Attending: Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Tim Smith, Deputy Director, Community Planning and Development, City of Olympia, Bob Jacobs (Gov. Stephens), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Karen (Clemens) Sweeney (Eastside), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Martha Worcester (Redwood Estates), Jeffrey Showman (Wildwood), Melissa Allen (Bigelow Heights), Justin Belk (Southwest), Bob Jones (Goldcrest), Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors), Leslie Wolff (Northwest), Roger Horn (Eastside), Bruce Coulter (Eastside), Karen Messmer (Olympia City Councilmember), Jim Lazar
Neighborhood Updates:
Justin Belk, Southwest: Garage Sale is this weekend.
Melissa Allen, Bigelow Heights: August 1 is Block Party for National Night Out, and they will register voters; she offered to create an email for CNA as a listening board.
Bruce Coulter, Eastside: They will also have an Aug. 1 Block Party.
Jenn Wulf, Downtown: Demolition of Union Building has begun, to be replaced with a 70-unit apartment complex. Recent City Council discussions on new parking regulations have been followed with interest as parking management is important downtown.
Bob Jones, Goldcrest: Garage Sale will be first weekend in August. They just had their annual meeting and have new board members.
Karen Sweeney, Eastside: At the end of June the spray park will be open, so they are planning a celebration. In July they will have 5 block parties, and in August the annual picnic.
Jim Lazar: He will speak later in the meeting on funding sidewalks.
Charlotte Persons, Bigelow: Trees in the small orchard behind the Bigelow House Museum are looking better, probably due to trimming and fertilizing. Their annual picnic/meeting will also be Aug. 1.
Leslie Wolff, Northwest: They need to decide on their August party and find volunteers to work on their pocket park on June 25, July 30, and August 27. They will work with the city to remove blackberries and clear out the path.
Martha Worcester, Redwood Estates,: They had a discussion with five HOA’s in the Fones Road area – Maria’s Vineyard, Kensington Downs, Greenfield, Kings Court, and Redwood Estates. It was informative to find out the different HOA’s dues, management policies, volunteers, etc. (i.e., how we get things done). Two major discoveries were that RCW’s are looser than HOA covenants and that Dupont has a sidewalk “sucker” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpLFZDH-6po) that pulls blocks to remove tree roots so the block can be replaced. This is cheaper than breaking up and replacing sidewalks.
Roger Horn (Eastside): He is working with Karen Sweeney and other Eastside board members to put on a talent show on October 14 at the Armory.
Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive): They will have an annual picnic soon; there now is a speed sign that shows car drivers their speed. They hope this will slow down traffic to the posted 30 mph on East Bay Drive.
Larry Dzieza, Nottingham: They had a successful ice cream party.
Justin Belk, Southwest: Their next meeting will be on Thursday, in person for the first time since Covid 19 restrictions were imposed two years ago.
Oly CNA Chair’s Updates – Larry Dzieza
1. Zero Parking Minimum and Reduced Maximum Update – The City Council voted 4 to 2 to eliminate the requirement for new residential development to provide off-street parking for about ½ the city (all areas within .5 mile of a major transit route, downtown, and the Capital Mall Triangle). Outside that zone, the minimum went from 2 to .5 required spaces per unit with no maximum, with multi-family projects going from 1.5 to .5 required parking spaces per unit.
Accessible parking units must be 1 per project if there are 5 or more units– if less than 5 units, no accessible parking is required.
The reasons given for the reduction in parking spaces for new residential development were that housing will be less expensive, more density will lead to more public transportation, and the new requirements will discourage car use.
When will this take effect?
Tim Smith said that the new parking space requirements will take effect 30 days after the first reading before the City Council.
The map provided for the areas that will be covered by the new regulations is from InterCity Transit.
Bob Jones commented that no money from developers’ savings is required to be passed onto buyers or onto renters.
Larry added that if no parking is provided, then there will be no requirement for accessible parking.
Olympia CNA asked that the City Council consider an analysis block by block of where reduced or zero parking requirements will be possible without adverse impact, but this proposal was not taken up by the City Council.
2. RNA Listening Session with Planning Commission – Oly CNA asked for a meeting with the Planning Commission, but recently learned that this will be in late fall after a lot of decisions have already been made.
3. SE Urban Growth Area Annexation – The defeated Regional Fire District would have helped defray most of the City’s (but not Olympia’s taxpayers) cost of the annexation, although not all the funding necessary for police and fire services, including a new fire station. It is possible that state revenues will help with the first 10 years of this annexation’s costs. Since currently revenues exceed costs, the 2025 budget decisions will be when this topic could be finalized. The Land Use and Environment Committee has asked for help from the Finance Committee. This will be a topic at a City Council work session in August. Note that there is no legal obligation to do the annexation now.
4. Multi-Family Tax Exemptions – The City is looking to expand these. There are 11 to date—all are for 8 years, which allows market rate housing development. Olympia is the city which most uses 8-year exemptions. A 12-year exemption would require some affordable housing units. The City loses no revenues from MFTEs as the tax burden is shifted to other property taxpayers. The current proposal is to expand the area for MFTEs to Capital Triangle, Eastside, major corridors and areas around neighborhood centers.
Staff Recommendation is to have the developers make a 5% donation for low-income housing for MFTEs in the Downtown and Eastside and 25% in the Westside.
Although the City contracted EconNorthwest consultant’s modeling claimed no downtown building would occur without an MFTE, the market-rate multi-family buildings building receiving the MFTE have increased in value by 128% from 2020 to 2023.
Bob Jacobs commented that rental rates are what is most important.
When will the new MFTE proposal go to the City Council? Tim Smith said he would look into that.
4. Missing Middle Court Case – no update
5. Capital Mall Triangle Subarea Planning – Study Sessions will be June 13 and one June 15 at SWONA, 1215 Harrison Ave NW at 7:00 p.m. The late Dan Leahy organized people to make comments at listening sessions last year.
6. Other topics coming up– Potential revenue increases, including a levy lid lift for sidewalks and GIS access for interactive mapping for Neighborhood Associations. June 17 is the midyear City Council retreat.
Council Member Update – None
Note: Jim Lazar and Karen Messmer noted in the meeting “chat” that they were leaving the meeting because it was going over time.
Tim Smith’s Update on Development – Tim Smith
There is lots of construction. 99% of permits are still in review. He sent a list of 44 development projects. Notable ones are:
1. Stoll Road and Martin Way – 58 units of cottage apartments
2. Hearthstone at Franz Anderson Road
3. Tiny house project on South Plum near I-5
4. Water and 10th – 18-unit condos will be built after demolishing the old Heritage Bank.
5. On the Westside, by Highway 101/Kaiser Road, there will be a development of 70 lots on 12 acres. Part is in the city and part in the county.
6. NE State and Central, there will be Hector’s Tacos, a new restaurant,
7. On the Capitol Campus, the former Neuhaus Building and Visitors Center are being demolished for a new 60,000 square foot building.
8. 401 Union, between Jefferson and Adams, is in demolition in order to construct a 70-unit project.
Melissa Allen asked how the public could learn about MFTE for a project?
Tim Smith said that developers usually apply for MFTE last in the permitting process.
Report on Dues ideas – Melissa Allen
For Bigelow Highlands, Melissa said that dues are optional. Instead, they put out a hat at the annual picnic/party and receive more money that way than when they asked for a dues payment.
Karen Sweeney said that they have a project in process on how to do outreach for dues. This will be a topic for how RNA’s function.
National Night Out Tips – Karen Sweeney and Melissa Allen
Use the CNA website as a resource.
Bob Jones stated that he would provide information on Egg Hunts since Goldcrest has so much experience.
Website Grant Planning – Dana McAvoy and/or Bob Jones
Less than full funding was provided for Oly CNA’s application to the 2023 Neighborhood Matching Grant program to develop a pilot website that could be used by all CNAS. The task force will be meeting this week to decide how to proceed with the available funds. Possibly get contributions from CNAS? Or do part of the project this year and part next year?
MOU Update – Larry Dzieza
Tim Smith, Melissa Allen, Larry Dzieza, and the city’s consultants have been meeting. They are close to finishing the new draft. The proposal of addition to the MOU of a meeting with city council has been sent to city council members for their discussion.
Sidewalks – Larry Dzieza
See slide presentation on Sidewalks attached to this meeting agenda email.
This presentation was given by Swanson to the Planning Commission. They want to look at new approaches to sidewalk repair. See minute 1.5 on the city meeting video. The city has $300,000 from prior funding.
Larry’s proposal is to do a GIS survey first to pinpoint location of most important repairs.
In terms of funding, one possibility is to expand the Transportation Benefit District’s tax. Now it is $40/year. It could be $50/year. An alternative is to impose a small sales tax like the ones for the Arts and the Homeless. Jim Lazar was prepared to do a presentation on the previous history of sidewalk repair funding.
Bob Jones – When his RNA wants to do a sidewalk repair, they look for a contractor who is already doing a big concrete job in the city. Then they ask for their small concrete job/repair to be done on the side.
Melissa Allen – She proposes that the City contact RNAs about the most important streets for repair in their neighborhoods.
Proposal for Quarterly Neighborhood Forum – Larry Dzieza
Part of the MOU update is to revitalize NA forums. The first topic suggested is “Sidewalks”. Consensus among attendees was a resounding “YES!”
Bob Jones – Before the forum we need estimates on costs. Also keep in mind that some NAs and some neighborhoods do not want sidewalks.
City Council Candidate Questionnaire
Jeffrey Showman – Last year we had candidate forums on TCTV (Thurston Community Media), but that was a lot of work and other organizations such as the League of Women Voters Thurston County also have candidate forums. This year we propose to have a questionnaire for candidates instead. Last time we had 11 questions.
Should we have a questionnaire for city council candidates for the August primary election?
The consensus was yes.
Larry will distribute the questions to Oly CNA members to discuss at the July meeting.
Approval of Minutes – as amended by Bob Jones
Consensus was to approve the minutes.
Items for Next Meeting on July 10th
—Bob Jones suggested that we invite back Jim Lazar to give his talk on history of sidewalk funding since he was not able to do so this meeting.
–Judy Bardin suggested that we make sure that other guests, especially city council members/staff, when invited are early in the agenda.
–Charlotte Persons announced the City of Olympia’s Economic Planning Open House on June 14.
–Explore in-person or hybrid meetings. Tim Smith will look into possibility of using OWL in city room. He will also check into an outside meeting place in a park. Consensus that for outside meeting we should start earlier.
Attending: Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Tim Smith (Deputy Director, City of Olympia Community
Planning and Development Department), Bob Jacobs (Gov. Stephens), Bob Jones (Goldcrest), Leah Davis (Wildwood), Karen (Clemens) Sweeney (Eastside), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Justin Belk (Southwest), Leslie Wolff (Bigelow Highlands), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors), Lisa Riner (Burbank/Elliott), Mike Dexel (Northeast), John Saunders (S. Capitol), Dontae Payne (Olympia City Council Member)
Neighborhood Reports
Charlotte Persons (Bigelow) – The trees behind the Bigelow House Museum that we are trying to revive look good this spring – they are blooming, perhaps due to trimming and fertilizing.
Karen (Clemens) Sweeney (Eastside) – We are preparing for a garage sale.
Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive) – Oyster Seed Planting, a big annual event, will be held July 1.
Leah Davis (Wildwood) – There is nothing to report.
Bob Jones (Goldcrest) – We planted 500 daffodils and will plant 500 more. We are preparing for a garage sale on August 1.
Bob Jacobs (Gov. Stephens) – Suggested that a useful item would be an information sheet developed by the City of Olympia on what can be developed in low density neighborhoods. Also, we are receiving $100 to $150 each quarter from rebates from store items.
Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors) – We had our quarterly meeting and have a new board. Our focus will be finding new volunteers.
Melissa Allen (Bigelow Heights) – We also just had board elections. We distribute print quarterly newsletters to all residents.
Justin Belk (Southwest Olympia) – We will have a retreat for old and new board officers.
Lisa Riner (Burbank/Elliott) – We had a murder last week in one of the homeless RVs in our neighborhood. This was an important event that we are still processing.
Mike Dexel (Northeast Neighborhood Association) – Olympia Northeast Neighborhood Association, consisting of all the NE neighborhood associations, is mostly inactive after a lot of activity in the past. We are working on the subarea parking requirements.
John Saunders (South Capitol) – We have a full board now. We are working on what’s in store for the Episcopal Church building in our neighborhood.
Larry Dzieza (Nottingham) – We are trying to solve a traffic problem, perhaps with a stop sign.
Judy Bardin (Northwest Olympia) – We are planning a fun summer event. We are returning to in-person meetings.
Chair Update – Larry Dzieza
1. Update on Proposed Regulations for Reduced Parking Requirements
The process is still on-going. (See summary in this meeting’s agenda of the changes currently being proposed as of today.) Recent changes include accessible parking when zero parking is allowed as the previous proposal would have eliminated them. The City Council could consider the proposed regulation changes on May 16, without a public hearing.
2. The Land Use and Environment Committee favorably considered a proposal for EV vehicle charging stations that requires more than the state law. See the announcement for the May 15 public hearing at the Planning Commission attached to this meeting’s agenda.
3. The Regional Fire Authority Referendum did not pass. Olympia’s vote was 64% no and 36% yes. Tumwater was 62% no and 38% yes.
Council Member Update – Dontae Payne
1. Regional Fire Authority Referendum – With the “no” vote, the funding issue is still not resolved, so Olympia is beginning to look at other funding sources. Olympia has resumed a national search for a fire chief.
2. Downtown Improvement District – There are on-going discussions about how to address public safety issues, beautification and cleaning, and expansion of services. This includes perhaps having a separate cleaning team. The District raises money from businesses and residents within the district, based on each property’s lot size. The City, since it owns property downtown, is also a rate-payer.
Jenn Wulf asked – Can I be involved in this process? I am especially interested in the definition of public safety.
Dontae Payne replied that the emphasis is on finding funds and expanding capacity for existing programs, i.e., Familiar Faces, Crisis Response Unit programs, lighting, especially for alleys, and increased presence of non-law enforcement organizations.
Bob Jones asked – Has the City Council looked for information about how the minimum parking regulations proposed have affected other cities that have adopted similar proposals?
Dontae Payne had no answer, but deferred to Tim Smith.
Tim Smith said that information had been provided to the Planning Commission.
Larry Dzieza pointed out that so far, as Leonard Bauer pointed out, no cities of Olympia’s size have implemented “zero parking requirements” for new development.
Justin Belk said that from his personal experience, zero parking requirements keep rents down in Portland. However, that city has a good transportation system. His family was able to have only one car there.
Melissa Allen asked who makes the decisions in the Downtown Improvement District?
Dontae Payne replied that downtown ratepayers make decisions.
Larry Dzieza asked whether there were more votes for property owners with more property downtown?
The answer was yes.
3. The Comprehensive Plan Update, Olympia 2045, process will start on May 10. There will be an on-line survey during the month of May on the first chapter.
4. April 11 – Annette Pitts, CEO of Experience Olympia and Beyond, gave a report on the state of the community at this City Council meeting, based on community surveys. Oly CNA members should watch the April 11 meeting to find out about those conclusions.
Tim’s Report on Development – Tim Smith, Deputy Director of Community Planning:
1. New development projects include Bayan Trails Apartments, a 243-unit townhouse-style development near Martin Way/Sleater Kinney Road.
2. The 50–60 tiny homes on Anderson Road will relocate to an area next to Hobby Lobby and Wheeler Avenue. This is city-owned property with funding from Department of Commerce.
3. The former Red Lion on Evergreen Park Drive will change from being a hotel to market-rate apartments. This was the city’s only conference site.
4. The Finance Committee will meet on May 17. On the agenda is a feasibility study to annex the SE UGA. This is slated to begin in June.
Larry Dzieza commented that the city will need funds to provide fire services, and lack of the $72 million from the now-defunct Regional Fire Agency proposal will make this UGA annexation timeline difficult.
Bob Jones asked about no street connection to Sandman Drive for the already-permitted Bayan Trails Apartments.
Tim stated that the connection will be a pedestrian-only trail. Because of the condition of neighboring residential area streets, the Hearing Examiner ruled that there was no need for a direct vehicle connection.
Judy Bardin asked about the next City Council meeting, whether it would be in-person.
Bob Jacobs said that it was hybrid, both by webinair and in person.
