Name: Bellingham Planning Commission meeting, Feb 19, 2026
Start: 2026-02-19
End: 2026-02-19
Location: City of Bellingham

Planning Commission

Thu, February 19, 2026

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Meeting summaryAI-generated

Planning Commission — February 19, 2026

This was a regular Planning Commission meeting notable for electing new leadership, followed by three substantive work session presentations on transportation impact fees, the interim landmark tree ordinance, and the new Bellingham Plan's online resources. No binding votes were taken on the substantive items; all three were informational briefings.

Board Elections

The commission elected new leadership at the start of the meeting. Commissioner Rose Lee nominated Commissioner Jed Belaloo for chair; he accepted. Belaloo was elected chair 6–0. Lee was then nominated and elected vice chair 6–0. Outgoing chair Mike Estes was thanked warmly by both commissioners and staff for his leadership. Staff also noted that Commissioner Russ (last name not given) chose not to renew his application for a second term due to family commitments; staff has forwarded candidates to the mayor's office and expects to bring a replacement forward for approval within the next month.

Transportation Impact Fee (TIF) Program — 2026 Update

Chris Ko, a senior planner with consulting firm Transpo Group and former City of Bellingham staff member, presented the city's updated Transportation Impact Fee (TIF) rate study, required after adoption of the new Bellingham Plan (comprehensive plan).

Background and legal context: Impact fees allow cities to charge new development a proportionate share of infrastructure costs. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (*Sheetz v. County of El Dorado*) shifted the burden of proof onto cities to justify their fee calculations, making a well-documented methodology more important than ever. Bellingham has assessed TIFs since 1995, moving to a citywide single-zone system in 2007 and to a person-trip (rather than vehicle-trip) based methodology in 2018.

What changed in this update: The new rate study uses the 12th edition (2025) of the ITE Trip Generation Manual, updated person-trip conversion factors drawing on the Whatcom Council of Governments travel demand model and Puget Sound Regional Council research, and a revised 20-year capital project list from the Bellingham Plan. The list includes 24 eligible multimodal projects, 10 catalyst pedestrian projects, and 12 bicycle project groups. Projects ineligible for TIF funding include maintenance, safety features such as streetlights, studies, and bridge reconstruction.

Rate impact: The new base cost works out to $1,770.13 per person trip. For a single-family home, the new TIF will be approximately $3,239.34, down slightly from the current $3,857.29. Ko clarified this is not a simple apples-to-apples comparison because the methodology has evolved significantly. The city has historically been around the 25th percentile statewide for residential TIF rates, well below places like North Bend or Snoqualmie (which charge ~$15,000 per home due to limited commercial tax base).

Credits and exemptions remain: Urban village developments receive automatic reductions of up to ~25% (or up to 50% voluntarily), affordable housing receives an 80% reduction, and ADUs receive a 50% reduction by state law. Staff noted the city is actively discussing extending the 80% affordable housing reduction to daycare centers, consistent with recent state law.

Commission discussion was lively and covered several topics: how change-of-use tenant improvements trigger fees (fees are charged on the net increase in person trips; prior uses receive credit); how ITE land use categories like "convenience store" are defined (motor-vehicle-oriented by definition — a walkable downtown variety market would use a different, lower-rate category); how Chick-fil-A and similar high-traffic uses are handled (they did pay a substantial TIF and completed a full Traffic Impact Analysis); whether missing middle housing forms fit existing rate categories (yes, with townhomes as single-family attached and stacked flats likely as low-rise multifamily); and how the $2 million/year typically collected squares with the $200+ million project list (only a portion of projects are TIF-eligible, and credits further reduce collections). This was an information item only; no action was taken.

Briefing on Bellingham's Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance

Planning and Community Development Director Blake Lion presented an update on the city's Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance, first adopted as an emergency ordinance in May 2024 after staff observed a surge in preemptive tree removal in anticipation of new development regulations.

