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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-11-2009 .0". CITY OF PLANNING & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE ~ )WASHINGTON May 11, 2009 MINUTES 1. CALL TO ORDER Chair Lynn Norman called the meeting to order at 5:01 p.m. in the Council Chambers located on the first floor of Auburn City Hall, 25 West Main Street, Auburn, WA. Committee members present were: Chair Lynn Norman, Vice Chair Nancy Backus and Member Rich Wagner. Also present were: Assistant Director Kevin Snyder, Principal Planner Elizabeth Chamberlain, Principal Planner Jeff Dixon, Senior Planner Chris Andersen , City Attorney Dan Heid, Communications Manager Dana Hinman, Deputy Mayor Sue Singer, Economic Development Manager Dave Baron and Planning Secretary Renee Tobias. Audience members present were: Stuart Elway of Elway Research, Adam Hougland, Bobby Ritter, Katie Tillman, Harpreet Khokhar. II. CONSENT AGENDA A. March 5, 2009 Minutes B. March 24, 2009 Minutes C. March 30, 2009 Minutes D. April 23, 2009 Minutes E. April 27, 2009 Minutes Committee asked on the status of the addendum that was to be sent to the property owners with the April 1, 2009 neighborhood meeting notes, informing them that if the neighborhood wished to work together to reach an overwhelming majority of support for or against a parking program, the City would like to know. Staff responded that Public Works is working on the addendum. Committee asked to have the results of this addendum brought back for discussion. Member Nancy Backus moved and Member Wagner seconded to approve the Consent Agenda. Chair Lynn Norman concurred. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 3-0. III. ACTION No items IV. DISCUSION A. Private Art The proposed ordinance would request and encourage all persons proposing to display artwork, especially wall murals that would be visible from the public right of way, are requested and encouraged to consult with the City Cultural Arts Department Planning and Community Development Committee Minutes May 11, 2009 and the City of Auburn Arts Commission to ensure that their proposed artwork will not have problems integrating into the artistic fabric of Auburn. Member Nancy Backus moved and Member Wagner seconded to move Ordinance, to be named at a later date, regarding Private Art to Council. Chair Lynn Norman concurred. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY 3-0. B. Joining New Energy Solutions Deputy Mayor Sue Singer and Economic Development Manager Dave Baron gave background history on the New Energy Solutions (NES) consortium. The Committee discussed whether or not to sign a letter of intent to join the consortium. Twenty- percent of the City's portion of the federal Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grants (EECBG) grant money (20% of $235,000) would be given to NES revolving fund if it was decided to perform weatherization improvements NES plans to create an easy-to-use loan program for residential and commercial property owners to finance energy efficiency projects. The fund would establish a loan stop loss reserve fund, also known as a loan guarantee. The consortium plans to use Energy Efficiency Finance Corp; Mayor Lewis asked Mr. Baron to provide additional information about this corporation. Participating cities will jointly create a Request for Proposals to identify local Community Development Financial Institutions to attract and manage a pool of public and private capital for residential energy efficiency retrofits. Guaranteed loans would be made in the range of $8,000-$20,000, depending on the types of upgrades undertaken. It was noted that only the jurisdictions that put up 20% of the EECBG money will have access to the fund up to $48 million. No expenditure of local funds will be made in connection to the NES initiative without first obtaining approval by City Council. Mayor Lewis asked that the City Attorney review the documents. Committee asked for more information on the governance of the consortium. It was the consensus of the Committee that additional information be collected concerning the particulars of the projects and governance issues before any letter of intent is signed. C. Citizen Survey Dana Hinman and Consultant Stuart Elway of Elway Research reviewed the first draft of the Citizen Survey with the Committee. Committee reviewed proposed questions and provided direction to Ms. Hinman and Mr. Elway. The survey will begin May 2009. Some of the suggested changes follow. Question 12 - Committee discussed the wording, "How accountable...". Mr. Elway stated that this is a new question for the survey and evolved from questions asked about performance for the State Auditor. The question asked, "What is more useful to you as a measure of government performance - effectiveness, efficiency or accountability" resulted in more responses of "accountability" than the other two. It Page 2 Planning and Community Development Committee Minutes May 11, 2009 was agreed that the wording similar to Question 11, "Compared to other cities or other levels of government, do you think that the City is would be added. Question 17 - Conditions of streets and sidewalks will be separated. Reference to Fire and Emergency Medical