Dontae Payne mentioned that there is a hotel in Lacey that is also for homeless. If people in encampments are offered a shelter spot, they cannot stay in Lacey if they refuse to move. He implied that Olympia would have the same policy.
Melissa Allen asked if the Finance Committee meeting is open to the public?
The answer was “yes”.
CNA Elections
1. Vice Chair – Larry Dzieza asked if those present wished to re-elect Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands). He asked if there were any other candidates. Hearing nothing, he asked for a vote on this motion. The vote was unanimous in favor.
2. Chair – Larry Dzieza followed the same procedure for re-election of Larry Dzieza (Nottingham) as chair. Again the vote was unanimous in favor.
3. Secretary – Larry Dzieza followed the same procedure for electing Charlotte Persons (Bigelow) as Secretary, but he also asked if anyone wished to help Charlotte in this position. There were no volunteers, but ideas to help her included making a contact list and updating the mail chimp list for each Olympia Neighborhood Association representative’s skills and whether they could share those or not. The vote in favor passed unanimously.
4. Program and Event Coordinator – Larry Dzieza stated that at the April meeting Karen (Clemens) Sweeney (Eastside) had volunteered. Oly CNA is starting quarterly forums as an event. The vote in favor passed unanimously.
5. Communications Coordinator – This person will work on monitoring the Oly CNA website and updating it. Jeffrey Showman (Wildwood) volunteered to do this job at the April meeting. John Saunders (South Capitol) will help him. The vote passed unanimously.
Report Out on the MOU Meeting
1. As in past versions of the draft, in the current version the City asked that RNAs recruit renters and low-income people to participate in RNAs. Larry and Melissa suggested that the City and RNAs collaborate to find ways to attract this demographic. They suggested that, since evening meetings are difficult for low-income heads of households to attend, the RNAs, with City help, could provide childcare or dinner. However, the City was not interested in that suggestion.
2. One idea from discussions is to re-invigorate quarterly forums on topics shared by more than one RNA. The City would like to tie these forums to their annual work plan.
Melissa – This meeting on the MOU was attended by Larry, Melissa, Tim, and three other city staffers.
3. There was a discussion about the relevancy of Oly CNA from the city’s perspecive. One thought was that it was created as a way for the City to connect with neighborhoods, but now they have so many other methods, especially the webpage “Engage Olympia”, to get citizen participation. Perhaps the CNA is no longer useful to the City.
4. Timeline – The parties are about to agree to the MOU draft as written.
Tim Smith stated that the current MOU expired December 31, 2022. There is no specific timeline to be followed to create and approve the new one.
Bob Jacobs stated that meetings between Oly CNA and City Council is a good idea because the City seems to consider Oly CNA as a passive recipient of information. However, the City regularly consults with commercial interests and the people/residents as represented by Oly CNA should be able to convey as well as receive information.
Melissa Allen explained the City’s point of view. The City now has so many other mechanisms to reach residents, such as surveys, committees and stakeholder groups, is Oly CNA duplicative?
Proposal for Quarterly Neighborhood Forum
Larry Dzieza stated that for a community of relatively small size, around 50,000 people, it is surprising how out of touch residents, City staff and elected representatives are with each other. An example is the recent Regional Fire Agency vote. The quarterly forums can be a venue for meaningful dialogue. Perhaps the first topic should be on fire and emergency services.
To do this well, he proposed that a small group of people prepare for each forum by mustering facts relevant to the topic. The forum itself could be an evaluation of policy alternatives.
John Saunders asked if this preparatory work would be in tandem with City work already in progress for each topic.
Larry Dzieza said that in the RFA case, there was no policy analysis. He listened to over 50 hours of meetings and there was no discussion of studies.
Bob Jones stated that RFA analysis is needed, but questioned whether a neighborhood forum was the place to do that. He suggested the topic of sidewalks instead.
Karen (Clemens) Sweeney said that the Land Use and Environment Committee had no access to information about how the “zero parking” regulation affected similar-sized cities as Olympia. This would be a ton of work to put together, but the City Council would be receptive to this information.
Judy Bardin said that in the case of the “zero parking” regulation, the Planning Commission seems to be unable to take into consideration that Olympia does not have a good transit system that would support the policy. The decision is being made without data, just ideological positions.
Charlotte Persons asked what is the purpose of the neighborhood association quarterly forums?
Larry Dzieza said that one purpose is to avoid costly elections that result in no solutions to real problems.
Melissa Allen said that input from experts in the forums or from research would help resolve issues. Perhaps “sidewalks” is a better first topic than fire service funding since the latter topic could be even more divisive.
John Saunders said that City staff time/help would be necessary to do deep research on any topic. Also, Oly CNA need to think about its pitch for the quarterly forums. The sidewalk issue is more pertinent to many residents than the RFA issue.
Melissa Allen said that Sophie Stimson of the Transportation Department is beginning to plan for proposals, so the sidewalk issue could be timely.
Judy Bardin suggested that each neighborhood could choose a road as important for fire and emergency services or a sidewalk.
Creative Destruction; from Eyesore to Neighborhood Center – Mike Dexel
1. Mike Dexel explained that creating the Olympia Northeast Neighborhood Association (ONNA) ten years ago was a long, arduous process, especially forming a pilot subarea plan, and only a couple of projects were later undertaken in the subarea. However, the Northeast Neighborhood Association (NONA) creation of a neighborhood center showed that this work was worthwhile.
2. Mike explained the back story of the 2023 NONA sponsored ONNA grant application for a Neighborhood Matching Grant (attached to the April meeting agenda). ONNA helped the owner of the property meet with the city and agree to a plan to demolish the old gas station at the corner of San Francisco St. and Puget Ave., at a cost of $25,000, and establish a temporary use that does not require excavation. Excavation for building construction is not possible until the City can find funds to clean up polluted soils on site.
The owner plans to bring in food trucks and the Neighborhood Matching Grant funds will be used to create landscaping and seating. Surveys of ONNA subarea plan area, a project headed by the late Jay Elder, were useful in the negotiations. These showed that ONNA residents’ #1 priority was to demolish the gas station. They also wanted a community center where residents can gather informally. A market/restaurant was the #1 choice.
Mike stated that the 3 P’s prevailed – patience, passion, and partnership. However, the ONNA subarea plan provided the leverage.
Karen (Clemens) Sweeney asked what we can take away from the process for other CNAs?
Mike – Any major project will need someone willing to see it through.
Charlotte Persons asked about cleanup of the site.
Mike, who works for Dept. of Ecology, stated that a major question is whether there is migration of the pollution into Budd Inlet. More City funding will be necessary to answer that question. The City can
do the testing with permission of the owner. The City can take over the site and do the cleanup with federal funding as there are no state funds.
Larry Dzieza said that the food trucks are the short-term plan and the long-term plan is site cleanup.
Mike stated that the City has test wells at the San Francisco Bakery site that can add to the data needed.
Minutes for April Oly CNA Meeting
The minutes, with corrections from Bob Jacobs, were approved.
Scheduling Use of School Rooms for Neighborhood Meetings – Bob Jones
(Please see the form attached as part of the materials for this meeting). This form is on the School District’s Communications and Community Relations’ webpage. To complete the form on-line, go to that webpage, then click on “login” at the upper right to create an account for your RNA. Then you can access the form’s website. According to Carmen Painter, this hold harmless agreement, one per organization, will be kept on file, costs nothing, and there is no requirement for an insurance policy.
To get started on meeting in a school, contact the principal, who can suggest which rooms are suitable for your size group.
Bob Jones (Goldcrest) stated that his RNA has been meeting at Marshall Middle School with no problems. Schools are a friendly place to meet for RNAs. Meeting adjourned at 9:10 p.m.
Attending: Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Tim Smith (Deputy Director, City of Olympia Community Planning and Development Department), Bob Jacobs (Gov. Stephens), Bob Jones (Goldcrest), Jeffrey Showman (Wildwood), Karen (Clemens) Sweeney (Eastside), Clark Gilman (Council Member, City of Olympia), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Justin Belk (Southwest), Dave Marty (Indian Creek), Leslie Wolff (Bigelow Highlands), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors), Michael Abide (Southwest)
Neighborhood Reports:
Bob Jacobs, Governor Stephens: They held a successful Egg Hunt on April 1.
Bob Jones, Gold Crest: They have a new president and a new treasurer. They are revising bylaws and covenants of the HOA and working to get recognized again as a RNA.
Jeffrey Showman, Wildwood: They completed a survey of members in January. Their quarterly membership meeting included a speaker on policing. Their April 20 meeting will have a speaker from Olympia Community Solar to also discuss community solar projects and heat pumps. The newsletter will be published this week.
Karen Clemens, Eastside: An emergency preparedness meeting with 20 attendees on March 27 with a presentation by Thurston County staff included the new emphasis on being 2-weeks ready. They will have an April 19 meet-up for fun and food at Beerwerks.
Melissa Allen, Northeast: Their quarterly meeting included as a speaker Stephanie Johnson from Olympia Parks, Arts, and Recreation to talk about the Gateway to Olympia project at Martin Way/State and 4th Ave. They are working to revive the community orchard at Capital Vision Christian Church.
Dana McAvoy, East Bay Drive: In March they had their first face-to-face meeting since Covid restrictions. This included a discussion of climate change activities in Olympia. Their members are particularly interested in the impacts of sea level rise on Budd Inlet. Their 18th Annual Oyster Seed Planting activity, using local oysters, will be in May.
Charlotte Persons, Bigelow: They have been working on the Neighborhood Matching Grant application to revive the community orchard behind Bigelow House Museum.
Judy Bardin and Leslie Wolff, Northwest Olympia: They are involved in the city’s parking regulation updates. Next meeting is May 15. They are trying an in-person meeting in a cafe. They published and distributed their monthly print newsletter. Their NA, especially Scott Bishop, have been involved in the Oly CNA technology grant application for this year’s Neighborhood Matching Grants.
Justin Belk, Southwest Olympia: They also had an in-person meeting in March. They have new co-presidents, Jill Ivey and Michael Mayo. Meetings included speakers from Olympia Police Department and Community Solar.
Dave Marty, Indian Creek: They have new board members and will have an early May membership meeting. They are working to include people from the encampment on 18th and Wheeler.
Lisa Burbank, Elliott: They will have a meeting within the next month. They are planning the annual meeting in June. Through work with the city drug-selling activity has lessened. They were also involved in the Oly CNA technology grant application.
Michael Abide, Co-president of SWONA, stated that he was attending to just listen to the CNA meeting.
Council Member Update:
Council member Clark Gilman stated that he was pleased with community journalism efforts. The Olympian, Works in Progress, The Jolt, and Chaos Radio present many sides of our community.
He announced the following upcoming city planning events:
1. Land Use and Environment Committee will hear discussion of new parking regulations on April 27
Their recommendation will help the Planning Commission decide on the PC’s recommendations to City Council.
2. Downtown Improvement District will have a finance meeting on May 17.
3. The Comprehensive Plan Update process has been bumped forward. The public will be invited for input on the “Values and Vision” chapter next month. Then other chapter drafts will be presented for public comment.
4. Wheeler and Nickerson Encampment – State grants for homeless living near I-5 will help. Lacey and Tumwater are utilizing this grant to remodel motels to be low-income housing. Also possible is creating tiny house communities. When housing is available, the encampments are cleaned up.
5. Thurston Climate Action Plan – Lacey and Tumwater have added climate action staff. Olympia already hired Pam Braff. TCAT is working closely with Olympia.
6. Neighborhood Matching Grants – There is a good diversity of proposals this year.
Questions from attendees to Clark Gilman:
Bob Jacobs – Clark County is revisiting policy for homelessness this spring. Will Olympia be following suit?
Larry Dzieza – Please let Oly CNA know when the opportunity opens for “Values and Vision” chapter input. Especially important is the definition of “neighborhood character” and the role of “neighborhood” in our city’s future.
Judy Bardin – What will be the role of Oly CNA in the discussion of the Comp Plan chapters?
Larry Dzieza – What is the role of a city? What does a city do? This is a broad topic that should be considered. The Diversity Grant recommendations were that the city look at itself from global to local perspectives. This should be a quarterly forum topic.
Bob Jones – The Oly CNA used to meet in joint work sessions with the City Council. Is this possible now?
Clark Gilman – I may take that idea to the City Council. Clark asked what topics should be discussed?
Melissa Allen – Right now we are updating the MOU with the City. This would be a suitable first topic.
Tim Smith’s Report on Development:
Tim stated that many projects are moving forward, but here are five of potential CNA interest:
1. Martin Way/Pattison –
LEHI is creating low-income housing and a shelter, called Martin Way Phase II Housing, next to the first phase (Unity Commons).
2. Downtown –
–At Union and Jefferson 70 units of market rate housing will be built. Walker John is the developer.
–Revival Motors and Coffee will relocate to a new site on Union Ave
3. Sawyer & Pacific, near Ralph’s –
Vic’s Pizza will open a 3rd shop by retrofitting the building.
4. Harrison Ave. area –
A 114-unit apartment building will be built by developers Glenn Wells/Kyle Schrader.
5. Former Stohl at Martin Way/Lily Rd. –
A community with 60 tiny homes for homeless will get approval by Dept. of Commerce by June 30. This will be long-term supportive housing.
Melissa Allen asked – Will this include parking areas for RV’s? That is important for many homeless.
Tim Smith answered “no”.
B. Neighborhood Matching Grants:
Tim Smith said that he had briefly reviewed the eight Neighborhood Matching Grants.
Timeline:
On April 11 staff will review them.
In May staff will make recommendations to the City Council.
An unusual problem is that the applications’ requests total more than the $23,000 allocated for the NMG in the city budget.
Report of Neighborhood Matching Grants:
Dana McAvoy – Olympia Northeast Neighborhood Association (ONNA), with Northeast NA as the sponsor, has requested $8,171 for landscaping and picnic seating to improve the former gas station at 1400 Bethel. This is on the same corner as San Francisco Bakery and a convenience store. The property owner, Mike Drexel, plans to bring food trucks to the site. The vision is to the current community center and making it a place where neighbors can meet for food or coffee.
Bob Jones – Oly CNA has requested about $800 to create easy-to-manage websites. The plan is to pilot one for Oly CNA and 1 or 2 RNAs, then make the model available to all RNAs. East Bay Drive NA is the sponsor for the Oly CNA grant.
Charlotte Persons – Bigelow NA has requested about $200 for tree gators to water a community orchard during the summer droughts. The trees have suffered from lack of water and deer browsing. On the advice of Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation arborists, Bigelow NA is working to revive the seven remaining pear and apple trees planted by a team headed by the late Jay Elder in 2017. Bigelow NA has fertilized the trees and paid for professional trimming. The trees are on land belonging to Bigelow House Museum, and that board approved providing water for one year with the possibility of an extension. The project’s success will be evaluated in three years.
Leslie Wolff – Northwest Olympia NA has applied for funds for a post-pandemic reboot involving many projects including cleaning up and replanting NW Volunteer Park, an annual print newsletter, physical signs to advertise meetings, and a Summer Fun Fest to revitalize energy and participation.
Bob Jacobs asked whether NWONA can use the public school for meetings. Some schools are concerned about liability insurance and others are not. After discussion, Melissa Allen suggested that this be a topic for a future Oly CNA meeting.
Dana McAvoy asked Tim Smith what happens to unused funding for Neighborhood Matching Grants.
Tim Smith says that the money does not carry forward to next year’s NMG program.
Larry Dzieza asked how long the amount has been at $23,000? Tim said it hasn’t been raised in a while.
Report on Meeting on MOU Between Oly CNA and City of Olympia:
This meeting was for discussion of the chart of changes. The City hired a facilitator for this process, so it is being taken seriously.
The meeting included Larry Dzieza, Melissa Allen, Tim Smith and Leonard Bauer (City of Olympia Community Planning and Development), City Manager Jay Burney, and Council Members Clark Gilman and Dontae Payne.
Major changes include the proposal to bring RNA’s in earlier on proposals so that they are not seen as obstructionist.
Larry and Melissa made the point that the CNA’s need to have a voice that is polite and timely.
Another suggestion is for a monthly CNA meeting but also have a quarterly forum on topics that concern more than one neighborhood.
Also, the City wants to evaluate CNA’s in terms of how effective they are in including renters, who are considered to be hard-to-reach people and/or underserved communities. Larry pointed out that the City itself is not effective in reaching these groups to get their input or involvement.