What the ordinance does: It protects "landmark trees" — defined as trees 36 inches or greater in diameter at breast height (~4.5 feet) — from removal, damage, or harm without city review. Trees can also be nominated for landmark status based on cultural significance even if under 36 inches. Property owners must hire a certified arborist to assess tree health (using a TRAQ risk rating: extreme, high, moderate, or low) before removal can be considered. A cross-departmental Landmark Tree Committee (Planning, Parks, and Public Works) reviews applications and nominations. The ordinance currently does not allow third-party nominations without the property owner's acknowledgement. Cottonwoods are currently exempt; the city is considering whether other species (e.g., fast-growing Lombardy poplars) should be substituted.

What's working: The ordinance has effectively stopped preemptive tree removal. An inventory of landmark trees is being built out on the city's website. Interdepartmental coordination has improved significantly.

Areas needing refinement: Staff identified several issues being worked on ahead of a full Type VI legislative process (public outreach → Planning Commission public hearing → City Council adoption):

"Reasonableness" is undefined. The ordinance requires applicants to show removal is necessary for "reasonable use" of their property and that "reasonable alternatives" were explored — but without clear standards, this is unpredictable for applicants. Staff is drafting a "reasonableness memo" to provide clearer guidance, including what is presumptively reasonable for infill single-lot development within standard setbacks.

Tree impacts on property are not addressed. The ordinance only considers development impacts on trees, not vice versa. Staff cited one property owner whose 50-inch tree has cracked his foundation and shifted his framing to the point he can't close windows — at an estimated $40,000 removal cost.

Soft costs are significant. Arborist reports cost thousands of dollars; preliminary civil design to assess feasibility can run $10,000–$20,000 — all before a developer knows whether a project is viable. This is a concern for middle-housing affordability.

Enforcement is limited. The maximum fine is $2,400 per violation (constrained by misdemeanor/gross misdemeanor statutes), which commissioners noted may not be a meaningful deterrent.

Tree banking and in-lieu fees are being considered to address the difficulty of replanting at a 3:1 ratio on small infill lots.

Adjacent-property root zones create complexity: a 40-inch tree has a 40-foot critical root zone that may extend onto a neighboring lot, potentially restricting that neighbor's development.

Urban growth area trees are outside city jurisdiction until annexation, with limited tools to prevent preemptive removal there.

Staff plans to bring a formal ordinance through the Type VI process over the coming months, including public outreach, a Planning Commission public hearing, and City Council adoption. Council will be asked Monday to extend the interim ordinance again. No action was taken at this meeting.

Accessing the Bellingham Plan and Related Resources

Senior planner Chris (last name not given in transcript) gave a brief orientation to the newly adopted Bellingham Plan (comprehensive plan) and its online resources, directed both at commissioners and anyone watching the meeting online.

Key resources highlighted:

Main document: Available at the city's website under Services → Community Planning. Search "Bellingham Plan" or "comprehensive plan." The digital version is an interactive PDF with clickable chapter icons, cross-referenced goals/policies, and embedded hyperlinks to adopted-by-reference documents (e.g., bicycle/pedestrian master plans, urban village plans, watershed management plan).

Print and accessibility versions: A formatted 8.5×11 print version and a screen-reader-accessible text-only version are also available.

Goal and Policy Search Tool: Built by GIS analyst Kate Newell, allows keyword searches across all chapters and goals/policies simultaneously.

Interactive Land Use Map: Embedded in the Land Use chapter; links to a web map where users can click any parcel to see its land use designation and associated policy.

Green Infrastructure Map: Required under HB 1181 (state climate bill); shows parks, open space, conservation easements, stormwater facilities, and mapped street trees citywide.

Archived Neighborhood Plans: Previously adopted neighborhood plans are now archived (no longer regulatory) and available as a single searchable PDF with a watermark. Neighborhood zoning tables remain in the BMC for now but will be phased out as new residential zoning code is developed.

Housing and Development Rule Updates page: A summary page of recent code changes (co-living, ADUs, middle housing, etc.) designed for counter staff and the public.

