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2021-05-05 Planning Commission MinutesPlanning Commission Minutes Page 1 May 5, 2021 CITY OF FEDERAL WAY PLANNING COMMISSION May 5, 2021 City Hall 6:30 p.m. Zoom MEETING MINUTES Commissioners present: Tim O’Neil, Wayne Carlson, Diana Noble-Gulliford, Tom Medhurst, Dale Couture, Eric Olsen, Jae So, and Anna Patrick. Commissioners absent: Lawson Bronson (excused) and Hope Elder. City Staff present: CD Director Brian Davis, Planning Manager Keith Niven, Associate Planner Chaney Skadsen, City Attorney Eric Rhoades, and Administrative Assistant II Tina Piety. Consultant Kevin Ramsey BERK Consulting. CALL TO ORDER Vice-Chair O’Neil called the meeting to order at 6:30 P.M. MINUTES The April 21, 2021, minutes were approved as presented. PUBLIC COMMENT None COMMISSION BUSINESS Discussion, Housing Action Plan (HAP): Strategies Implementation –Planner Skadsen delivered the staff presentation. This is for information only. She introduced the consultant Kevin Ramsey from BERK Consulting. Planner Skadsen commented that the city has been working on this effort for over a year. Overall findings include that the rate of housing development is not keeping up with the demand and there is a lack of variety of housing type and affordability. She reiterated the HAP objectives, which are: Promote new housing development that expands housing choices and is inclusive to community needs. Encourage homeownership opportunities and support equitable housing outcomes. Plan for continued growth and ensure that the built environment promotes community development and increases the quality of life for Federal Way’s existing and future residents. Preserve the existing affordable housing stock to prevent displacement pressure. Eight strategies were developed to achieve these objectives as follows: Planning Commission Minutes Page 2 May 5, 2021 1) Promote a dense, walkable, mixed-use City Center as a complete neighborhood. 2) Promote mixed use, walkable, subareas and neighborhood centers. 3) Increase diversity in housing choice through expanding missing middle development opportunities. 4) Encourage Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) production. 5) Ensure that financial and regulatory incentives for mixed-income housing are effective. 6) Review school impact fees on multifamily housing. 7) Coordinate affordable housing development and preservation with community groups and the South King Housing and Homelessness Partnership (SKHHP). 8) Protect tenants through the development of a rental housing inspection program. Planner Skadsen then turned the presentation over to Consultant Ramsey to discuss the proposed Implementation Matrix and Priority Schedule. Consultant Ramsey stated that housing strategies are interrelated and work together to encourage new development that addresses housing needs. Some strategies are dependent upon others to be effective. The Implementation Matrix and Priority Schedule breaks down each strategy into a set of actions the city can take to implement each strategy. For each action, the matrix includes: Priority (short-term, medium-term, long-term). Level of effort: rough measure of the amount of staff time or resources needed to implement. Duration: estimate of the number of years it will take to implement. The lead department responsible for implementing, as well as any partners that will be essential for success. Measures of success: Including benchmarks for implementation as well as measures of actual impact in the community. City staff can use this document to develop a workplan and allocate resources needed to carry out implementation of the HAP. He then went over the proposed implementation actions (short-term and medium/long-term) for each strategy. For each one, he included an example of how a similar strategy is working in a different jurisdiction. He noted the state is encouraging ADUs. Strategy #5 refers mainly to multifamily housing. Federal Way does have some incentives that encourage mixed-income housing, but they are not being used. Consultant Ramsey commented that the city first needs to show that market-rate multifamily will work in Federal Way; then low-income can be encouraged. Commissioner Noble-Gulliford had a question on impact fees. She noted that there are apartment complexes in the works (DevCo and one on 348th & 1st). The needs of our school district and their taxing authority are different from neighboring districts. A bond for 450 million was approved a few years ago, but it doesn’t address all the district’s needs. How should they make up the difference with or without school impact fees? Consultant Ramsey stated that the school impact fees may only be used for new development. The new development will help support the district’s current needs. It is a balancing act. Commissioner Noble-Gulliford asked in regard to the city’s proposed rental inspection program, how does it compare to the current Landlord Tenant law? And in regard to the cost, who will pay? Planner Skadsen replied that the program is in the midst of being developed and these issues haven’t been dealt with yet. Vice-Chair O’Neil asked if the addition of specific goals (say so many ADUs by 2025) has been considered, or is this the Council’s job? Consultant Ramsey replied that some communities do have specific goals. The city is in the process of adopting growth targets that could be used to develop goals It is a policy choice the city can make. Vice-Chair O’Neil encouraged the creation of specific goals because it will be the best way to determine the success of our work. Planning Commission Minutes Page 3 May 5, 2021 Commissioner Medhurst commented that ADU’s seem more popular in city center then other city neighborhoods. Are they providing affordable housing or just allowing affordable in the city center? If you leave out the downside (impact fee) high density mixed-use seems our best option. Planner Skadsen stated that ADU’s are popular for those downsizing. Consultant Ramsey commented that there is a large supply of single-family homes with many bedrooms and only one to two people living there. If the city allowed it, they could use the additional space as an ADU. ADU’s could provide a cheaper way to live in a single-family neighborhood. They could provide additional housing without a radical transformation of the neighborhood. Vice-Chair O’Neil stated that in his experience people create an ADU for family, not to rent it out. Usually it is a new owner who rents it out. Changed regulations may encourage rental ADU’s. Consultant Ramsey said that in Seattle some people worried that allowing more ADU’s would negatively affect neighborhoods, but that hasn’t happened. He has seen some homes Seattle where the builder included an ADU, but they are rare. STAFF BUSINESS Manager’s Report – Vice-Chair O’Neil asked about the status of the IRG developments. Director Davis replied that the city has three applications for the property. SEPA and land use approval have been issued for the first application. The SEPA and land use were appealed, but upheld with conditions. One condition was to obtain required federal permits and they are working with the Corps of Engineers to do so. Once this is completed, they will submit their building permit application. For the second application, SEPA has been issued and land-use is still under review. The third application is working on SEPA. Manager Niven has prepared a calendar with tentative Planning Commission topics and dates for the remainder of the year (enclosed). Not every meeting date has a topic and he encouraged the Commissioners to make suggestions of topics they feel should be considered. The meeting was closed. NEXT MEETING May 19, 2021, 6:30 p.m., Zoom Meeting ADJOURN The meeting adjourned at 7:37 P.M. K:\Planning Commission\2016\Meeting Summary 04-21-21.doc 2021 Planning Commission Tentative Calendar Topics May 2021 Date Potential Topic May 5 HAP May 19 Briefing on Short-term rentals June 2 June 16 HAP Hearing Sign Code Amendments (Tentative) July 7 July 21 Briefing on Comprehensive Plan Docket August 4 Briefing on Downtown planning August 18 September 1 September 15 Comprehensive Plan Amendment Hearing October 6 Comprehensive Plan Amendment Hearing Continuance (if necessary) October 20 November 3 November 17 December 1 Training Commission Elections December 15