Larry suggested the the CNA’s would be more attractive to all people if they could produce results. For example, in Seattle CNA’s direct some funding for services like sidewalks. These funds produce tangible physical improvements.
Judy Bardin suggested that RNA’s could help in outreach attempts by the City, for example, by distributing flyers or including articles in the CNA’s newsletters.
The final MOU will be brought to the Oly CNA for approval.
CNA Nominations and Elections:
Volunteers are needed for two Oly CNA positions, Social Activities and Communications.
Jeffrey Showman said he was interested in the Communications position. Larry will send him the position description.
Karen (Clemens) Sweeney said she would do Social Activities if other CNA members would help.
We will vote at the May meeting for these positions.
Update on Department of Commerce Grants:
1. Parking Regulations Update –
The grant funding to update these regulations expires in June, spurring the City Council to finish up the process and approve regulations. The City received more than 100 comments on the proposal to do away with any minimum parking requirements for new multi-family housing. After getting CNA approval on-line, Larry submitted the CNA resolution in opposition. The comment period ended on April 7. The proposal will go to Land Use and Environment and then back to the Planning Commission. Tim will check if there will be an opportunity for public comment at Land Use.
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2. Land use permit processing –
This grant appears to be clean-up and clarifying existing requirements. Larry encouraged Leonard Bauer to create a clearer summary of the proposal in tabular format and that happened.
3. Triangle Area Sub-plan and EIS – Time period for development has been extended to the summer.
Minutes Approval and Next Meeting Topics:
a. Minutes were approved with no corrections.
b. Topics for next meeting: election of 2 CNA positions, parking regulation update, school meeting liability for CNAs
Jenn Wulff announced that the Sea Level Rise Response Collaborative Executive Committee meeting will be important because infrastructure funding through the 2023 Inflation Reduction Act could be an enormous opportunity.
Charlotte Persons announced that Oly CNA and the CNA’s missed the opportunity to comment on a 120-foot communications tower that will be built at the top of the hill on near Ralph’s between State Ave. and 4th Ave. The neighboring CNA’s were notified in October, and public information went out in November. The project was approved in February.
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.
Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands, Vice Chair), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Karen Sweeney (Eastside), Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors), Lauren Thompson (NWONA), Jason Walker (Bigelow Highlands), Leslie Wolff (NWONA), Jim Sweeney (Eastside), Bob Jones (Goldcrest), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Tim Smith (City of Olympia), Michael and Jill Ivie (SWONA), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive)
6:30 – 6:50 Neighborhood Reports Melissa introduced the new President of Bigelow Highlands Neighborhood Association, Jason Walker. He reported on getting ready to prepare the next newsletter and the next general meeting in April. He said he is going have a couple of speakers get the newsletter out three weeks ahead to hopefully generate people showing up and also tease the biggest event which is the block party on National Night Out. Some of the speaker ideas are somebody to speak about all of the energy rebates that are available right now. Another is Stephanie Johnson from Parks and talk about the Arts Crossing. At the last meeting the had folks from Olympia Community Solar and the one of the new neighborhood officers from OPD and that was that was pretty popular.
Jason Walker said that Olympia Community Solar presentation was very popular. They’re nonprofit, so they’re not like trying to sell something. He said they offer programs for all kinds of residents including buying into projects even if you don’t own a home.
Dana McAvoy (East Bay) said they participated in a museum solar project several years ago, donating money and buying shares. Affirming that you can participate in solar without owning your own home.
Karen Sweeney (Eastside) said they are looking at grant ideas and trying to put together a really good mailing list which has been a real issue for them. She said she sent out newsletters but got a lot of returns and are trying to verify. They have nice sandwich boards to advertise their meetings and those were done by Jim Rioux. The only the thing that we’d like to get it better is just readability. She was impressed by the Wildwood neighborhood signs that were beautifully colored and thinks they’re done by hand and are really easy to read even if you’re just driving by.
The other big thing is they are trying to spread events throughout the year rather than all bunched up in the fall and at Christmas time. They are working on an events calendar.
Bob Jones (Goldcrest) reported they had their second board meeting face-to-face with a good turnout. They are working on a couple of projects: Putting together a little library in a location in a green space with grass and trees and a swing set and a place to sit down and relax. They are also doing a recognition of a neighborhood volunteer of the year. He said there is a general meeting on the 30th of March for the neighborhood’s 179 members. He says he is spending a lot of time looking for more volunteers to assist on working on the 40 acres of Greenbelt they take care of and are trying to control costs. He said they are working on a couple things with the Olympia Police Department.
Lauren Thompson and Leslie Wolff (NWONA) have taken over from Bruce Coulter. They are working on getting newsletters together and sent out. They say they have been successful using MailChimp. They have been updating people about what’s going on with the Capital Triangle project because it’s so close to Northwest Olympia. With MailChimp they can actually see how many people are getting the emails and how many people open them (50% rate). She said she believes they are using a free account.
Jill Ivie (SWONA) shared that Dan Leahy, longtime southwest resident passed away in December and there is going to be a memorial for him on April 15th at Central Park and will e-mail the CNA about the details.
Michael Ivie (SWONA) shared that there were three proposals presented by the city at the Capital Triangle meeting: 1) Do nothing, 2) do something; 3) do a lot. The do a lot is unfunded and needs a public-private partnership. Thinking is the “do a lot” option is least likely to be funded, so the moderate proposal is thought to have a chance. The Do-nothing proposal includes some traffic improvements that in some cases will make traffic on Black Lake Blvd a nightmare.
He said they want to put in a roundabout on the intersection of Ninth and Black Lake, people who come from Ninth are going to be stuck there for a long time given the traffic and the imbalance in the traffic flows. The plan includes bicycle lane improvements on Harrison.
The city gave five days to provide comments everybody during the meeting had a couple of stickers where they could put a green dots on something they liked, the blue dot at something they hated. He said that was pretty much all the community involvement in this whole thing.
Jill said they did solicit feedback, but it was a very short time frame. She believers they’re trying to work backwards into a completion date. The consultants were supposed to take all the feedback and then put another iteration, another draft out for people to review.
Melissa stated that we’re particularly concerned about is this ongoing process of the city soliciting neighborhood input and asked if they would keep us posted.
Michael said that they could have done a much better job. He said they were searching for quite a while until they found the meeting room. There wasn’t really an agenda that he could see that was posted. David Ginther from the city gave an introduction. He was nice. He talked about the process. They said they were talking to the community, to the neighborhood associations but nobody really talked to SWONA and he was not sure anybody talked to Northwest.
Larry described his efforts to get the meeting to be available through Zoom which turned out to be a last-minute thing by the city and did not work well. The online participants couldn’t really participate. Basically, it was just an open mic for people to listen into but with no context or input. David Ginther said he will speak to other neighborhoods if requested.
Melissa asked if David Ginther said anything about what they were going to do with the post-it notes? She was told they said they would incorporate input in an updated plans.
It was shared that they’re doing some update and communication but not a report out back to the attendees. One of the most important things was what the public had no appetite for a scenario that people absolutely hated involves the ambitious proposal that would be a rezoning changing to building codes allowing buildings to go up to 14 stories for residential areas.
The medium proposal they said would create about 1,000 residential units and 4,000 people. The bigger proposal was around 2,000-2,500 new units. The city cites a problem that Cooper Point Road and Black Lake Boulevard suffer from not having a complete street grid. That would make it easier for people to get to those places without really going along a major street. They also want to create a new on-ramp onto Highway 101 so people that come from 101 North wouldn’t have to go all the way to Black Lake Blvd.
Of concern is that there is already flooding on 4th Ave. during the high tide, and with the rising water levels downtown is going to be in trouble in 20 or 30 years if the ambitious proposal might actually not look all that ambitious if you have to construct a new downtown.
Jenn Wulf of Downtown Neighborhood Association said things have been kind of chill this this last month as an association. They are looking for a couple of new board members and looking for a new secretary and somebody who might be interested in being Vice President.
Larry said that Nottingham had the annual meeting, they adopted the 2023 budget. One of the things they wanted to do more of is social events. He said they talked about doing their first National Night Out and that he would be be reaching out to the membership who’ve done it before to learn how.
6:50 – 7:20 Subarea Planning Update – Leonard Bauer, Jim Sweeney
Larry said he wanted to have Jim and Leonard share what the benefits are and what they are intended to provide and what benefits that might come unexpectedly from the process.
Leonard explained that the comprehensive plan has two kinds of subarea plans. The first is really kind of those larger commercially oriented areas like the triangle, the capital mall triangle, Lily and Martin and Pacific on the east side and downtown. Actually the Kaiser, Harris and those are all named in the comprehensive plan along with several others as areas that the city should sponsor a more in depth, more detailed plan for those areas. He said the city has actually accomplished a few of those in the downtown strategy from a number of years ago. Then the Kaiser-Harrison plan, which some neighborhoods participated. Now they’re working on the Capital Mall Triangle plan. These are being done one at a time for those larger commercial areas.
There is a different planning process for areas that are primarily residential. And downtown is both, residential and commercial. Some areas don’t have a neighborhood association associated with them, except on edges. The Comprehensive Plan sets up a collaborative process between the associations and the city, led primarily by the neighborhood associations.
In those cases, there has to be discussions among the neighborhoods about their priorities and let the city know about those priorities and work on how they can work together to move towards those.
The first one was a coalition of neighborhood associations, ONNA Northeast Neighborhoods Alliance. Five different neighborhood associations partnered in OONA. There was a priority about what could be done about particularly the property across the street from San Francisco Bakery which has a derelict gas station. Mike Dexel of that neighborhood has continued working since that plan was adopted with the new property owners. The owner is now working with the city on a potential demolition permit to get that gas station removed and then the property owner is interested in potentially have food trucks there for short term use. Leonard said it was an example of kind of how that prioritization can eventually lead to some action in partnership between the city and the Neighborhood Associations.
The second subarea plan was the Eastside which Jim Sweeney and Roger Horn, and others did the lion’s share of the work on. One of which was a neighborhood center that they continue to work on. It’s really a process that’s initiated by the neighborhood associations and the city will have a contact staff person and then bring in other staff people as needed to work with you to help put that plan together.
Jim Sweeny provided background on Eastside’s Subarea plan. He said they started around 2016-2017. The groundwork was talking to community planning and development staff, and they found they were very informative and very engaged. He says they met for two or three years, and Neighborhood Association appointed a core team of four or five of members. It was a very long-drawn-out process. But every step of the way they were assisted by city staff. The cooperation of the city was key, and the planning staff also put them in touch with other subject area experts from the Parks Department, Public Works and so forth.
Jim said it was a great opportunity to get more involved with the inner workings of the city. The process itself involved working up a Charter which went all the way to the City Council that they bought into. Once they had the Charter in place, they began to actually design the plan section by section deciding that they would follow basically the same format which is primarily writing policies; what would we like to accomplish; and then action steps, which were very specific things that they hope to do.
Looking back on the whole process, he said that no one really estimated how many volunteer hours would be involved. There was a lot. To get engagement outreach workshops, community plans, community meetings, they were inviting folks in to tell them what they thought was important in the neighborhood.
Maybe #2 in on the importance scale is that they were able to connect to a lot of community members that aren’t typically involved in things like the Neighborhood Association Board meetings. So that was very valuable.
Jim said, looking at the Triangle Plan process that they would have benefited from a consultant. Having consultants working shoulder to shoulder with the volunteers and the city staff would be a tremendous benefit. It would have been great to have that consultant there to help them walk through the process and keep it moving and do a lot of the work that volunteers typically aren’t very good at. There was no environmental assessment process involved in our neighborhood plan and that might have been very useful.
He said they have kind of dropped the ball during the pandemic. The second thing they talked about is updating the plan periodically, they didn’t necessarily define the period, but they knew that yearly annual updates would probably out be beyond their capabilities. They were hoping to do updates maybe every other year and they have yet to do that.
Melissa asked if the community and city connections are stronger as a result of doing sub area work? Jim said he would agree with that wholeheartedly and related the experience around the First Street reservoir and the Armory that just happened to pop up at the beginning of the subarea process.
Larry asked about takeaways and whether the city received his recommendation about consultant? Jim said he doesn’t think so. He said there are no current subarea neighborhood level initiatives but that the Westside had expressed an interest but he’s not sure where that went. He believes that RNAs should take advantage of the.25 FTE staff help if it’s still on the table.
Bob Jones asked if any of those action plan actions been accomplished yet? Jim said some things we were able to like removing a lot of disease trees and working with the city’s urban forester. Other things ongoing is more Community activities and they’ve done candidates forums in conjunction with other neighborhoods, and popular talent show.
Melissa said that the biggest benefit for her was getting to know the other four neighborhoods and can now call on each other on a first name basis. They did get a matching grant that came for the entire sub area, known as Olympia NE Neighborhoods Alliance. They got a neighborhood matching grant to have a local map maker make a whimsical map of the entire northeast side. It’s a walking map. Unfortunately, Melissa said it was finished right when COVID hit. As a group they’ve identified safety issues, sidewalk issues and have high hopes for a Community Center around the San Francisco Street bakery. But that’s a very slow, tedious process.
Larry asked if the subarea process itself works like a group project that brings people together? The general answer is yes. Jim recommended those doing a subarea plan should lighten things up a little bit and have some fun activities or retreats. They did annual picnics and in fact we worked that into their process.
Larry asked Leonard, what the status of subarea plans in the comprehensive plan which is up for review. Leonard says the council values it and it is likely to stay and maybe improved.
7:20 – 7:30 MOU Update – Larry and Melissa and Tim
The MOU expired last December. What the city and the city representatives agreed to a year ago was to develop a new three-year memorandum of understanding. The city brought in a facilitator, named Jason Robertson. He interviewed City staff, senior representatives as well as council members about what some of the core issues were. Also, to bring the MOU up to current standards to reflect the work that the city is doing on improved communications. A meeting was held about six weeks ago. Direction was given to Jason to redraft in MOU and we’re going to have a meeting in about a week. If it’s good it will move forward to council for approval. It may make changes on how to best bring staff to these meetings, how to set up some quarterly meetings where we have more robust discussions on big topics and also find ways to have this better communication between the RNAs through the CNA and City staff and elected officials.
Melissa said the city planning staff, the City Council and the CNA sort of have different ideas about how business ought to be done amongst us, so we’re really trying to find some common ground. She said she knows planners have said that it sometimes was difficult for them to come to CNA with a with a prepared plan and then get lots and lots of questions when they’ve done so much work already. Whereas we’re saying why don’t you ask us earlier and those kinds, it’s pretty standard communications issues that we’re going to try to find a better way to do business.
Tim said what councilmember Gilman was real important is that the City Council created this structure so the city has a stake in making it work. It’s in partnership, it’s not, it’s not against one another and that’s our direction.
Melissa said she always wanted to see CNA engaged earlier in planning processes. Because by the time the plan is brought to us the plans are completed and it feels disrespectful to the planning staff to tear it apart. Maybe if we were engaged earlier talking about our neighborhood issues and have that fed into the planning process it would be different.
Bob Jones asked if the plans include what we used to do when CNA many years ago we used to attend by invitation what they commonly call the Council work group or work session, or study session. Do they still do that and invite the CNA to come participate?
Tim said it hasn’t been done it recently, I know that, but it’s certainly something they can talk about in the MOU.
Bob Jones said he would recommend it be included. He thought it was very fruitful and used to get 10 or 15 people from CNA to come and sit around the table with this with the Council members at a work session. In most of the cases every City Council member was there and the city manager and many members of the CNA, it was, it was a fairly large group and it happened in the City Council chambers.
7:30 – 7:45 Tim’s Report on Development – Tim Smith
Tim reported that the department is short staffed as Gary Cooper, a project planner is now a planning manager for the city of Yelm. He was working specifically on our changes to our parking regulations in addition to our permit process. Leonard is taking a portion of that permit review process and he’ll be going to Planning Commission in about a month with a draft of some changes to the parking regulations. Joyce Phillips is taking that on and she briefed the Planning Commission. It involves other changes such as work that the city is doing with climate program on EV charging stations and readiness for development.
They need to reassign the staff to keep moving forward to meet the deadline for neighborhood centers. The city had hired Makers to work with the city on it but it’s been stalled because Cari Hornbein, the staff planner retired the lead consultant, John Owen of Makers, passed away over the holidays. The project is on hold until we get a new staff person hired and John can be replaced. It will be coming back probably second quarter of this year.
