located uh within
designated open spaces. Um and so if you
could go back two slides
um you will see in this particular uh
scenario that although they met the 20%
retention requirement they did not
follow our criteria for the selection of
those trees particularly areas adjacent
to uh critical areas that could provide
additional ecological benefit. it um
rather than some of the more isolated
trees uh on the northern or eastern
sides of the property. Um and then if
you go back forward uh two or three
slides
um so uh we asked participants kind of
following the exercise to uh identify
what areas of the code they felt were
working well. um what challenges uh are
present and what they think should
change. And then on the next couple
slides, I'll just run through what kind
of common things we heard, which I think
a lot of these do kind of reflect some
of the topics that came up during our
prior discussion a few months ago. So in
terms of what's working well, um people
really like the our critical area
protections and that those ensure that
trees located in those areas are
retained. Um they like that we have at
least a minimum currently that protects
some trees on site and it does create a
process for the identification and
protection of significant trees. Um they
like existing open space requirements,
impervious surface limits and
landscaping requirements which all kind
of work together uh in addition to our
tree retention requirements to increase
the amount of green space and and trees
on site. Next slide.
um in terms of uh things that they felt
were not working. Uh retention
priorities criteria particularly in this
example. Um
and so that may be one of the areas of
the code that we could strengthen. Um
exemption thresholds. Currently our code
exempts uh developments that are less
than 20,000 square feet. And so just as
we see development trends and lots
getting smaller um and more dense, that
might be something worth looking into
and refining that. Um lack of
flexibility. Um in this particular
example, uh there was uh frontage
improvements and rightaway dedication
with existing trees there. And so some
flexibility in terms of the sidewalk uh
layout or design could have helped
retain some of those additional trees.
Potentially flexing uh some of the
setback or landscaping requirements on
the edges of the property uh could have
shifted some of the buildings and also
um created additional benefits there. Um
protection during construction and then
long-term maintenance. Uh one of the
things discussed um with the group was
just what happens when uh after the
development's complete and that turns
over to individual homeowners. Um you
know after a certain period of time we
get individual requests to come in uh
and remove trees. So we need a clear
process for that as we move forward.
Next slide.
So in response to that, what should
change? Uh updating uh retention
criteria to prioritize viable native
contiguous canopy that provides the most
ecological value. Revising our exemption
thresholds uh to reflect recent
development patterns. Establishing or
providing more flexibility uh in terms
of other design standards where it would
result in additional trees preserved.
um strengthening our existing
construction protections and then
clarifying a long-term maintenance
requirements and um a permit process for
tree removals not associated with new
development.
Um, and then just in terms of next
steps, as I mentioned, um, we'll be
working taking this feedback, working on
an initial draft code to bring back to
you all, um, later, uh, in the fall. And
we'll also be following up with our
focus group participants and, uh, city
staff uh, with that draft as well to get
their feedback on it.
And I think that is all I had. Um so
with that I will uh entertain any
questions that you all have.
» Commissioner Kunan.
>> So uh I really like your what should
change slide. I think you hit a number
of really important points. So want to
thank you for that and recognize that.
uh flexibility is also you know is is a
tricky thing. It can be used and it can
be abused but in the example you gave I
could see a lot of value in granting
flexibility for preserving those trees
close to that buffer and letting some of
the other ones go. You know from
ecological standpoint having a more
concentrated growth is much better than
a tree here a tree there and you know
one over there. So properly applied
flexibility I think would be really
useful to get in there. So thank you
» Commissioner Lever.
>> Um thank you so much. This was
wonderful. I have a question around the
implementation of the plan. So it's
wonderful to have you here now but what
are some of the capacity needs that you
foresee with the different requirements
because um as the enforcement component
will probably add a lot of uh work for
you like what does that implementation
look like in terms of the phases of like
year one when because this this is a lot
and this is wonderful and I and I think
it's it's great but I wonder how how
ready the city is to enforce it and
really be able to implement.
>> Do you want to take that one, Gabriella?
So, hiring Gabriella has vastly
increased our uh capacity uh to start uh
building and fleshing out what an urban
forestry program really looks like. Um,
but in addition, we'll be partnering
with staff in public works and parks as
well um to really, you know, have a
comprehensive program and and help
implement this stuff. So, if anything to
add?
>> Yes, there's also going to be an element
of using code compliance and uh
construction inspectors as well as I
hope to have a very physical presence on
the ground. I have a lot of experience
in operations, so I will be overseeing a
lot of the sites myself.
» Commissioner Westerbeck.
>> Hey, Commissioner Westb. I have
complicated feelings around trees
because um of course I'm building stuff
and I have clients who sometimes want to
chop down more trees than I personally
do. Um yeah. Um
sometimes I so I for example I want to
uh agree with Commissioner Kieran on the
um the ecological you know function
being primary uh when when you u can
prioritize that and let some other trees
go that aren't you know um as important.
