Olympia Council of Neighborhoods Meeting
CNA MEETING Minutes
March 13, 2023 6:30pm
Present:
Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands, Vice Chair), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors), Dana McAvoy (East Bay), Karen (Clemens) Sweeney (Eastside), Bob Jacobs (Gov Stevens), Lisa Riener (Burbank), Bob Jones (Goldcrest), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Leslie Wolff (NorthWest Olympia), Donna Holt (Redwood Estates), Mark Toy (SWONA), Dave Marty (Indian Creek), and Danny Stusser (The JOLT)
6:30 – 6:50 Neighborhood Reports
Leslie Wolff of Northwest Olympia – Change in of leadership was described, changing over from Bruce Coulter. Their next meeting will be focusing on whether or not to go for one of the city of Olympia’s grants. Issues of signage at their little pocket park and whether insurance is needed if the annual meeting is in person. These things and things asked for last time such as website costs.
Bob Jones of Goldcrest HOA. They will soon be a recognized neighborhood again. They will have their March membership meeting at the end of this month at Marshall Middle School.
Bob Jacobs of Governor Stevens said the big event is their annual egg hunt at Trillium park on April 1. They are busy getting the area cleared out of downed branches and weeds in preparation for the egg hunt that has been done for over 30 years.
Dave Marty of Indian Creek have meeting coming up in April looking to do a communication between representatives from the city owned homeless encampments along Wheeler along with the Neighborhood Association. It’s still in the early stages and a full neighborhood meeting in April.
Donna Holt of Redwood Estates. Had their annual meeting and it was well attended. They had a community project funded by the city. It lends credibility to the work of the CNA. The fact is neighborhoods can make themselves healthier.
Melissa Allen from Bigelow Highlands talked about the success with the Olympia Community Solar at their last quarterly meeting in January and invited PSE to learn more about their energy advisors. Stephanie Johnson from Parks is coming to update us on the Neighborhood Art Crossings
Dana McAvoy said that the Spring meeting is tomorrow in-person.
Charlotte Persons of Bigelow said the neighborhood is still deciding what we’re going to be applying a neighbor in terms of the neighborhood. Matching grant.
Mark Toy SWONA will have our quarterly meeting on Thursday presentation by Community Solar and OPD and the board votes on the annual financial plan. The Annual meeting will be choosing a new president. The current president just moved out of the neighborhood, so hopefully someone will step up. No decision yet on the neighborhood matching grants. They are working on beautifying the pocket park near the mural.
Karen Clemens Sweeney from Eastside said they are having Sheri Nevins with Thurston County Preparedness speak at the Swantown Inn. Hopes to learn how fire and military and other bodies fit together in an emergency later in March.
Larry Dzieza of Nottingham said they have an Easter egg hunt coming up, our second Easter Egg Hunt, which was a big hit.
6:50 – 7:05 Councilmember Update
There was no Councilmember Update
7:05 – 7:15 Tim’s Report on Development – Tim Smith
Joyce Phillips took Tim’s time to discuss the Planning Commission’s “late breaking” change in parking requirements.
Joyce explained:
- This is a Department of Commerce Grant looking into reducing residential parking requirements for new residential developments.
- CNA saw the first draft back in February 27th or 28th.
- The draft contains significant changes based off some Planning Commission comments.
- The main difference is for apartment complexes or apartments that the city code defines as 3 units or more.
- The current parking requirement is 1.5 spaces per unit. The first draft that went out was to reduce it to a minimum of 0.75 spaces and a maximum of 1.5 spaces per unit. The new proposal for the upcoming hearing will be zero minimum spaces and 1.25 maximum.
- When the Planning Commission meeting on March 6th there was a request to bring forward a public hearing draft that removed the minimum and slightly reduced the maximum.
- The result is a proposal of going to zero spaces as a minimum and 1.25 spaces per unit as a maximum for multifamily buildings with more than three units (100 units were used in the examples provided) but a triplex would still have a five space minimum.
- Single family homes, duplexes and townhomes, would require two parking spaces per unit unless within 1/4 mile of transit or on a street that’s designated as an arterial or a collector which then could be a one spaced minimum.
Joyce observed that generally, in places within the city where no parking is required, developers, on their own, are typically providing 0.7 to 0.8 spaces per unit. She cautioned about its applicability elsewhere noting that the current zero requirement applied to downtown is where a lot of things are within walking distance, and there is very frequent and very accessible transit.
Joyce described ways to provide public comments to the Planning Commission.
Larry asked about the nature of the guidance from the Planning Commission that resulted in the change to eliminate parking minimums. He said he watched the video of the PC meeting and did not observe a motion or vote to make the change.
Joyce said that during the discussion, the Planning Commission asked for a revision that included no minimums, i.e, zero parking spaces required.
The elimination would apply to any market rate housing development if it’s located within 1/4 mile of a transit stop that has transit service at least four times an hour for 12 or more hours per day.
Joyce was asked why, as a professional planner, she didn’t initially recommend going to zero and instead proposed .75 spaces per unit?