The comprehensive plan update is required by the state due in June 2025. The city is starting that that update process in earnest this year. There will be public engagement opportunities beginning around March looking at first the Community values and visions chapter.
It will be a public process that is about 2 years long. He said the city can get stuff to the CNA in time to have early involvement.
Tim shared a screen showing the location of projects. One is called Green Cove Park, a preliminary subdivision that’s been in review for about four years located on Cooper Point Rd. on former gravel mine and there’s a subdivision your plan for about 180 homes and the applicant has been through four rounds of review and now they’re in for a fifth and maybe final review and will need to do a SEPA appeal. The hearing examiner and the city agreed to allow them one more chance to come in for a final review to see if they have enough in order to move forward to the hearing examiner for a preliminary plat hearing. They will be scheduling a hearing this spring for this project.
Another project is the village of Mill Pond and this is on Lilly Rd. This project has been going on since about 2011 and he hopes it’ll resolve some of the drainage issues that properties to the North have experienced every winter where they flood.
Tim was asked about people without homes who have RV’s. He showed an area that has been purchased for an affordable housing project called Landsdale Point. And this will be specifically for low-income housing and will probably take advantage of some of the city exemptions or reductions in impact fees. There was a neighborhood meeting on it recently and it goes to the Design Review Board shortly.
Tim talked about the project on Franz Anderson Road (used to be called Stole). It ends at the freeway at one end and at the other end almost connects to Martin Way. When that goes in, the city will be connecting from Anderson to Martin Way. He pointed out the property that Melissa was talking about is where the city has purchased most of these properties for permanent supportive housing — long term and short term emergency tiny homes which would be built on this portion of the site. The city is going to have to go through a permitting process for about 80 tiny homes.
Once built, there’s a lot of coordination with some of the other encampments around the area where they could start relocating folks from those locations. The proposal right now is the city would extend sewer and water down to this point and then put in the tiny homes and long term the site would all be used for permanent supportive housing or and low-income housing for residents.
In downtown, off Legion Way, is the site of a drive through facility for Washington State Credit Union. There is a large building going up that’s another project by Urban Olympia which is the Walker John ownership. The project is about five stories with ground floor retail and then market rate housing above. At Percival Landing, you’ll see a building coming up called the Madrone for market rate housing and ground floor retail and restaurant. There are about 40 projects currently in review or under construction.
A question was asked where the RVs have been moving to. We were told that many went to Plum Street tiny homes just South of Les Schwab and the RVs are towed for demolition.
Larry brought forward the issue of adopting the updated bylaws that were developed by the Bylaws subcommittee. He reviewed the major changes such as formally including neighborhoods from urban growth areas. This is important, he said, as they become absorbed into the city and the city is looking at a large annexation this spring following the RFA vote. The new bylaws were unanimously adopted.
Larry then spoke to the need to have the executive committee positions filled. A communications coordinator position, a program and event coordinator position and a secretary are needed in addition to the chair and vice chair that are filled right now.
Larry and Melissa urged the membership to consider filling these positions as the CNA is a bigger job than one or two people can do and it will benefit from having more viewpoints and perspectives.
He urged the RNAs to think about participating on the CNA in these roles. They don’t need to be the president or chair of their neighborhood association, it could be someone who a RNA Board appoints.
It was also suggested that the position duties could be split up among two or more people to make it less work on any one person. For example, a communications person, could be two people or three people sharing the duties.
Larry raised the concept of increasing neighborhood awareness. He said the publisher of the JOLT (Journal of Olympia, Lacey Tumwater) is interested in us providing them with information or material for a regular Neighborhood Happenings section in the JOLT. The idea is to make neighborhoods more visible to the community and to itself. Not everyone can participate in RNA activities due to their time and work constraints. But many are just not aware of what is happening and if they start seeing news about their neighborhoods they might think about getting involved in them. That could lead to more activity and more diverse engagement.
Larry raised the issue of involvement by renters. He discussed the city of Eugene which has a vigorous and robust neighborhoods program but still many of them identified the need for greater involvement by renters.
Seattle and other cities with neighborhood programs all ask how do we reach renters? How do we reach a younger population, more diverse population, they’re all having the same issue. In fact, in Eugene, the neighborhood program is in their Diversity Department.
Larry wanted to the attendees to think about ways we can get better communications and a broader set of communications methods to reach different groups. Are we just keeping to our same mailing list and end up talking to the same people again and again? Larry asked for ideas.
He said that someone suggested Next Door. There followed a discussion about how that sometimes doesn’t go well.
An idea was raised about inviting through some communications, maybe the JOLT and others, for people to come to a CNA meeting even if they are not in an RNA with the idea that perhaps they would be interested in starting one where they do live.
Facebook was suggested as a possibility events and things have things that way. There was concern about bickering in the comments.
Another suggestion was putting info into the what’s new Olympia page of the Olympian.
Bob Jones encouraged inviting Danny Stusser, the JOLT publisher to our meeting. Jenn said she loved the idea of posting to monthly to the JOLT, perhaps after the CNA meeting would be a good time. Leslie said she loves idea about the JOLT and she gets a lot of good information from there. She suggested the first few posts to the JOLT should talk about the concept of the neighborhood association and why people are involved in it as many people are not familiar with it. Bob said he recently put out a newsletter that describes RNAs and CNA roles and we could use that.
Jenn said we’ve found some of our most successful online engagement through Facebook where they have our Neighborhood Association has its own Facebook page and group, and then they go to sites that refer people. And they put out surveys to people who are who are in their group. And to join the group, they ask what the cross streets are to verify that you live in the neighborhood. And then you’re in a group and it can work similar to a mailing list. They get a lot of engagement there. Larry suggested that if we had somebody fill the communication position who understood these things it would be helpful.
A motion was made to approve the Minutes. They were approved with a minor correction.
Melissa asked for some time on the agenda to go over the roster of all the names that we have and many are outdated. It was suggest that the use of MailChimp may help keep the roster from getting outdated.
Another agenda item was to have a mini-tutorial for 15 minute overview on how to use MailChimp.
Another one was how to pay dues electronically.
Website development was also raised and suggested that perhaps a matching grant be applied for on behalf of the RNAs through CNA.
Larry reminded the members that matching grant applications are due by 5:00 PM on March 27th.
Bob suggested the Goldcrest Homeowners association might be a model for web development. He suggested the CNA would probably take advantage of it too. It is at goldcrestolympia.org. It is new and they have an online payment system as well. Bob said they have a board member that knows more about it than I do. I can volunteer her services without talking to her, and if I’m still alive after I’ve volunteered her services, I might be able to bring her to a meeting. But I’ll check. Yes, please do, because we may have the seeds of the of a solution there. He said he would talk to her.
It was suggested we put together a grant writing team. To share with the group, what would that be? What kind of technical skills does it take? What kind of costs are involved in doing it? What’s the process in setting up and maintaining it? And then if there’s anybody else who has a good website, maybe listen to and hear what they have to say. What will it take for us to pull together a grant proposal? We should invite Bruce Coulter too. Maybe 45 minutes at the CNA our at a meeting dedicated separately from the Monday meeting.
Jenn said she had people too. Maybe spend more time on the questions and answers. Jen said that Scott Bishop who did their MailChimp. But she didn’t know if she could commit to him coming next time, he might be available. Scott has set up a lot of web pages for other groups. He also knows web stuff. And then he’s done MailChimp. I think he does it for NE and his church.
Maybe create a Pilot group to adopt this new technology, to learn and adopt this new technology. So we should ask about that going forward. So it would be a stronger proposal if it had more neighborhoods in it.
Melissa asked if we’re talking about a technical assistance grant for all of the neighborhoods to show up on a single Saturday or should we start small? Also, don’t people need sort of individual help?
Larry suggested if we get a core of three neighborhoods together who become users of this whatever technologies we adopted they become a resource for the others who want to adopt.
Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands, Vice Chair), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Jenn Wulf (Downtown Neighbors), Jill Ivie (SWONA), Dana McAvoy (East Bay), Karen Sweeney (Eastside), Marty Worcester (Redwood Estates), Bob Jacobs (Gov Stevens), Bruce Coulter (Northwest), Lisa Riner (Burbank), Bob Jones (Goldcrest), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Amy Buckler (City of Olympia), Dontae Payne (Councilmember), Mike Reid (City of Olympia), and Tim Smith (City of Olympia)
6:30 – 6:50 Neighborhood Reports
The neighborhood representatives were asked to speak to the value that the CNA brings to their RNAs, what CNA is doing well and how it could do better as part of their report out.
Marty Worcester (Redwood Estates) – CNA Value: Assisted with getting a grant for the RNA. Providing information to the neighborhood from the CNA. Provides some voice at city meetings but thinks the CNA needs to be a little bit ahead of the game when meetings come up. To that end we should at the meetings decide that someone will represent us and give some of our best input that we talked about so much in our meetings. Would like to see CNA return to in-person or start hybrid meetings.
Would like groups get together for the sub area issues and invites support from the City and other neighborhoods for subarea B.
Karen Sweeny – Discussed making the neighborhood stronger such as she has seen at the South Capitol neighborhood and what they do for Halloween. They are looking at developing a calendar of events.
Bruce Coulter (NONA) – Introduced Leslie Wolfe who is taking over for Bruce. She and Lauren Thompson are the new board members in the Northwest Olympia Neighborhood Association. They decided to do the President’s role as a team. Judy Bardin is the new treasurer. John Cox is the new treasurer and who may be attending these meetings in the future.
Bruce said his biggest interest is the two-way communication between the city and the CNA at our meetings and likes the presence of a city person who talks about what’s going on. The other valuable part of the CNA to him is Larry (current Chair). He would like to see in the coming year getting all of the RNA’s up to speed with websites and communications between the RNAs. He also would like to see a retreat at some point where we can all learn how to build websites. He suggested the city commit to either a half an FTE or allow the CNA to apply for a neighborhood matching grant for the monies to undertake this project where the RNA’s can collectively come together and create a sounder organization.
Judy Bardin – Said the CNA did a lot especially with Larry’s leadership. We had an impact on the neighborhood character definition issue, Capital Mall Triangle development, sidewalks, the Habitat development, and policies in the comprehensive plan. Believes that we should focus on the comprehensive plan that sets the direction of where the city goes in the next 10 years. She said we should have meetings with the Planning Commission
She also suggested that the city have a meeting on participatory budgeting and that coming together on sidewalks would also be a good thing, especially if there were end-of-year money available.
Bob Jones – (Goldcrest). He said he was chair of the CNA for a few years back in the 1800s. The Goldcrest Board has decided to reinvigorate our relationship with CNA and is in the process of getting vetted through the RNA process. One of the things that he thinks CNA does really well is when it has the opportunity of working with the City Council and the staff and thinks we should continue that.
He gave a couple of ideas of some things that happened around his neighborhood back when Goldcrest was active. He said it used to be you could drive 45 miles an hour on Cooper Point Road until they asked the city to drop it down to 35, and that happened. They also got a left turn lane so that the road is not blocked by drivers going north to get into Goldcrest. He believes if you work closely with the staff and with the City Council, you can get things done.
He also said that keeping the MOU up to date is very important.
There are 179 families that live in Goldcrest. He urged RNAs to take advantage of the city grants program.
Bob Jacobs – Responded to what have we done well and badly. He said the thinks we’ve done well with sidewalks, which has been a perennial issue. In regard to badly, we haven’t grown as much as we’d like to and we haven’t gotten meeting attendance as much as we’d like to. As far as the next year is concerned, one idea is if the staff could put together a list of all of the changes that have occurred at both the local and state level about the kinds of buildings that can go in neighborhoods and changes to the parking requirements. It would be good, he suggested to have a staff person to come out and tell us what is allowable in our neighborhoods.
Lisa Riener (Burbank- Elliot) – Said that the CNA has been doing some wonderful work supporting the neighborhoods by educating the RNAs as to the many avenues that the city of Olympia has for us to help our neighborhoods and do better outreach to our neighborhoods. She thinks the CNA has opened our eyes regarding sidewalks and the role of the capital budget. She thanked the CNA for educating her RNA on those issues. She also felt that we had a valuable discussion in the CNA regarding the Capital Mall Triangle area sub-area plan. There is concern that low-income folks could be displaced.
Charlette Persons (Bigelow )- Charlotte expressed support for what the previous RNA representatives said. She said that the CNA has been a huge help to inform us about what’s happening in the in the Community and why.
Jill and Michael (SWONA) – Said they were new in their role and hope to learn and we want to be involved.
Donna Virgilio (Ken Lake) – Said she has never been to a meeting before and came to learn.
Jen Wulf (Downtown Neighbors Association). Value of the CNA: It’s a really good way to keep in touch and see what is going on in going on in the neighborhoods, which is really important. It is also a really good way to keep in touch with what’s going on even in her own neighborhood because we often talk about what’s going on downtown. She felt a lot more effective as a representative because of the CNA. In terms of what has the CNA done she said it does a good job of keeping each other up on what’s going on internally. She appreciates the CNA involvement in sidewalks and accessibility and increasing the walkability of Olympia. Also, the CNA involvement around police accountability, tenants’ rights and housing affordability. She said she really appreciates the intentional conversations on these issues.
Jen pointed out that sometimes there’s a bit of a disconnect between the CNA and what gets translated into action by the city and that could be something work on in this next year.
6:50 – 7:10 Council Liaison Report
Councilmember Dante Payne – Informed the CNA about the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) discussion scheduled for January 18th. He also related that the City Council recently had their annual retreat, and the Council has requested a thorough review of the MOU. A lot of work has been happening internally about the CNA between those of us Council members that are assigned to these meetings with the CNA and city staff. They will make sure that the full Council is also up to speed on what’s happening here.
At the annual retreat this past weekend the city council worked on the priorities for the 2023 year. Councilmember Payne praised the city staff or accomplishing, during 2022, over an 80 percent rate of completed projects.
He also reported that Saturday morning was the annual 22nd Legislative District delegation meeting with our state representatives and senator. They shared quite a bit about the city priorities in regard to the property tax levy lift. Also, the Deschutes Estuary alternative funding to fund the design and construction of the estuary, including some things around funding. Additional items discussed included funding for the Armory, Parks and Recreation and Olympia’s arts department. Public safety, concerns around gun violence and things of that nature were also discussed with the legislative delegation.
CM Payne also spoke about a recent meeting with nurses from Providence Saint Pete about their concerns of a shortage of nurses and how that is impacting patient care and relayed those concerns to the delegation for a state response. He suggested there was also a shortage of property as well to meet these medical needs.
Regarding interlocal agreements, he said we have one with the state for rights-of-way and helping the City of Olympia with our response to homelessness. This involves not simply moving people off the rights of way, but actually sheltering them and getting them securely housed. We just found out over the weekend that that it’s going to also include local rights of way.
He related that not every homeless person accepts the housing being offered. The result is folks go from the state’s right of way into our local rights of way. He said he is hoping to have that ability to do something about our local rights away as well, and to continue to do all we can to encourage people to go into safe shelter.
Councilmember Payne related that he’s heard quite a bit about sidewalks and it was discussed that quite a bit over the weekend retreat. He said the staff work this year in 2023 will be to find funding mechanisms in our transportation funding to include sidewalks. He said he heard all the neighborhoods loud and clear about addressing this need in regard to repairs and adding additional sidewalks and maintenance for sidewalks throughout the city. He related how large of a price tag this is going to be for our city. He mentioned that Larry shared an article a few weeks back about the state of sidewalks throughout the state of Washington.
Mr. Payne said it would be great for the city of Olympia to lead that discussion on what the state is going to do to support these infrastructure improvements. Perhaps providing the funds for municipalities to allocate those funds for the purposes of maintenance and repair.
Councilmember Payne also said there was a discussion about wayfinding and signage for our community. Ways to help those who are not familiar with the city to get around all of the Districts that we have: the creative district, the historic district, and the downtown Improvement district. The city is working with private entities to continue to work towards downtown improvements beyond beautification, such as helping small businesses and addressing public safety issues.
Councilmember Payne also shared conversations around the Regional Fire Authority (RFA) that the Council recently took action on. He explained the reason he voted to approve the vote on the RFA. He said he felt that as our elected official it is his responsibility to think ahead and to think about the choices that we will be faced with in terms of emergency response. He feels that his vote is to let the people decide for themselves if this is something they want to do and that’s the reason he supported it. He thinks the community needs to know the state of our current public safety system and how we need to meet the increasing demand as our city continues to grow.