I've got um e even my in my early
architectural career, I had a um I
worked for a firm where they would
identify a significant tree and build a
project around it. There's actually a
really cool project we did in Seattle, years ago, um that was built
around this huge fur tree. So, I try and
think about that in my work. And so that
flexibility to me is really important
because um I've even got a current one
right now and I and and a big company's
gonna probably buy the the the lot and
take over. There's this massive tree
that the current seller is called
grandfather tree. And I've been trying
my damnedest to excuse my language, but
to make sure that they know that tree is
off limits, but I can't, you know, once
they once the propertyy's theirs, they
can do the DBH thing, whatever. So there
are shortcomings obviously in our our
code the like like I saw in the example
there they could cluster a whole bunch
of 8 10 12 16inch trees whatever and
then um for to to be retained and then
and take out the big beautiful tree. Um
so I'm not an arborist so I don't know
you know the the pros and cons of
keeping you know eight 16inch trees
versus one 48 inch tree or something
like that but um people get really
attached to those and and I can see why
they want to keep them. Um, so I'm kind
of all all over the board here, but I
like that we're really looking at it. I
like that they've hired you, that we're
taking a fresh look at it. I'm always
concerned that um prioritizing keeping
trees as much as I I love trees as much
as the next person will impact how much
housing we get built because that's our
other crisis. I think ultimately housing
is probably more important than keeping
trees, but I don't really want them to
fight with each other either. So, so
again, like I said, I've got complicated
feelings, but the what should change, I
can't really disagree with any of those.
Um, and um, I've said this many times
before as someone who does work in the design and development space, being
able to be flexible on sidewalks,
um, the um, setbacks
um, and really, you know, do a whole new
kind of re-evaluation of of how we allow
people to lay out buildings on sites. If
we decide that it's more important to
keep, you know, a 48 inch di, you know,
diameter tree or something like that is
going to be critical to us, balancing,
keeping trees, building, you know, um
keeping
building the number of trees and forests
we have in both while also increasing
the number of homes, which is an acute issue. So, that's what I always
think about when I'm when I'm looking at
the tree code is can we can we keep
balancing them? um and prioritize I I
would tend to prioritize the significant
trees um but again not such that um
we're not going to get you know 20 30 40
50 um homes that we may desperately
need. Um, but I, you know, to get in the
weeds here, it may be, well, maybe we,
um, we let you cut the trees if you're
going to do, um, a minimum density of 20
homes or something like that, or we'll
we our code allows some flexibility
there, but not for um, three single
family homes that aren't going to
contribute as much to the our affordable
housing goals. So, sorry I I don't have
like code written out for this, but I
think about that too as well, like what
are we getting for that sacrifice? So,
kind of random random thoughts there,
but those are the things I think about
with the tree code is um we've got to
keep them, but we also have to balance
that with the long-term needs of of
residents and homes.
I also like that idea that um
Commissioner Westerbeck mentioned that
if you are going to be cutting down
these trees, you'd better be building
enough um
homes to accommodate um the loss. Um
along those lines, I'm a little wonder
I'm wondering how this ties into
something we had talked about earlier in
the year regarding heritage trees and
those kinds of things. I didn't see a
mention of it, but maybe like obliquely
mentioned to it. Can you just touch tie
that in?
>> Yeah, that is a a probably a bullet
point I should have uh included as well.
That is still a a priority and something
that we'll look at as part of this code
update. Um is uh establishing a a
definition for like you were mentioning
grandfather trees or you know very
significant trees.
along those lines. Do you guys have
ideas about where you're headed with
that? Like what would it what would that
mean then if once we get that heritage
tree and kind of thing incorporated into
code? How would it affect the the
>> uh do you want to take that?
>> I have a few ideas that I'm uh
brainstorming right now. Right now, I
have three different types, three
different classifications that we can go
with. And I'm currently still
researching what is optimal and what is
used by the surrounding areas both in
Snomish and King County. So, I'm not
quite ready to unveil my but it's
definitely going to be coming. We wait
with baited breath
[laughter] for the [snorts] big reveal.
Okay.
>> Couple things if I may. I do think um
the 20,000 square foot um a minimum
could be reduced now given how many
small lots we're we're seeing developed.
And uh and that's somebody who, you
know, that would probably make my job a
little more challenging, but I think
that's from to me back in the days when
lots were just much larger and they were
going to have a single house on them.
And I just don't, you know, I could see
why people get upset when we just come
in and take down every single tree. And,
you know, developers didn't work that
way back in the 60s, 70s, whatever. Um,
that's why there's these neighborhoods
with all these mature second growth
trees. You probably know more about this
than me, but now it's cheaper for them
to come in and just take every single
tree out um and then rebuild from
scratch. It's faster and easier and more
predictable, whatever. And um I know I'm
sure storms and stuff are probably an
issue, but um
just the way the way um development
occurs now is so so different than it
was. So um we it seems like we used to
preserve more trees because it was just
easier, but now it's easier to take them
all out. So it's a whole different
paradigm, too.
» Okay. Well, thank you so much and it was
lovely to meet you. We look forward to
further meetings with you. Um,
do you have everything you need from us
for today? Well, thank you so much again
for this really great presentation.
Yeah, thank you and welcome. Um, that
concludes our four study sessions
for the evening. [laughter]
Um, are there reports from commission
members? If you have a report, you can
raise your hand.
Okay.
Uh seeing none, uh how about staff? Are
there any reports from staff?
>> Only only item from staff. Uh our next
meeting will be Wednesday, September
2nd. We'll have a few items to discuss.
Uh looking forward to seeing you again
and enjoy the the recess.
>> Okay.
Fantastic. Yes, we are. Uh there will be
an August recess. We um just as a
reminder, so our next session will be
September 2nd as stated by um Mr. Gates
there. Uh if there is no further
business,
um I will entertain a motion to adjurnn.
Is there a motion? Yes.
>> I move we adjurnn.
>> Thank you. Is there a second?
>> Commissioner Westerbeck, I second the
motion to adjurnn. Uh, thank you,
Commissioner Westerbeck.
Um,
wow. The motion has been uh seconded.
All in favor say I.
>> I.
>> Okay. Looks like a an universal
I. Thank you so much. I'll see you in
September.