Joyce replied that there is a trend across the US for jurisdictions to reduce their parking and some of them have been eliminating their minimum requirements but she said she couldn’t really give a good answer on that question.
Judy Bardin thanked Joyce for her hard work on this topic and asked why the short notice, 10 days before hearing? Judy said that very few people in the neighborhoods really know about this which could be very impactful to neighborhoods. Judy also suggested that a better job in communicating this complex issue be made including a web page that has updated information.
Judy asked why there have been no studies performed about what parking is available in the different neighborhoods. She observed that in some smaller neighborhoods may not have a garage, driveways, and streets and may already be parked up.
Joyce said that every time a Planning Commission packet goes out she copies all of the recognized neighborhood associations and she sends them each a copy of the revisions. Joyce said she is trying to get the word out as much as possible about the recent changes. She said thinks it is nice to have the first draft out quickly followed by the public hearing draft so at least there is an inkling before the public hearing of what the Planning Commission may be considering.
She said on the March 6th hearing there were only five of the Commissioners present and doesn’t know that all the Commissioners are going to feel the same way as those five.
Melissa asked if the existing parking spots in apartments downtown are underutilized, which would be evidence showing that we don’t need a minimum requirement for new multifamily housing? Joyce said most of the downtown parking spaces are either leased specifically to the apartment tenants or their mixed-use spaces for commercial and residential and doesn’t know what the vacancy rates are.
Melissa stated that if we don’t have a lot of information about whether people are using parking spaces and instead using the bus, she is worried new construction will come with residents with cars and they will have to park on the streets. She gave her neighborhood as an example. She said lives within 1/4 mile of State Avenue and they’re all going to come into the neighborhoods to park on streets like hers where there are no sidewalks and cars already parked on both sides and there’s room for only one car. People who are walking will have to dodge in and out between the parked cars.
Charlotte asked about whether electric vehicles will be accommodated in these new multifamily apartments if there’s zero parking spaces? She stated that the direction of U.S. policy is not planning for people all use buses. Rather, they’re planning for us to go to EV vehicles. It is wrong to believe in the next 20 years people will not have cars and will not need parking spaces. Charlotte says she can understand reducing the number down because you want to encourage people to use your public transportation but if you go to zero you’re just going to cause a lot of problems.
Joyce said that they do have EV parking standards that are being drafted, they probably exceed the initial proposal in the state requirements that are coming into effect in July. It will be based on the amount of parking actually provided, not the amount of parking required. Joyce said that a zero parking spot apartment could have zero places to charge electric vehicles will have to be addressed in the accessibility requirements as there will always be some parking required for accessibility reasons.
Joyce reiterated that downtown, where the city currently has zero parking required and some of the best sidewalks and transit service in the city, developers are providing between 0.7 and 0.8 spaces per unit.
Dana McAvoy shared his personal experience living in Seattle. He said 10 years ago Seattle started down this path of zero parking and the neighborhood that he lived was a couple blocks from the main thoroughfare that had busing. The city started approving building big multifamily apartment complexes and the result was most of them went to zero parking if they could. Even though they were right on the bus line, there was a flow of cars into the residential neighborhoods. He said he saw first-hand that all of a sudden, they had no available parking on the street and that would happen here as well.
Bob Jacobs expressed his skepticism about the reliance on transit routes defined as every 15 minutes for 12 hours a day. He asked Joyce to confirm that the zero requirement being proposed no longer has any requirement for frequent transit.
Joyce confirmed Bob was correct and that the current proposal is zero to 1.25 regardless of proximity to transit or frequency of transit for multifamily buildings over 3 units.
Bob questioned the assumption that people will use transit and said people must be aware that it doesn’t work and he gave his two tenants as an example. He said he has two young men living in his rental units where one can take a bus downtown to work, but the other one works at Mottman Industrial Park and taking a bus simply doesn’t work for him.
Bob said the only reason a zero policy has worked downtown for 30 or 40 years is that the builders have not used the option and provided off-street parking anyway, largely because the lenders have insisted on it. He does not think this will work adjacent to residential neighborhoods.
Bob expressed concern about the process where a change from the Planning Commission wasn’t voted on. He asked how can it be represented as a Planning Commission recommendation if the Planning Commission didn’t vote on it?
Joyce said, “it was not a specific recommendation that I asked them for as I was preparing the next draft. That would be the public hearing draft for any revisions that they would like to see. And that was what they requested. They have taken no formal vote; no decisions have been made. They’ll hold the public hearing on the 20th.”
Larry asked how Joyce knew their intent if there were no proactive hands up or vote? Does silence mean assumed agreement? Joyce said there was discussion around it and then they moved on.
Bob Jacobs said he would strongly suggest that she strike that, because that is wrong and that is just not good process.
Joyce said she has made revisions to help with the first public drafts and second public drafts based off of either public comments or staff comments, and this version is based off of a Planning Commission comments.
Tim Smith said while there was no formal action at the Commission but there was discussion and there were head nods. He said this is what they wanted to happen and it is included in the draft and that this is not an uncommon practice for planning commissions around the state. Tim repeated that this is only a draft and there’s no action taken until after the public hearing.