Bob Jones asked Dante to elaborate the action with regard to the rights-of-way as it relates to the homeless. Dante explained that we have an interlocal agreement where the state is assisting the city with providing shelter and clearing rights of way along the I-5 corridor, including the Wheeler encampment. At exit 108 eventually there will be a shelter space that in a current hotel in the city of Lacey. The state has been allocating dollars to help local jurisdictions respond.
7:10 – 7:50 Olympia Strong: Road Resiliency Roadmap – Amy Buckler, Olympia Strategic Projects Manager
Amy Buckler and Mike Reed (economic development director) talked about a project called Olympia Strong.
Amy described Olympia Strong as the city’s public process to form a strategy for how the city and our partners can best support the economic strength and opportunities for residents, businesses, our overall community and then our city organization.
She pointed out that Olympia doesn’t control our economy, but there are things that we can do and we work with our partners to nurture economic opportunities for people. She said this work for Olympia Strong is going to inform changes to our economic plan and City actions and investments and ultimately the work plan for our economic development department. The city kicked off this process officially last July.
Amy observed that with-in Thurston County, Olympia has a higher-than-average instance of poverty or had higher incidence of businesses or workers that were more susceptible to closure or not being able to work due to COVID. The COVID aid funded grants did is helped launch ten new small enterprises, and the majority of those were owned by people who are black, indigenous or people of color who typically don’t have as much access to capital as white business owners do.
Amy said that that’s just one example of something that we have done and the kind of thing that we can do to help close the equity gap as we think about our initiatives and our partnerships moving forward.
Amy shared a slide with data insights on the socioeconomics of Olympia and its increasing diversity. Between 2010 and 2020, we added about 9,000 new residents and of those new residents, about 2000 were white, a thousand were black or African American, a thousand were Asian American, and nearly 4,000 of the new residents to our community were people of two or more races. Our growth rate suggests much more diversity with regard to race and ethnicity over time. While most Olympians are doing well economically speaking, close to a third of our population may be struggling to make ends meet. Over 1/3 of Olympia households are housing cost burdened.
Olympia has a poverty rate of about 16%, and for comparison, that’s 3% higher than the national average and twice the poverty rate of Lacey and Tumwater. Amy said she thinks that this is a result of Olympia having an older housing stock and more multifamily options which provides more opportunities for lower income households to find affordable places to live.
Amy said that the data shows that the burden of poverty is not equal — marginalized communities are disproportionately affected. Poverty rates are also much higher for those who have less than a high school degree and no college which might lead us to be doing some more partnership development with our local schools.
Amy said the poverty rate is especially high for single parent households that are usually led by a female. Amy described the “Alice Threshold”. ALICE stands for asset limited; income constrained employed. Working, but at really low income. ALICE looks at children specifically in a community, and it asks how many children are living in households that can’t meet their basic needs. And it bases that on a survival budget that includes local area cost for things like housing, transportation, smartphone, healthcare, and taxes. And what the data shows us is that Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater and Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater, 16% of children are living in a household that’s below the federal poverty line. But another 18% of children are living above that poverty line but below that Alice threshold. When added together, 34% of children in our urban community are living in households that are struggling to make their ends meet.
Amy presented information from a survey on top economic issues from last summer based on 500 respondents broken out by renter vs. Homeowner.
Amy stated she believes that the biggest reason why housing costs have been going up so much is that we’re not building enough housing. Over the past several years in Olympia has built about half as much housing as we need to be our population growth. Part of the City’s housing strategy is to expand overall supply but that just expanding the supply alone isn’t going to be the only thing that we need to do to make sure that everybody can get housing. The city is also trying to increase the supply of low-income housing through the Home Fund and choosing Habitat for Humanity for the Boulevard project because they’re going to provide over 100 units of permanently affordable housing.
She said that other types of actions are being looked at like land banking for more affordable housing. Finding ways to get some more funds to partner with low-income housing developers to do more permanently affordable type of housing projects.
She said that the future has great opportunities to grow higher paying jobs than things like clean energy, the trades, tech and manufacturing in the medical sector.
There will be demand for 1500 trade jobs in fields like maintenance, construction, carpentry as well. State and local climate goals and federal Inflation Reduction Act funding can hopefully help fuel opportunities for us to train hundreds of new workers needed to do solar installation, work on electric vehicles etc.
She also pointed out that small businesses are a huge part of Olympias economic story. In 2020, 79% of the firms in Thurston County employed less than 10 people.
Judy Bardin asked about a recent Environment Committee meeting about the Makers consultant study where they said that about 200 plus housing units might be at risk for displacement in the Triangle Area and this fell on the people who were poorer and members of the BIPOC community. How can we address this displacement and what are the concrete measures that we could take?
Amy replied that’s a really important question and is definitely part of the subarea planning process and why Makers brought it up so early because we’re doing this environmental impact analysis and part of that is about the impact to affordable housing. One of the things that’s really important, Amy said, is that we provide low income and affordable housing within the sub area itself. The good news is the city does own a piece of land in that area that they would like to use to have a partnership with a low-income housing developer to do that.
Dante commented to Judy that the city staff has been working on what is called an “equity framework” and also a “climate framework”. That equity framework is very important when it comes to that that displacement question and said he didn’t know a project like that could make it through it utilizing that that process when equity is not included as an afterthought. The equity framework is to be included in projects in the very early stages that will address that type of concern.
Larry asked Dante if anybody put the fire benefit charge’s regressive formula through that equity lens? Dante replied that’s an excellent question will ask it.
Bruce Coulter was concerned about Judy’s displacement question too. He was wondering about as we develop Martin way and further develop the downtown area whether we are focused on affordable housing.
Amy responded that we need to be both building more market rate housing as well as affordable housing. She said that just because we see a project that doesn’t have affordability requirements doesn’t mean it’s bad. But at the same time we have to be more proactive about affordable housing. She said the city is going to be doing that in the former mitigation site, downtown, Olympia Franklin. She said that offering more land as an incentive paired with some of the other things that they city could offer like an impact fee reduction and getting LOTT to offer a program for affordable housing where they will cut the hookup cost in half is being considered.
Bob Jacobs said he hears nothing about the income side of the housing issue. Some cities have adopted increased minimum wage. Why are we not looking at increased minimum wage?
Amy says It’s come up.
Bob asked that the language the City uses makes it clear that we don’t build market rate housing — Government builds low-income housing, the private sector builds market rate housing. He also pointed out that we have a “Buildable Lands” report that says we have tons of land to build upon, so that is not the constraint. The banks have a lot of money to lend. That is not a constraint. Why are we not getting more housing built? That needs to be analyzed if we are to make any sense out of this thing.
Finally, he pointed out that Olympia is not an island in the middle of the ocean. The housing market is regional. If they build another 2,000 units in Lacey that helps us and vice versa. In fact. If they build a couple thousand units in Seattle, it helps us. It doesn’t matter where it gets built, so long as it’s in this greater area.
Amy agreed. Olympia is not an island and our housing market is regional. She said Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater, we all need to do our part if you look at Olympia’s specific population growth projection. Amy said we should be building twice units as we are in Olympia. But if Lacy builds 1,000 units, that’s good for the whole region, that’s good for Olympia, and that’s part of why the city worked on our regional housing needs assessment.
Research, Amy said, does point to the building industry contracting after the recession but there’s also a lot of research that shows that there are barriers in our codes and stacking of requirements that add up to make projects not affordable to be built. Although the requirements are well-intentioned, the city needs to think about what tradeoffs there might be to make sure that when a project comes in the requirements are not so onerous.
Melissa discussed the importance of working with the neighborhoods on housing and cited the example of neighborhoods role in urging that Habitat be considered for the Boulevard development. Amy deferred to Mike Reed and Larry on the point. Larry recounted the history of the project as one where the initial award was based on getting it done fast that resulted in market rate housing and the second round was getting done to target lower income residents and contain an equity building element. Larry said the regulations and delays effect non-profits as well and its been suggested that nonprofit low income housing go to the top of the city’s processing stack for approvals.
7:50 – 8:25 CNA Elections Planning and MOU
Melissa reviewed the points made by the neighborhoods during the beginning of the meeting about CNA’s past, present and future. Generally, the members feel there is a lot of value to their neighborhood to participating in CNA. They report back on all the issues that come before CNA it gives them lots of information that they otherwise would really have to search for or wouldn’t know. They also appreciated the agendas being sent out in a timely manner. They said we need to work more on the City/CNA relationship.
Karen suggested that every council meeting have a CNA 10 to 15 minutes to report on current issues made directly to Council. Or perhaps even 3 minutes.
Another value is getting Ideas from other neighborhoods, such as promoting social connections. Marty said that she got good information again from other neighborhood associations, but she would like to go back to face-to-face or hybrid meetings and wants us to have a stronger voice with council.
Larry said we need to work on the MOU and we are engaged with the city on that. But the CNA bylaws also need work. They are outdated and we haven’t really elected the positions we need. Bob Jones relayed important history on the development of the Bylaws and agreed they should be updated.
Larry presented a brief review of where he thought the CNA was at after his two years as being chair. He said the goal was to become more relevant to the thinking and actions taken by city. To that end we encouraged neighborhoods to hold a City Council candidates forum focused on neighborhoods. He said the CNA asked the city to do better neighborhood impact statements on their staff reports and that we have been more visible on the major developments like the West Bay yards, the Triangle West Side development and Habitat.
He said the CNA had a significant engagement on the Neighborhood character issue and succeeded in having most of our suggested language accepted.
Larry said we’ve been grappling with getting more diversity in CNA, trying to figure out how to have younger people, renters and homeowners, and more diverse members of the community involved. He also reviewed our efforts to encourage and educate older neighborhoods that have deed titles with racial or religious covenants on how to change them.
He said the CNA pushed an idea on how to make might get improvement in renter engagement with mailings and having the city to support us with funding and addresses because the city actually shares our interest in being able to communicate to renters.
We, Larry reminded the members, also tried to get subcommittees going on three areas. One was social activities — a group of people meeting on how we can share information among RNAs and improve the internal fun stuff that neighborhoods do. The second one was “betterment” — making improving neighborhood attributes like sidewalks, conducting a sidewalk conditions survey, applying for sidewalk transit grants, pooling funds from other areas of the city. He believed that the CNA we has had some influence with this. He said Melissa and a few other folks spoke to the Planning Commission and afterwards the Planning Commission declined to endorse the City’s Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) because sidewalks was not sufficiently addressed as a legitimate form of transportation for funding.
The third element was internal neighborhood operations — which is how we might run our RNAs better. For example, Bruce Coulter has been urging us to step up with the times and the need to have a better web presence. We need to teach people how to do it, how to pay your dues electronically. How to recruit leaders, how to do better communications and newsletters. These were the three prongs: Social activities, betterment of the neighborhoods physical infrastructure, and how to make your Neighborhood Association work better through better technology and better leadership skills.
Larry said although we have made progress and a difference in a lot of areas he was disappointed that we didn’t get as far as we might have. He also said that we were on top of emerging issues like neighborhood centers and the siting of airports and other issues.
Larry said he thinks the CNA is at a crossroads. We have a lot of things on our agenda to focus on, but there’s an issue about how much energy and people we have to address them. To start with, according to the Bylaws, we should have five steering members. We got only two out of the five. Larry said he is doing the Secretary role and we don’t have the communications person nor a Programs and Events Coordinator.
Larry asked the group to think about how much energy we have? And if we have energy to only do one thing, what should that one thing be? If it’s two things, what should we do and how could we move forward on getting that done?
Larry called for volunteers to form an interim committee to redo the bylaws. He also asked if we had volunteers to help increase our outreach efforts and noted we have a weak website presence and no Facebook page.
Karen Sweeney, Judy Bardin, Lisa Riener, and Leslie Wolff volunteered for the Bylaws Committee.
Melissa shared that she is particularly interested in in growing CNA’s and has been working on the list of who’s still active in the neighborhoods.
Judy Bardin asked if we should be inviting guests from different areas to participate in the CNA in advance of formal neighborhood recognition. Larry said he saw no reason that is not possible. It was also suggested that we bring in guest speakers on various topics either within neighborhoods about their issues or outside of the city such as county or state issues relevant to us.
Karen said that the Planning Commission’s work plan has subarea neighborhood plans on it and if you start a subarea plan, you will have some city staff that will be assigned to you. That gives you a way to have some input into city things and a perfect way to get some of your information out there.
Larry shared that he submitted a work plan item for consideration by the Planning Commission regarding sidewalks and maintenance.
Melissa said she lives in an older neighborhood and her personal perspective is that older neighborhoods get zero interest from the city in terms of maintenance improvements and such. She said she would be so much more receptive to the city’s new initiatives if she felt that the city was attending to the infrastructure of our existing neighborhoods.
Larry observed that it at times it seems that the city focuses more on the people who may be here in the future than the people who are here now. He said he understands the need to pay attention to both, but presently a lot of people here now are feeling neglected.
Larry hoped that reviewing and updating the bylaws will encourage people to take permanent positions and help shoulder the work and bring more energy.
8:25 – 8:30 Minutes Approval and Agenda Ideas
A motion was made to approve the minutes and it received an affirmative vote.
As an agenda item, Judy suggested an update of where we are with the comp plan and the performance of the missing middle housing changes in achieving its goals. Bob Jacobs made a point that we should also get an update on what how the new regulations on housing density actually works as it can be confusing.
Martha Worcester (Redwood Estates), Bob Jacobs (Governor Stevens), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Dana McAvoy (East Bay), Leah Davis (Wildwood), Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands), Bruce Coulter (Northwest), Tim Smith (Olympia Planner), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow NA), Clark Gilman (Councilmember), John Newman (Burbank/Elliott), Karen Sweeney (Eastside), Dave Marty (Indian Creek), Aaron BeMiller (City of Olympia Finance).
6:30 – 7:00 Neighborhood Reports
Martha Worcester – Current concern is maintaining the fences in the neighborhood.
Dana McAvoy – Board will be first of next year.
Leah Davis (Wildwood) – Fall Photo Booth was a big hit. Winter Walk-about and caroling event coming up this December. Was going to have the annual meeting at the school but they are now requiring insurance costing about $400. Held in private home instead. Some residents would like to pay their dues online, like Venmo. But they have not figured out the way to go. Online payment services seem to charge fees upfront. Young people don’t use checks. Bruce Coulter offered to assist with information.
Bruce Coulter (Northwest) – had first meeting in person in two years. Fifty people showed up and almost all were new to the neighborhood. Almost all found out by the signs being posted up the Friday before the meeting. Bruce recommends that all neighborhoods use them. Sara Hammond from Oly Ecosystems spoke about West Bay Woods to their association.
Melissa Allen – After 5 years she is no longer President but will be the representative to the CNA as she is on the Board. Melissa asked for help in dealing with the new rules with the Secretary of State requiring an employee ID number (EIN). They have no employees. Several members in the meeting offered assistance and Larry said he would send out an RNA wide email requesting help.
Bruce Coulter suggested that the city might be able to help.
Bob Jacobs – Talked about neighborhood improvements to the area for snow sledding and offered advice to Melissa on the EIN issue.
Dave Marty – Continued concerns with Wheeler homeless issues. Indian Creek is investigating a name change. As one of the larger neighborhoods there is some talk about splitting it up. The funding for the domain name is coming up.
Karen Sweeney – Eastside does a winter event, a winter walkabout using a map of the neighborhood displays. The Armory will be hosting the annual meeting November 30th. They will be having a solar presentation.
John Newman – Had neighborhood meeting following their night out event. Complaints about park related issues. Code enforcement was responsive to concerns about a fence and tree cutting. Discussion of the Capital Mall Triangle Area planning continues.
Larry Dzieza – Had their Board meeting to setup for the required neighborhood wide annual meeting. Larry asked if anyone has ever used a food wagon for neighborhood events. Clark said he attended an event that had one and felt it was a good alternative to BBQ.
7:00 – 7:15 Council Liaison Report
Clark reported that a lot of council time has been on the budget. Land Use is working a Landlord Registration program. A half dozen groups will be the recipients of a grant to use the Armory space which will give the city experience on how to manage multiple uses. Reimagining Public Safety working group just sent their recommendations to the city council. It is kind of a survey. Ensign road has now been cleared. 50 people (most of them) moved to the Quince Street Village. He lauded the Faith Alliance who built a hundred tiny houses at the Quince Street Village.