Services will be removed. Question 32.2 - Change wording to, Do you support continued investment in the Les Gove Community Campus? Question 32.3 - Change wording, Continuing the privately-funded economic redeve/opment to Changing the economic redeve/opment of Auburn's downtown. D. Population Targets Principal Planner Elizabeth Chamberlain summarized the PowerPoint presentation with the Committee regarding the 2009 Housing and Job Growth Targets allocation process. Latest Office of Financial Management (OFM) indicated King and Pierce counties are growing faster over long-term than previous forecasts. Ms. Chamberlain reviewed how the growth targets are allocated for both King and Pierce counties. The Growth Targets are adopted in King County via Countywide Planning Policies (CPPs). The Pierce County Regional Council makes a recommendation to Pierce County Council who makes the decision. The current targets cover the planning period of 2002 to 2022; proposed target update pushes the planning period out an additional nine years to 2031. This round of housing and job targets is allocated to the cities and towns based on the regional geographies outlined in Puget Sound Regional Council's Vision 2040 are broken into the following categories 1. Metro cities 2. Core suburban cities - consists of ten King County and three Pierce County jurisdictions, including Auburn, with designated "Urban Centers" 3. Large suburban cities 4. Small cities 5. Urban unincorporated subareas 6. Rural By going through the process of housing and job targets now it sets the framework for the required update to the Countywide Planning Policies to be consistent with Vision 2040 by 2010 and for the cities and towns to update their comprehensive plans in 2011. Ms. Chamberlain presented four new slides added to the presentation. The first two slides explained a re-analysis of the core cities' urban centers. There was an assumption that the core cities underestimated the capacity within the urban centers in 2007 Buildable Lands Report and this exercise was to determine if that assumption was correct. Suburban Cities Association re-analyzed four jurisdictions' urban centers and determined that it was very likely the urban centers' capacities were underestimated. This analysis will serve the cities in determining what level of housing units and jobs it can reasonably accommodate. The Committee asked about the market outlook assumption and "notable" structures within the downtown Page 3 Planning and Community Development Committee Minutes May 11, 2009 that may not be historic. Staff will add "notable" to the checklist of assumptions and research the market outlook assumption. Staff then presented the methodology on how the proposed new housing units and job targets were derived. The Committee is concerned that the with this targets process, housing units and jobs is not tied to any infrastructure level of service and that funding is not available to make the necessary infrastructure investments. The Committee also requested that staff provide the same presentation to the Planning Commission at their next meeting. Staff acknowledged and will schedule for the next regular meeting. Staff stated that if there are any questions on the methodologies or if the Committee would like additional back ground data to forward those questions to staff. E. Code Update Project Senior Planner Chris Andersen briefed the Committee on the Planning Commission public hearing meetings on May 5 and 7, 2009 for proposed amendments to Title 17 - Subdivisions and Title 18 - Zoning. A table summarizing the public comment issues and Planning Commission recommendations was distributed and reviewed. Cottage Housing has been pulled from Phase I of the Code Update and will be discussed in Phase II. The Committee suggested that this section be renamed. Further discussion on the Planning Commission's recommendations and public testimony will be discussed at the May 12, 2009 Special Planning & Community Development Committee meeting. V. INFORMATION A. Director's Official Decisions and Report B. PCDC Status Matrix The Committee inquired about the status of loading zones in the Urban Center Master Plan. Staff will talk with Public Works staff to develop information for the Committee. C. Information Councilmember Wagner distributed information on the Auburn Environmental Park (AEP) that he and Deputy Mayor Sue Singer presented to the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) in attempt to engage regional approaches for a large stimulus grant; this was not successful, however, at this time. The possibility of a Washington State University student project is being investigated by Councilmember Wagner. Committee noted that the AEP is zoned for both residential and commercial. In response to Committee's question on ways to share this information with current property owners, staff will address this during Phase II of the Code Update Project. Page 4 Pianning and Community Development Committee Minutes May 11, 2009 VI. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to come before the Planning and Community Development Committee, Chair Norman adjourned the meeting at 7:12 p.m. APPROVED THIS 26th DAY OF MAY, 2009. Lynn rman, Chair Ren S. Tobias, Planning Secretary Page 5