Larry asked if staff is free to make adjustments due to comments, the CNA is making comments here tonight so could you use the comments tonight to make further adjustments?
Joyce declined to say that she would make changes but would share all our public comments with the Planning Commissioners when she receives them.
Larry summarized what he thought he heard. Staff have discretion to decide what goes into the packet based upon what the staff hears. Direction from the Commission does not require a vote from the Commission, nor does it require all of the Commissioners present to participate in the discussion. Rather, staff listens to the discussion and divines the Commission’s direction and makes changes to the proposal that will be considered for the March 20th.
Tim replied that this is the Planning Commission’s public hearing and it’s their draft and they gave the staff some directions what they wanted that draft to entail for the hearing. He said the Commissioners present were a quorum at the meeting and asked for this edition for their hearing.
Judy said she watched the meeting and only recalls hearing from two commissioners stating this go to zero approach.
Larry asked where is the record of Commission asking for that? Tim said it will be in the minutes. Judy said that there were no minutes available. Joyce clarified that the minutes will be available following approval at the next Commission meeting.
Karen Clemens said she was surprised how quickly the commission acted and a recommendation means to lay people what they are going to do. She said she felt this is just not right being a huge issue that is going to affect our neighborhoods. And it felt like it was being ramrodded through. She did not think it was sane to have an apartment building with 100 units without any parking.
Lisa Riener of Burbank Elliott Neighborhood Association says that there are a lot of accidents in that area is a problem as Elliott Street is a narrow street. They have lot of drivers crossing from Division wanting to get downtown more quickly than going all the way up Division to Harrison Street so drivers are cutting through her neighborhood very high rates of speed.
Larry thanked Joyce for her presentation and reasonable recommendations that she brought to the Planning Commission.
Bob Jones asked if there were studies to share with the Commission about the complications from a zero approach?
Joyce said they looked at a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach in the past but not recently and there are some articles that may or may not have been shared with the Commission.
Bob Jones said it seems to be a commonsense approach that if you have zero parking, that means everybody that owns a car is going to have to find someplace to park it and that it’ll be out on the street within the neighborhood.
Leslie Wolf thanked Joyce for her presentation. She said that as a resident and board member of the Northwest Olympia Association, but also a former resident of 16 years of downtown Olympia. She said the lack of residential parking with multifamily housing actually does create problems for other folks trying to come into an area to either shop at businesses such as in downtown and one of her big concerns is events like Artwalk and Lake Fair already don’t have any parking and residents are using street parking. Her second point is a hope the Council is taking a big picture transit view of this. If we don’t have evening buses for people in Olympia then people do need a vehicle and we can’t put everybody to work at a nine to five job.
7:15 – 8:00 Increasing Awareness of Neighborhoods – Danny Stusser, publisher of the JOLT
Larry introduced Danny Stusser as a follow-up to an idea that came up last meeting: trying to make neighborhoods more recognized by the rest of the public by putting out neighborhoods and activities and information in publications and media.
Many at the meeting expressed their appreciation of the JOLT as a valuable contribution to neighborhood knowledge of local news.
Mr. Stusser said described the current state of news here and elsewhere and how the JOLT is trying to meet the needs that have become much bigger.
He said he likes to make it easy for people to respond to the city. All three cities. And the county, too. He said neighborhood associations have the same problem the news organizations have, which is involvement.
He suggested that neighborhoods could start contributing stories and activities to the JOLT. He said for example, they just found out last month that Bigelow Highlands neighborhood is co-owner of the copyright for Workingman’s Hill. He said it is a famous book about the history of our Northeast side. He’d love to put that into the JOLT as an access point because the book is out of print.
There was discussion on the value of active neighborhoods becoming more popular by making for all people and a more desirable place to live and visit by letting the general public know what’s going on there.
Leslie said she is intrigued by the idea of the CNA maybe not only publishing some news by specific neighborhoods but also about provided space for an article about what neighborhood associations are about and what do they do. She feels we do not have the connectivity that we want so her RNA uses signs posted for meetings for her neighborhood. Improving on the neighborhood mapping was suggested.
CNA members encouraged signing up for the JOLT and submitting stories to the JOLT.
8:00 – 8:25 Election and/or issues
Larry made a pitch for filling the empty CNA positions. He reminded them that it doesn’t have to be the members present tonight, they could recommend someone from their RNA and also share the duties with other members.
Charlotte volunteered to fill the role of CNA Secretary. Larry encouraged others to consider filling the other two open positions of Social and Communications.
Dana McAvoy and Bob Jones and others agreed to form an ad hoc group to look at the technology needs in time for the grant proposals. The idea being to see if the Goldcrest approach would work for multiple RNAs.
Larry presented a draft response to the parking issue in the form of a resolution requesting the March 20th hearing be delayed until such time that the analysis could be performed and disseminated at least 30 days before the hearing.
Discussion ensued and was agreed to have a special CNA meeting to decide on the specifics and whether to proceed with a resolution to the Planning Commission.
8:30 Adjourn