Clark said that Percival Landing is crumbling and is falling down the list to sexier park projects. Do we want to make it a priority investment? Only essential repairs have been done. But it needs a seawall. Larry pointed out that the Landing is more than just a recreational issue as it is an important economic development one as well. Clark agreed, its transportation and it’s a park managed property.
Melissa said she was surprised the city had not planned for rebuilding it. It’s a wonderful space and hope it can be preserved.
Larry asked if there are grants and can the Port help? Clark said yes, the repairs have been largely grant funded and the Port has a role in seawall.
7:25 – 8:15 Olympia Budget Presentation – Aaron BeMiller, Finance Director
Aaron reviewed the fund structure features of city budgeting and the budget calendar.
Larry asked about the timetable as it seems when ever neighborhoods try to engage or even the Planning Commission about the budget, they are always told its too late to make changes. Aaron said that by the time it gets late in the year its too hard to make changes. He relayed that when working for a county up north a big turnout of people resulted in changes even late in the process. The opportunity for involvement is there all year not just on the days of committee meetings. Emails and communications can come anytime.
Clark said while it is unlikely to rewrite the Capital Facilities Plan at this late date but a topic like sidewalks being talked about at these later stages and formal hearings had utility in putting the sidewalk funding on the agenda for the next cycle.
Aaron said the goal is have revenues match expenditures. He displayed a slide that showed every year that revenues are less than expenses.
Larry asked how this is possible to continue to use the fund balance on an ongoing basis? The slide, Larry said implies there was a $25 million fund balance, was there? Unless the fund balance is being replenished you would need a big fund balance. Aaron explained the chart is really just the budgeted numbers, not the actuals. The actuals have varying revenues and expenditures are almost always lower due to vacancies, for example. He said that he should add to the slide where they actually ended.
95% of the time is spent talking about the general fund even if its not 95% of the budget.
The following chart is about sustainability of budgets.
Because revenues fall behind planned expenses, especially property tax, the gap exists.
Bob asked if they do an inflation and population forecast and actuals to compare the budget with? Aaron said the new line doesn’t include new functions and new staff.
Property tax is limited by state law.
As property values increase, the tax rate goes down.
Larry asked if the new population coming in pay for the services that they receive. Aaron said it depends upon a lot of variables. Aaron says that growth does pay for itself overall. Larry related it to the RFA where the statement is that we can’t afford the current system because of growth.
The RFA means about a $13 million loss to the GF. The net fire costs are more netting about $300,000 difference. The Interlocal agreement means that the 11% reduces the amount by about $1.2 to $1.3 reduction to parks.
There was a question about the expenditures for personal services. Larry demonstrated the city’s budget visualization tool.
8:15 – 8:25 Updates on City Issues of Neighborhood Interest
Karen discussed the work of the subcommittee on Sidewalks. She reviewed the Planning Commission’s comments on refusing to approve the capital facilities plan because of the lack of investment in sidewalks. She also discussed the shortfall when the city removed their current expenditures for sidewalks following the public vote for funding sidewalks.
Karen pointed out Jim Lazar’s presentation on funding and the failure to use the voted funds for the projects presented to the voters. Karen also raised the problem with the “in-lieu” sidewalk fund not getting the results intended.
The committee also talked about ways of providing mobility at lower costs using the Lion’s Park Sprayground example. Asphalt or gravel as possible alternatives.
Melissa highlighted her comments to the city about sidewalks. She talked about sidewalk repairs and new sidewalks. Said we need to have money added to 2023 for at least a pilot of repairs for sidewalks. Pilot lower cost approaches and sharing cost approaches. Concern that the city’s focus on growth is leaving existing neighborhoods behind. We also need city staff to be assigned to engage on these issues.
Below is the white board from the meeting that Melissa walked the meeting attendees through.
Melissa called for creative ideas with an emphasis on just doing something now. Larry said that the Committee understands that we can’t fix it all at once but there are other cities that are doing much more than Olympia.
Bob Jacobs suggested that the city really took away the money (about $150k before inflation) and should give it back for repairs. Melissa suggested CNA should contact the Council about sidewalks. Melissa said she will testify tomorrow. Larry suggested that hearing from each neighborhood would make the most difference.
A motion was agreed to that Melissa will speak for the CNA at the meeting.
Technology topic was brought up and Karen talked about Nathan Allen who runs the Swantown Inn who offered to help neighborhoods and he mentioned Dave and Bruce. Using matching grants would be great too.
Larry said he will pull together a committee on technology.
Larry talked about the MOU in process with the city. The RFA meeting and the Airport meeting all happening at the same time as the CNA meeting.
Larry asked Tim where we are with meeting with the Planning Commission. It was the preference to do it next year and at a regular planning meeting.
Bob Jacobs (Governor Stevens), Martha Worcester (Redwood Estates), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Darrah Johnson (Wildwood), Karen Clemens (Eastside), Darrah Johnson (Wildwood), Lisa Riener (Burbank Elliott), Bruce Coulter (Northwest),), Tim Smith (City Planner), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Dontae Payne (Councilmember), Victor Minjares (South Capitol)
6:30 – 7:00 Neighborhood Reports
Bob Jacobs (Governor Stevens) having full neighborhood membership meeting at the time of this CNA meeting. Bob thanked the city for waiving the annual meeting requirement during the COVID crisis the last couple of years.
Dana McAvoy – Full Board meeting last Thursday and live face-to-face. Election went forward. Board has 8 members but is down one.
Bruce Colter – Had meeting at Garfield Elementary School for October 27. Daniel Einstein is the guest speaker and hoping for a good turnout.
Melissa Allen – Annual meeting is tomorrow. Melissa will no longer be president after 5 years. Still on the Board. She asked if CNA participation requires being on the Board. Larry said the Board can decide who wants to represent them at the CNA.
Jenn Wulf – Arts Walk has been a busy time for her and things are picking up and hoping to turn the Fertile Grounds into a coop.
Karen Sweeny – Eastside is having the annual meeting in November and will be held at the Armory. October 22nd is the Eastside Talent Show (3rd Annual) at the Salvation Army Church on 4th Street.
Martha Worcester – Redwood Estates related a need to find a good landscaper for her HOA. Discussed the trees that have been cut to removed along the trail to remove camping opportunities near the Freeway. Group is doing well.
Judy Bardin (NOWNA) – Discussed reviving the Carolyn Neighborhood Association.
Darrah Johnson (Wildwood) – Annual meeting on Thursday. Fall Photo Booth at end of October. Moving out of the Chair position.
Larry Dzieza (Nottingham) – Discussed meeting later in the year to adopt the budget and vote for officers. Discussed traffic slowing efforts by neighborhood parents. Do it yourself signs.
Lisa Reiner (Burbank Elliott) – Concern about illegal campfires. Contacted code enforcement but nothing has happened yet.
Martha Worcester – Reported about a grant to work on a circle in their area with lots of people involved. Had a big party celebrating all the work and really cleaned the area up. Thankful for the grant. A big concern is the green space between the road and the sidewalk planting area near Fones Road and 18th the area in the circle is overgrown and blocks the view of vehicles. Between Redwood Place and Craig Street there is no overgrowth and asked who she could talk to about it. Sophie Stimson recommended going to Oly Connects.
Charlette Persons – Spoke about a successful Annual Meeting on August 2nd along with the National Night Out. She was elected President and some new Board members. They have put a new Little Free Library. A neighborhood park cleanup is scheduled and work on the Jay Elder Orchard that will include a tree planting.
Bob Jacobs – Had annual BBQ and fabulous attendance with over 50 people and lots of little kids.
Judy Bardin – Having a Board meeting next week. A big neighborhood meeting in October.
Darrah Johnson – Planning for October’s Annual Meeting. Last quarterly meeting was the Night Out.
Larry Dzieza – Related the request from Nottingham neighbors for vehicles to slow down and drive more carefully. He described his “open letter” to the neighborhood about careful driving. Larry asked what is possible to do to improve the situation. Martha said that people put out the little triangle signs and children at play signs that constrict the street width. Tim Smith suggested connecting with Transportation in Public Works. Sophie Stimson suggested the yard signs suggesting slowing down. Larry said we have 10 of them.
Ryan Hollander (SWONA) – first in-person meeting (held quarterly) and had an awesome turnout with snacks. Over 50 paid dues members. Working on the stakeholders group for the Capital Mall Triangle. Had meeting with Makers and City stakeholders. Staying true to the vision for the Triangle. The community stakeholder meeting is coming up.
7:00 – 7:15 Council Liaison Report
Dontae Payne – He inquired with Lisa about follow-up on code enforcement. The council is at the budget adoption stage for FY 2023. The process adopts the budget in December. Expansion of programs determined by needs and community values and council priorities. Doesn’t assume increases in tax rates except for “inspire Olympia” ballot passing.
$2.6 million budget enhancements for departments.
Inflation has an impact on a variety of areas as well as a growing community.
The Council’s 2023 legislative agenda: Climate change, funding Deschutes estuary proposal, reducing gun violence, solid waste reduction, supporting $1m for Armory and grants for parks. Other requests as well and will be deliberating over other priorities. Stay tuned for more details.
The RFA is meeting tonight. They are working on final options tonight. Stay tuned.
The Community Livability and Safety Committee which he chairs is meeting this month and the property crime update shows that Olympia has a bigger problem than other cities – less violent crime but more property crime. Update from police chief. Street safety plan briefing and getting update on city vehicle safety, traffic collisions, walking and biking. Recommends watching the meeting if you can’t attend.
Bob Jacobs asked Dontae to consider public involvement in what the Council asks the Legislature for in our name. At least there should be public hearings. Dontae responded that he would take that message back to the staff and the Council. He says that they feel that they are representing what the city has been asking for.
7:10 – 7:50 Updates on City Issues of Neighborhood Interest
Multi-Family Tax Exemption (MFTE) – Study Update (Darian/Dontae)
Darian Lightfoot reviewed the history of the MFTE and outlined the tasks given to the consultants to expand the areas effected and how successful they are in achieving the City’s goals.
There had been no affordability requirements for the 8 year exemptions but he 12 year requires 20% of the total units be affordable at 115% of AMI.
They were asked to look at a “fee in-lieu of” set asides of affordable units. Or have a affordability tied to 8-year. They were “tested” by the consultants.
The incentives are to create density.
Concerns over the more “nuanced” the program, the more staff involvement is required to implement.
Residual Land Value methodology.
Shows that only the 8-year no fee (i.e., social benefit?) encourages builders to build downtown.
On the Eastside, where the land is cheaper, affordability works in that area. “…but have those affordability pieces in the program along with a more restrictive 8-year. So those giveaways to the developers aren’t as apparent. We are seen here that we could have a more restrictive 8-year and it would still be enticing to developers.”
Larry asked to explain the 100% and 115%. She said that the 8 year would be at 115% of AMI or below for all units. Today, it can be at market rate, any income level. The 50% fee means that half the benefit given up by the city would have to be paid back into an affordable housing fund.
Bob Jacobs asked what a 115% AMI equals? Darian replied that $90,000 for a family of four is 100% so it would be about $98,000 for a family of four at 115%. And the benefit is time limited to the 8 or 12 years. Bob affirmed that it is a time limited affordability.
Judy said that the upcoming of the Comp Plan calls for housing for all income levels and how does this recommendation on MFTE work with the Comp Plan requirement.
Darian said the goal is to create density and incentivize development in areas that are under-developed. Density with transportation and places to work and density in general.
Affordability is not the goal but could be a “bonus”. She said we have other programs that create affordable housing like the Home Fund. Other state and federal programs. She said it is tough to look at the MFTE as a program to create affordable housing. That is not its origin. Affordability is not the intent of the program.
Judy said it doesn’t seem consistent where the legislature wants us to go.
Larry asked if it is true that when you allow greater density you increase the value of the land? Yet the problem that EcoNW points at is the increasing value of land. So doesn’t this actually increase the value of the land even further? Darian called on Leonard to reply.
Leonard said that certainly the value of the land will go up when the density is allowed to be higher. So yes, the land value is going to go up because more people coming but doesn’t know if the study will say that the MFTE itself would make land values grow further, because in itself it doesn’t allow any more density than already in the zoning. We don’t have the answer to the question whether the MFTE is increasing land value.
Dontae said his take is that the CNA’s concerns are valid. 578 units have been developed in which 82 (Merritt Manor used the 12 year program for affordable) are affordable. Not zero. What Council is wrestling with is how can we incentivize developers to build more faster and more affordable? Admits this is not where we need to be. We need all types of housing, not just affordable housing. We need a diverse housing market. Said he would be first to admit that though there has been some affordable units its not where we want to be.
I got an explanation of the difference between low-income and affordable housing. There is a big difference.
He said he has concerns about the future of this program. The one size fits all of the MFTE program is not working.
We need to all kinds of housing units for the people that we anticipate will be here.
Ryan Hollander thanked them for the presentation and asked about who EconNW interviewed. Mostly downtown. The reason given was because of its density and water levels. Ryan asked where the MFTE project are in terms of median income? Leonard doesn’t have recent data (a few years old) but it was close to the 100% to 115% level. Ryan asked what ratio of the income the rent would be?
Darian, agreed with Leonard that the rents have been at the between 100% and 120% range. The 30% of income is benchmark. Ryan clarified that places like Annie Flats rents would be 30% of the median income if we looked at them. Darian agreed between 100% and 120%. It is categorized as “moderate”.
Larry asked about the JLARC report that said that the report recommended that cities include an “analysis of profitability as a consideration of offering or approving exemptions” and asked if the City is considering that? Leonard said yes that is what the study is trying to do. “What is the developers cost, what is the rental income respectively and the land value and that’s trying to get on the xy axis of where they would invest on the upper half or rather the right hand side of those axis is where the developer might see some profitability and therefore might build.” Larry followed up by asking if beyond the study’s general conclusions, what about looking at each project proposal on a case-by-case basis before granting the exemption? Leonard said thinks there was some discussion of that but its not included in the recommendation but its certainly an option.
Melissa asked about neighborhood level and neighborhood centers. The consultants are recommending more density which were originally envisioned of things like small coffee shops. She said she is concerned that this will bring a lot more density with the streets and not much room for anything. She asked Darian if her map which she described as neighborhood centers but they are really “hubs”? Are we back to thinking that higher densities will be in the hubs, not the neighborhood centers? Darian replied, yes, she misspoke.
Bob Jacobs referred to the JLARC study and its conclusion that they found no effect of the MFTE on housing. He said that the study approach is bogus as it holds the value of the land as a constant and it is anything but a constant. He asked why we are charging forward with a program that is has no evidence of effectiveness? Is the EconNW saying that JLARC was wrong? Leonard said the JLARC study found no evidence either way. JLARC did not have enough information to reach a conclusion which is why we contracted with EconNW. Bob followed up with “did EconNW use property values as a constant or variable”? Leonard and Darian said they don’t know the answer to that but doesn’t think so. Would need to get back to them to get Bob an answer on that.
Dante repeated that the MFTE is a tool for developing affordable housing. We do have to prepare for growth. The question on why we are continuing to use the program is that the program shows it does provide more housing for different income levels. We need to see how we might increase more affordable units than the 82 so far.
Larry said that there have been other developments that have not received these tax breaks so there must be some developers who do invest in multi-family housing without the incentives. Larry asserted that the presumption that development does not occur without the MFTE seems speculative. Darian said that the city is extremely underdeveloped in terms of unit creation but agreed, yes it is happening, but not at the rate we need it to.
Bob Jacobs asked why we are treating Olympia as a silo. We are in an area housing market. Units in Lacey are just as good at serving the demand as units built in Olympia.
County Participation and Federal Funding Opportunities in support of City
Larry turned the discussion to how other jurisdictions are helping us out in meeting our homeless challenges. Darian said that the transportation department right-of-way contract to help along I-5. Thurston County have $50 million coming. Thurston County has 5 encampments. There is a big regional project that we are working on through legislature provided revenues. Larry asked if any other city will be the host to the homeless? Darian said that the unnamed hotel that will be purchased is not in Olympia. It is 120 units that will become permanent supported housing, the largest such in the county.
2022 SE Urban Growth Area Annexation Study (Tim)
Tim provided a brief rundown on annexation proposal. Has a contract with consultant for financial analysis of the annexation area extending down to Yelm Hwy, Indian Summers and adding about 1,000 people about 3.5 miles of area. It is part of our urban growth area. We have agreement with county that development in the area develop to urban densities. The previous study looked at the feasibility and whether adding the entire area is affordable in terms of providing services for fire, policy and streets, etc. A December report will be forthcoming. The RFA is an issue to consider, with and without the city having a fire department. Next Spring/Summer the council can give a go/no go on it. It is a long process and requires a hearing. Includes a Boundary Review by the County as well.
Larry said that he has been doing work on the RFA and that the Fire Benefit Charge seems to be the major reason to create the RFA as cities can’t use that revenue technique. Larry pointed out how the 1% property tax limitation seems to be driving cities to do things to overcome it, like RFAs and makes cities look to sales and B&O taxes that do keep up with inflation. Knowing that, Larry asked, wouldn’t that doom picking up primarily residential neighborhoods where their major revenue is based mostly on property taxes? Tim said there is some potential commercial development potential on Rich Rd. But yes, there is less reliance on property tax which is why we have the Metropolitan Parks District, the Transportation Benefit District…all those things would expand with the new areas coming into the city. We would also get impact fees when there is new developments out there. These will all be considered by the consultants.
Bob Jacobs said that recent annexations result in huge liabilities to bring infrastructure up to standards, especially streets and sidewalks. Will the study measure those costs in a way says what it costs to bring it up to the standards of Olympia? Tim said the capital expenses need to be in the study. Even the new developments in the annexation area are not up to the City’s current standard, rather the standards in place 15 years ago.
Regional Fire Authority
Larry presented his work on the impact of the RFA proposal on residences. He shared a document that has by address the square footage charges for the RFA and compared it to what the same property currently pays in property tax.
Larry explained that the square footage is not just the usual space but includes garages, attics, porches, basements and other spaces. Larry explained the effects that the square root included in the formula results in a regressive fee, where the more expensive and larger houses tend to pay less than smaller, less costly properties.
Bob Jacobs asked why some properties showed much bigger percentages than others. Larry said he would research the particular properties (upon research, Larry found out that those properties were recently built or in the process of being built and the property tax did not reflect the constructed value of the structures completely or for the full tax period).
Larry went through some options that are possible that would avoid the need for the RFA or a regressive formula. Melissa asked if this would save the city money but cost property owners more? Larry said, yes. Melissa asked if it would come up for a vote by the public? Larry replied, yes, likely in April and require a 60% vote. Melissa pointed out the bad timing in terms of the economy.
Larry pointed out that Olympia has a great fire department and is one of the highest rated in the state. Larry pointed out that some places have failed to pass it but the basic problem is that the state needs to fix the lack of inflation resistant property taxes.
Sidewalks
Larry replayed multiple clips concerning sidewalks. First was Clark Gilman’s statement to the CNA about the long history of not dealing with sidewalks effectively and that we should consider sidewalks as part of our multi-modal system. Larry reviewed CNA letters to the Council and the direction of Leonard Bauer that people should get involved in the Capital Facilities Plan as its where the Council addresses those needs.
Larry also played a clip where the Planning Commission Tracy Carlos said that when she had no car and had to walk everywhere she dreaded going into some neighborhoods because of the sidewalks. She said it’s a big problem as some of the people in those neighborhoods can’t go anywhere because they are in wheelchairs and the sidewalks aren’t safe for them and its something that has to be worked on.
In the clip from the Planning Commission on 9-27-22 the Commissioners discussed and heard from neighborhoods about the sidewalk problem. It was suggested that when the street conditions are surveyed that they also do the same for sidewalk. It was observed that relying on property owners to fix the sidewalks is hurting the rest of the community because its not getting down.
Larry reviewed the current budget situation: $11,000 for repairs and $200,000 in the capital facilities plan but all for Administration. He observed that the Council and the Advisory Committees are paying more attention to the issue now. The Council at its retreat came up with a statement about needing to work on the sidewalk issue next year. It seems like the issue is being queued up for policy change – no change since 2004. Larry also shared a recent Seattle Times article that says over 70% of Olympia sidewalks are out of compliance with ADA.
Larry said neighborhoods speaking up to decision makers seems to be making a difference.
Melissa reminded people that neighborhoods can testify at the Council meeting when they consider the CFP. She said that they plan on starting to talk more next year and do long range planning but thinks there are some alternative actions that might happen before that. Many of her neighbors can’t afford to replace their sidewalk. She said maybe some cooperation between homeowners and the city. The Council doesn’t need hundreds of people talking to them about sidewalks but is there someway to organize ourselves to present representative viewpoints along specific aspects the issue? What is the right venue to work on it?
Larry said that that is a good question. It’s a big dollar issue and small bites are more likely. Unfortunately, the Seattle Times article said that ADA lawsuits have been the only effective prompt for city actions, not cooperation, which often does not result in the best policy. Creative ideas are out there. Larry related the idea from California that a lien be placed on properties that require the repair at the time of sale to transfer title. Many more repairs would happen than today.
Victor suggested that a subcommittee discuss it as he has been unhappy about the way the conversation of sidewalks have gone. He said we won’t be taken seriously if we take an unrealistic position. As the article said it would take $106 million to bring Olympia into compliance. He said he has some ideas on it. He observed that he has never heard anyone make a motion or proposal that is actionable on a reasonable basis for the city. He said he did a public records request asking for density map of all the city neighborhoods and the response was “we have nothing like that”. He suggested starting with where’s the density and the travel? We need to give the city something bite size that they can actually do and we can show some kind of results. The meetings are A+ on presentation and information but a D+ on actually planning on something to do. No motion, no agenda to talk about this stuff.
Larry suggested that Victor make a motion. The motion was made by Victor “to form a subcommittee to come up with proposals for a vote of the full Committee (CNA) about the sidewalk situation”. Melissa seconded the motion. All members present voted in favor. The call for volunteers was made and Melissa, Karen, Victor and Larry.
Bruce suggested that NWONA’s Board may want to participate.
The point of the meeting, Victor added, was not to reach agreement but bring back ideas to the full organization.
Melissa says she has several practical ideas from her neighbors and we should discuss this during our upcoming meetings.
The minutes were approved.
Dante added that the city is being inundated about the proposal for a new airport. Our County Commission is against it and has asked the CACC to remove it from consideration. Another letter is being circulated around. He shared his concerns about environment, wildlife and property impacts. He says he is in opposition to the proposal.
Larry pointed to last month’s presentation by Mr. Hendrickson where we concluded that the focus of our opposition should be the legislature and the Governor.
Charlotte Persons added that she is involved with a group taking up this issue. We need a NIMBY fight but she doesn’t think the legislature will care – any site proposed will oppose it. So she thinks that we should say no new mega airports anywhere. And be ready for a big fight. The decision by the CACC is in June, too late for this legislative session.
Bob Jacobs said that he would like Olympia Council to take a position as a whole. Dante said he has been thinking about that and the wheels are turning and you’ll see something on a future date.
Victor Minjares added his email on the chat for people interested in the subcommittee. Victor Minjares, SouthCap : victorminjares@gmail.com
Martha Worcester (Redwood Estates), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Bob Jacobs (Governor Stevens), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Darrah Johnson (Wildwood),
Darrah Johnson (Wildwood), Dana McAvoy (East Bay), Lisa Riener (Burbank Elliott), Dave Marty (Indian Creek), Bruce Coulter (Northwest), Judy Bardin (Northwest), David Ginther, (City Planner), Tim Smith (City Planner), Cari Hornbein (Senior Planner), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Dontae Payne (Councilmember), Victor Minjares (South Capitol) and Karen Clemens (Eastside), Mark Toy (SWONA), and Dirk Havlak (Ken Lake).
6:30 – 7:00 Neighborhood Reports
Martha Worcester – Reported about a grant to work on a circle in their area with lots of people involved. Had a big party celebrating all the work and really cleaned the area up. Thankful for the grant. A big concern is the green space between the road and the sidewalk planting area near Fones Road and 18th the area in the circle is overgrown and blocks the view of vehicles. Between Redwood Place and Craig Street there is no overgrowth and asked who she could talk to about it. Sophie Stimson recommended going to Oly Connects.
Charlette Persons – Spoke about a successful Annual Meeting on August 2nd along with the National Night Out. She was elected President and some new Board members. They have put a new Little Free Library. A neighborhood park cleanup is scheduled and work on the Jay Elder Orchard that will include a tree planting.
Bob Jacobs – Had annual BBQ and fabulous attendance with over 50 people and lots of little kids.
Dana McAvoy – Board meeting last Tuesday and did final planning for picnic. About 50 people showed up and best attendance in the last 8 years.
Judy Bardin – Having a Board meeting next week. A big neighborhood meeting in October.
Darrah Johnson – Planning for October’s Annual Meeting. Last quarterly meeting was the Night Out.
Larry Dzieza – Related the request from Nottingham neighbors for vehicles to slow down and drive more carefully. He described his “open letter” to the neighborhood about careful driving. Larry asked what is possible to do to improve the situation. Martha said that people put out the little triangle signs and children at play signs that constrict the street width. Tim Smith suggested connecting with Transportation in Public Works. Sophie Stimson suggested the yard signs suggesting slowing down. Larry said we have 10 of them.
7:00 – 7:15 Council Liaison Report
There was no Council Report this month.
7:10 – 7:40 Flights and Airport Expansions – Warren Hendrickson, Airport Senior Manager, Olympia Regional Airport
New to the Port of Olympia but has long career in aviation and previously worked as the Director at the Bremerton National Airport. On Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC). Related an experience with neighborhoods where City of Tacoma owned Tacoma Narrows Airport but it was surrounded by the county, not city voters. Pierce County traded for the airport from the City of Tacoma.
835 Acres is the Airport footprint plus an addition 550 acres in the New Market Industrial Campus. Revenues come to the Airport business unit and financially it is in the black.
Tumwater rules on all the development issues for the Airport.
The airport is home to three endangered species and is working with other governments to address the issues.
Regarding noise from the airport. Below is the typical aircraft. Civilian and military.
There is no noise or time of day curfew for Olympia. The noise abatement program is voluntary and only applies to those craft based in Olympia so that a flight from Portland to Olympia is not addressed.
The minimum legal altitude is 1,000 feet above the ground. Orbiting circles with inadequately muffled engines can be a nuisance. Who is responsible for addressing that? He is personally willing to engage with problem flyers but he has no legal foundation to require it.
He cited an Oregon based aircraft that was violating the rules but said he has no authority and did not engage him because its from Oregon. If it was based in Olympia, he would have a conversation about the altitude or duration loitering over an area.
His authority is limited to aircraft on the ground. FAA is responsible for aircraft in the air. He can get complainants in touch with the right person to complain to.
Larry said he will provide the link to a flight tracking system that identifies the craft, its altitude and speed, and flight path. That can be helpful to reporting on problem craft. https://flightaware.com/live/.
Regional airport proposal.
CACC established by State legislature to prepare for a need by 2050 to meet regions need for air services. By middle of October there will be two sites selected and a final one by June 2023.
Mr. Hendrickson is the vice-chair of the CACC and was appointed by Gov. Inslee. He is a non-voting member 15 voting and 11 non-voting members.
Olympia is not on the list, but the “industry” wants a site in the South Sound. In the “Greenfield” list, Olympia does show up. A greenfield is where no airport currently exists. Washington Aviation System Plan (WASP), however, is looking at the entire state which allows for Olympia to be considered. The ASP is operated out of the State Department of Transportation. The full report is on WSDOT website.
He reported that the FAA has approved an unleaded aviation fuel which is a breakthrough. Particulate matter may be helped by electric aircraft and would like to see hydrogen and electric capabilities here in Olympia.
Bob Jacobs – Concern about the promise of technology improvements may be used to alleviate concerns with promises for the future that may never happen.
Larry Dzieza asked if the pressure point to stop the SeaTac airport in Thurston county is the WSDOT, Governor appointed agency? The answer was yes, in fact any of your elected representatives would be useful. Larry observed that if Boeing wants it, the state usually gives it to them.
Larry asked about the impact of the big airport on the Port’s airport. It could cause a big issue in terms of flight restrictions.
Larry asked if an unmuffled plane is reported, what happens? Answer: there is no law against it for propeller aircraft.
Bob Jacobs, thanked Warren for the excellent well organized and delivered presentation. Warren thanked Bob and said he is about building bridges to the community.
7:40 – 8:00 Reducing Requirement for Developers to Provide Parking – Gary Cooper, City of Olympia
Mr. Cooper is on contract working on two grants with the city.
Mr. Cooper says that the parking issue is about making it easier to build more housing of more types.
Parking for a 30-unit market rate apartment could cost $1.35 million more and 13,000 more s/f for housing.
Website
Although there is a 0 requirement for parking for buildings in Downtown Olympia, they all offer parking at a rate of about .7 spaces per unit.
Scope is still be worked on.
Questionnaire sometime in October.
Judy asked if Neighborhoods will be stakeholders and the CNA? Cooper said not sure how it will work.
Tim could not define who would be engaged from neighborhoods or the format.
Cooper said he will share the idea to create a formal stakeholder group with Communications.
These standards are supposed to be for new development (or major redevelopment). And probably would be mostly along corridors and multi-family.
Larry raised an issue that there is a tendency, just as Mr. Cooper’s slide show has, to conflate these reduction in costs for private developers as resulting in more affordable housing despite any evidence to confirm that it does. It shows a big savings to developers and investors.
Larry recommended that if you are going to give a guaranteed benefit to developers and investors, then don’t blindly trust the free market to trickle down the benefits to the public with no guarantees that it will. If, as in the example you gave, save a developer $1.35 million dollars by not requiring parking and give them room to build 13,000 more s/f of units that is also results in more profit, the city should require the developer to provide below market housing and low-income units in perpetuity in exchange. A guaranteed public benefit for guaranteeing greater profits for developers.
Mr. Cooper said that it was a good idea that he has thought about before. This is designed to incentivize but it doesn’t have any hooks in it so far to do that.
Larry pointed out that there is 0 parking required downtown but the new units are far from affordable.
Larry again urged Mr. Cooper to fix his slide deck and not infer that reducing parking requirements results in providing low-income housing.
Judy took exception with his statement that it will not affect existing neighborhoods. New development without parking will result in people going to great distances to find a place to park and that would include parking in existing neighborhoods. Cooper recognized as it as a legitimate issue.
Larry took exception to the use of language calling the requirement “voluntary minimum”. Bob affirmed the point by saying a zero to 1.5 minimum is a 0 minimum and we should be clear. Mr. Cooper acknowledged the language usage issue.
Dana McAvoy related his Seattle experience with zero parking requirements where a half mile away developments adversely impact neighborhoods parking availability. It is a real impact. We had no parking afterwards.
Larry and Martha both pointed that low-income people need cars too and need a place to park them. More than higher income people, a worker who cobbles together 3 part time jobs, often with hours assigned on short notice, cannot use public transportation to get to where they need to be in time. Add family duties like childcare, medical appointments and basic living requirements and a car is a necessity. The flexibility provided by a car is more critical for them than a wealthier person. To imply that the desire for parking is a rich person’s issue is presumptive and in error. Mr. Cooper acknowledged that some low-income people may need cars very badly, other maybe not. He will revisit the messaging if it needs it.
Charlotte raised the recommendation that parking include electrical charging elements.
Larry also strongly recommended that the survey they develop be professionally developed and not biased in terms of the construction. You don’t want public affairs developing the survey with an advocacy orientation in mind. Judy suggested getting help from the colleges and universities or Dept of Health.
8:00 – 8:15 Capital Facility Plan – Mark Russell, Joyce Phillips, Sophie Stimson
Joyce reviewed the CFP overview.
October 18 City Council hearing.
Larry raised the sidewalk issue for 2023.
Larry said that no one could say who and where the $200k goes. Joyce took exception and said that the $200k will go into design work that will eventually become projects. Staff is working on those, but it won’t show up in 2023. Larry pointed out that $200k for roads and $200 for sidewalks means a much greater percentage of administrative costs are going to the much smaller sidewalk program. On a cost allocation basis it doesn’t seem fair. Sophie said she doesn’t know the methodology.
Mark Russell said these are project funded FTEs. This is capital money, and allocations are not the actuals. If we didn’t do this, we wouldn’t have the employees to do the projects. Why isn’t there any 2023 projects? Because projects like Fones Road have taken a significant money being used for those sidewalks.
Larry asked if this method was always used. Why doesn’t the road project bear the cost of the sidewalk replacement, much of which is being displaced by the road changes and take it out of the VUT? Mark said that they need the money. Why wouldn’t the sidewalk be encompassed by the road improvement funds instead of the VUT? Mark replied that it takes multiple funding sources to fund a $17 million project. We can’t just use street repair money, we are using grants, the Voted Utility Tax for the sidewalks, we are using almost every funding source we have at some level to fund that project. Larry asked if before the VUT was passed by the voters and you had a project like this wasn’t the funding from the road project funds? Mark replied, yes, we wouldn’t be able to do a project like this or we would have to wait for more grants. Larry observed that the VUT is enabling the road project that wouldn’t otherwise be able to be done. Mark: it is an approved project that has an enormous amount of sidewalks on it. On both sides of the street sidewalks some sidewalk is missing and is a legitimate use of the VUT.
Larry asked about the General Fund appropriation for sidewalks before the VUT was passed by the voters. Sophie Stimson replied, yes, it was around $200,000. Larry asked what happened to the funding? Sophie said she couldn’t tell me exactly and assumed that it has been reallocated to other places. She confirmed that the maintenance of effort for sidewalks from the GF was substituted with the VUT.
Larry and Joyce reported that the Planning Commission asked about if sidewalk condition assessments are being done. The answer is that they are not currently being performed like they do for roads.
Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands, Vice Chair), Darrah Johnson (Wildwood), Dana McAvoy (East Bay), Lisa Riener (Burbank Elliott), Dave Marty (Indian Creek), Bruce Coulter (Northwest), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Bob Jacobs (Governor Stevens), David Ginther, (City Planner), Tim Smith (City Planner), Cari Hornbein (Senior Planner), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Dontae Payne (Councilmember), Victor Minjares (South Capitol) and Karen Clemens (Eastside), Mark Toy (SWONA), and Dirk Havlak (Ken Lake).
6:30 – 7:00 Neighborhood Reports
Melissa Allen – Reported on the National Night Out (NNO) event that went wonderfully. Good food and weather and lots of people signed up for their electronic notification system. 200 people are on that list and the block party really brings them out.
Judy Bardin – Pop-up meeting at Food Coop on NC’s. Lots of people out at night when things get cooler.
Bob Jacobs – Nothing to report but enjoying the weather and fighting the weeds.
Bruce Coulter – Also attended the neighborhood popup on NCs. Was concerned about a particular person’s language regarding the city’s policy directed to a staff person who is not responsible for the policy. Ryan Hollander and others will be taking a tour of the Triangle Project area from the perspective of neighborhood associations along with David Gintler (city staff). They have got a new board member who was on a Board in Kansas City. They had a work party at NW Volunteer Park and got support from the city who helped cut some of the weeds along Madison Street.
Mark Toy– Reported on their NNO. The property on 9th and Fern changed hands and the agreement for a pocket park there is in doubt following a notice from the new owner’s lawyer saying for them to vacate the pocket park. They are in the process of finding a new home for the concrete bench and sign. Ryan expressed concern about the lack of outreach from the city on the Triangle project.
Dirk Havlak (Ken Lake) – Reviewed happenings in Ken Lake. The biggest is the July 4th event. Music, burgers and such. Dedicated a privately funded wildlife sculpture. They also have a neighborhood wide yard sale and proceeds go to charity.
Dara Johnson (Wildwood) – NNO drew over 90 people which is a good turnout. Chalk art activity to do drawings and send the pictures and a coupon ice cream award for participating. She will need to step down from being the chair but will remain on the board.
Karen Sweeney (Eastside) – Annual picnic last Friday and got a donation from Big Tom’s. Roger Horn had sign-up sheet for area Talent Show in October.
Victor Minjares – Annual party was on the 10th and they have pictures on Facebook.
Lisa Riener (Burbank) – had annual meeting at Universalist Church and David Ginter?? Attended and presented. Olympia police gave a presentation on the NNO. Lots of food and attendees from 5 to 9pm.
Dave Marty (Indian Creek) – Working on picnic for September 10th.
Larry Dzieza (Nottingham) – Getting ready for annual picnic which is in September. He sent out a notice to the neighborhood about the open house at the Habitat for Humanity project on Boulevard on September 14th.
7:00 – 7:15 Council Liaison Report – Donte Payne
Attended the NNO at 5 different neighborhoods. A good opportunity to hear about neighborhood issues. A briefing is coming on the Fire Authority proposal to the council. Lots left to discuss and decide and are very early into it. No action will be taken regarding whether its on the ballot tomorrow.
Rental housing code is also on the upcoming agenda. Three key items: Limits moving costs to include nonrefundable fees and security deposits to one months’ rent; allowing installment payments for move in costs and last month’s rent; and limiting pet deposits to 25% or rent and allow payment over 3 months. State law constrains what cities can do such as implementing rent control.
Reimagining Public Safety effort is still underway. The Community work group of 9 individuals who is working with city staff on focus groups is on a hiatus and Donte asked them to extend their service after he learned that the participants of their various focus groups included only three members from communities of color. The intent is to provide time to do better outreach. He expects recommendations will come in September to the Community Livability and Public Safety for a work session, which he chairs. Then it will go to whole Council in October.
Olympia Strong, the economic resiliency effort, will be completed around next Spring, maybe May. Purpose it to identify weaknesses in the local economy. Lots of data. Found that the private sector in Olympia has grown exponentially between 2020 – 52%. The public sector grew by 13%. While public administration is still the number one employer overall things are changing. One-third of Olympia’s population is struggling.
Lisa Riener observed that there has been a lack of trust among the public about having meaningful two-way conversations with the Council but we need to keep trying.
Bob Jacobs asked for a clarification regarding security deposits payments. Donte said that the security deposit has to be paid upfront and that the three-month stretched out payments was only for pet deposits.
Judy Bardin said she took part in the survey for rentals and observed that it did not distinguish between the small landlord with a few units versus large units and corporate ownership or with property managers in-between the tenants and the building owners. Donte says that 5 properties or less is considered small landlords.
7:15 – 7:40 Update on Neighborhood Centers – Cari Hornbein
Cari Hornbein presented the background, current status and future course for the effort to get Neighborhood Centers in more of Olympia. The effort began 2014, got sidetracked for awhile but is now moving forward again. A consultant team was hired to help implement the vision contained in the comprehensive plan which is to create small, walkable, transit friendly nodes around Olympia neighborhoods.
Cari presented the time line:
It was recognized the sidewalks and bike paths contribute to success of neighborhood centers. Market conditions have not been conducive to creating new centers so they are looking at partnerships and incentives to stimulate creation of new centers.
They are also looking at areas that are not on the current map and may be should be.
When people took the online survey and in the pop-up meetings convenience was important. Parks and other civic attractions, transit also were elements that people thought were important.
Getting pros and cons for density but overall more support for more infill housing and variety of types within a quarter or half mile from the NC.
Some input that they don’t feel safe in some places.
Was surprised to learn about 26th/Friendly Grove and Eastside’s interest in getting a NC.
Judy Bardin commented that there was a lot of confusion at the pop-up she attended about the how large the area would the zoning changes be looked at. The report talked about a quarter mile but the survey asked about a half mile around the NC. And you, Cari, talked about a half mile radius.
Judy also asked who designed the survey questions because they were constructed in a leading to a certain result, i.e., biased?
Also, it felt that the neighborhoods were brought in after the market analysis not before or during.
Cari responded regarding the scale of NC’s.
She thanked Judy because there is an opportunity for the consultants to clarify this. The core area is where the uses are and infill development and additional commercial or parks. And then there is half mile ring pedestrian zone. The half mile is not where the zoning changes would be. Judy interjected that Cari just said the half mile would be where zoning changes will be considered and the survey question talks about allowing 3-4 story apartment buildings within a quarter and half mile. I keep hearing two different versions and its very confusing.
Cari says that Makers authored the survey. It is not statistically valid and questions were not intended to be leading. Judy interjected that you are still drawing inferences about what people wanted and you would need a statistically valid and random respondent selected survey. Tim and Cari said that the cost would be up to 10 times higher for a statistically valid survey. Judy said that you are presenting it as saying this is what people want (with the heading “what we are hearing, major themes”).
Cari said that this process is not recommending any zoning changes. That will happen down the road if that what the final strategy recommends.
Larry showed a survey question about support for or against allowing….
and pointed out that a wide variety of housing types are already allowed, except for the 3-4 story apartments. Further it implies that supporting changes to low density residential within a half mile will result in “vibrancy and affordability” which not always the case. If this is about an effort to create support for more density, then say that is your policy intent. It’s a question framed in a way that says if you want affordability, you need to say yes to greater density and zoning changes. Cari agreed that Housing Options does currently allow a variety of housing options in single family neighborhoods.
Mark Toy asked about the Division Harrison area makes more sense than the Westside Coop. He also observed that he sees no health element. Such as a neighborhood clinic. Cari replied that bigger cities are doing that and its something the consultants brought up that is a use that she be allowed. She said she wasn’t sure that a medical use is allowed in residential zoned areas. Mark replied that he wasn’t talking about medical but rather well child clinic, preventative care clinic, nutrition, outreach workers. Cari asked for examples. She said the one that pops into her mind is the UW who tried a clinic on Lily Road that they eventually closed. She said that they are looking at things like that. Mark recommended the book, “The Betrayal of Trust” relevant to the topic. Mark asked if the City has a stance on this? Cari said yes, healthy neighborhoods.
Dontae said that community health clinics are something to definitely mull upon and its something that people need in their daily lives and that’s what NCs are about…services where they live so they don’t need to travel.
Karen Clements Sweeney why not has anything happened on the Eastside? Karen said that they were involved early in the NC process and spoke with the Leland group back in 2014. Karen said it was probably not included on the map because likely at the time the staff was looking at specific criteria like transit, was it near some interesting commercial uses or potential development for commercial uses. Getting ready for the update of the Comp Plan, Cari said, we should revisit the criteria for NCs. Karen pointed out that it was part of the Eastsides sub-area plan and there is plenty of transit and commercial activity and several candidates for NC locations, including the Swantown Inn, the Left Bank Bakery new location etc. Karen says it’s a pretty glaring oversight. She also agrees the survey has leading questions.
Bob Jacobs expressed skepticism about the use of neighborhood centers. He hardly uses the one near him. Will we get real numbers? The survey is not producing facts and seems more about a planner’s theory and we need to seem numbers, not just big ideas.
Bruce said that the Westside Coop and the San Francisco Street Bakery were considered a success by the consultants and are places where neighbors congregate. A place where people like to go and meet.
Dontae said that NCs are part of the Comp Plan and are important for the city’s climate goals. Getting basic essentials near where you live is goal.
Lisa said that walkable neighborhoods are important and her neighborhood has asked for years and we passed a tax for sidewalks what has happened to all that money? We have GRUB which is considered a school and there is no sidewalk along Elliott. Some have said it will take a kid to die before we get our sidewalk.
7:40 – 8:15 Discussion of Major City Issues – Everybody
Bruce and Ryan Hollander will be meeting for a tour of the area along with staff led by David Ginther.
Larry pointed out that Ken Lake drainage is an issue in a West Olympia Access project relevant to the Triangle project on ramps and offramps for the development. David Ginther said that the project is many years away and funding is not yet available for construction.
Regional Fire Authority and Impact on Property Assessments Larry presented information on the financing of the proposed Regional Fire Authority (RFA). Larry explained that part of the funding is a formula that begins with the square root of the square footage of structures.
Larry pointed out from his spreadsheet how regressive the tax is.
Larry also showed how apartments are disadvantaged. Larry said he contacted the council and city manager about his concerns. He also asked why would the city use a formula based on how much water can be delivered to a square foot of a structure when only 2% of our fire department’s calls are for fires? Most are emergency medical services.
Lisa asked for a copy of the analysis to be sent to the CNA.
Victor humorously pointed out that this is WA state and isn’t a requirement that all taxes be as regressive as possible?
Larry also pointed out how much of an increase the RFA would increase, over 40% in the first year and 92% over the budget period.
Bob Jacobs pointed out that he has tried to follow this in JOLT and the Olympian. Everything is about the cost and the charges but not what one would expect to see in terms of changes in services for which there is big cost increases. The why is missing. Larry said he heard that there were some statements about maintaining services and competing for available dollars in the future. But, Larry said that Olympia is a highly rated fire department, as good as any in the state and shares a Class 2 rating with Seattle for example. Response time could be faster but there were no statements that said it would result in that benefit. Mark suggested savings from removing duplicative services. Larry said there were no cost savings identified. In fact, 9 overhead positions are being added to make up for the overhead services provided by the cities of Tumwater and Olympia and all existing employees are guaranteed their job. Melissa said she would expect the city staff would review Larry’s numbers and get feedback. Did you get a response back? Larry said yes, he has been in contact and talking with them about it. There are two questions, the regressive formula and Bob’s question, what do you get for it? Particularly, what does Olympia get for it, its obviously a better deal for Tumwater who is a Class 4 fire department.
Victor asked if there was a premium in the formula for high rises. Larry said no. Victor hypothesized that it was to pay for the high rises of many floors. Larry said no and in fact the bigger building example of over 100,000 s/f which is most likely a high rise, pays on 7 cents a square foot while a 5,000 s/f building would pay 30 cents a square foot. Victor said there should be no confusion, the little guy pays more. Larry says his confusion is that he hears a lot about equity concerns from the city council and a regressive tax does violation to equity concerns.
Lisa asked how Dontae feels about it? Dontae says its still very early on in this process and they are being brought up to speed on it. Dontae said that regional growth and maintaining the level of service requires thinking about this. Dontae raised the issue of basic life support performance and we have given the private responders 60 days to meet the standard. Dontae said that this is the first time he has heard about the regressive nature of the formula. He said if there is merit to Larry’s points he and others are open to working on it. He also pointed out it will take a 60% vote.
Melissa said that this issue is similar to other CNA issues where a planner and a consultant make a recommendation and we react. We get so soothing words and then the city does what it wants to anyway.
Bob said he was surprised to hear Dontae talk about growth driving the need for an RFA. What happened to the concept that growth should pay for growth? That’s why we have impact and hookup fees. Shouldn’t we be looking to charge the developers who are making money on it?
Dontae said that equipment is an issue too.
Larry pointed out there would be a $4 million budget windfall to Olympia under the proposal. So there are advantages to the city budget and maybe fire fighters but how does it work out for the rate payers?
Bruce reported that the project is having to revisit their SEPA as its in court. Tim added that the Shoreline permit is being reviewed by the city as well and is being revised. The developer has six months to do it.
. Larry posted links and a video that contains a useful discussion about it. The link is below. Larry said his take was that there is little interest in stopping the 8-year tax breaks for market rate housing. Judy added that the state now allows a 20-year exemption that guarantees affordability for 99 years. Affordable is 80% of area median income. Bob said that the consultants claimed that it stimulated housing but that is different than the JLARC report which did not find it. Bob said they said the consultants said it helps us compete with other cities for development. But if we are not getting growth to pay for growth, why are we doing that? Better that Tumwater and Lacey have the growth and Olympia would be better off for it budgetarily. When developers get tax breaks, what happens to the rest of us? Do we get better services or less?
8:15 – 8:25 Technology Improvement Proposal and Neighborhood Grants – Larry & Dave Marty
Dave Marty discussed a contact he made with Emily Journey who could provide personalized WordPress training for the RNAs, in-person and/or remote. A little pricey but take 2-3 neighborhoods and do a train the trainer event over two days and customize it for RNA’s and create templates. Four hours a day for two days. Dave recommends in-person.
8:25 – 8:30 Minutes Approval and Agenda Ideas
Bob Jacobs recommended approving the minutes with the names of the attendees added. It was approved.
Tim Report
Four follow-ups.
Bob’s point about lack of signs in Briggs. They are private streets and the city is in conversation with developer to get those signs.
Judy asked about Franklin Street mitigation site. Workforce housing is being worked on. Darian Lightfoot (70-90% of AMI). City will not be selling the site. Use the property to increase housing, similar to Unity Commons.
Judy also asked about city mapping on website. City IT is trying to link the mapping with their permit system.
Larry asked how far along are we in providing for our 20 year housing target. They are working on targets. Tim displayed the following:
20,000 units is the base number of units. Tim said that the problem in Olympia is a lack of land which means you need to build up and in-fill.