Staff noted the city is actively evaluating whether to move toward a form-based code, a unified development code, or a hybrid — a project comparable in scale to the Bellingham Plan itself. No action was taken; this was an informational presentation.

Director's Report

No formal director's report was given. Staff noted that at least one March meeting is planned, likely the second meeting of the month, with agenda items focused on early feedback on upcoming code update topics (not draft ordinances yet).

Key Takeaways

New commission leadership: Jed Belaloo is the new Planning Commission Chair; Rose Lee is Vice Chair. Both elected 6–0. A commission vacancy exists and a replacement is expected within the next month.

TIF rates will decrease slightly for most uses under the 2026 update (~$3,239 vs. ~$3,857 for a single-family home), though the methodology is substantially different from prior versions. Affordable housing (80% reduction) and ADUs (50% reduction) retain significant discounts; daycare centers may soon receive similar relief.

The Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance will move toward permanent adoption via a full public process this year. Key unresolved issues include defining "reasonable use," addressing trees that damage property, and managing the soft-cost burden on middle housing development.

The Bellingham Plan is now fully accessible online with interactive maps, a cross-reference search tool, and a green infrastructure map — a deliberately flexible digital resource designed to stay current without requiring legislative amendments.

Broader development code reform (potentially moving from Euclidean zoning toward a form-based or unified development code) is under active internal discussion and will be a major city undertaking in coming years.

AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.

What happened at this meeting

Roll Call

The meeting opened with roll call for the February 19th, 2026 Bellingham Planning Commission meeting, with all members present (Mike Estes, Dan Plunker, Jed Belaloo, Jerry Richmond, Lisa Marks, and Rose Le). Minutes from October covering ADU updates and co-living amendments were distributed via email and adopted without objection. The commission then proceeded to elect new leadership, nominating Jed Belaloo as chair (approved 6-0) and Rose Le as vice chair (approved 6-0), with Rose thanking outgoing chair Mike Estes for his exemplary leadership.

Briefing on Bellingham's Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance

# Summary: Briefing on Bellingham's Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance

Blake Lion, Director of Planning and Community Development, presented Bellingham's Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance, an emergency measure adopted in May 2024 and extended multiple times to prevent preemptive tree removal ahead of development regulations. The ordinance defines landmark trees as those 36 inches or greater in diameter at breast height, with removal permitted only when trees are dead, diseased, dying, or pose extreme risk as determined by certified arborist assessment; the city maintains an online inventory map and established a landmark tree committee to ensure consistent citywide application. Staff highlighted successful protections and community engagement but acknowledged concerns about increased developer costs ($10,000-$20,000 for arborist and design work), insufficient penalty deterrents (maximum $2,400 fine), and implementation gaps—including trees that damage property, cottonwood exemptions, and impacts on adjacent properties' critical root zones. Staff proposed refinements including a "reasonableness memo" for infra development standards, adjusted measurement thresholds, and procedural improvements to balance ecological protection with middle housing goals and affordability, while commissioners and Miles from the Cordana neighborhood urged adaptive zoning strategies and density increases (up to 8 stories in Fair Haven) paired with stronger design standards to accommodate both preservation and housing development.

Accessing the Bellingham Plan and Related Resources

# Summary: Accessing the Bellingham Plan and Related Resources

Chris Ko and city staff presented comprehensive updates on the Transportation Impact Fee (TIFF) Program 2026 Update and related implementation resources for the Bellingham Plan. The TIFF presentation covered the evolution from a 1995 18-zone system to the current multimodal, person trip-based methodology implemented in 2018, which uses the ITE trip generation manual (12th edition, 2025) and WACOG/PSRC regional travel demand models to calculate fees—resulting in a residential rate of $3,239.34 per single-family home, a slight decrease from the 2025 rate. Commission members raised concerns about fairness in the one-size-fits-all approach and whether fee categories adequately address new missing middle housing forms, while staff clarified that fees are not negotiable but developers can present defensible alternative analyses, and that various credits apply (including state-mandated 50% for ADUs and 80% for affordable housing). Staff also presented the Bellingham Plan's interactive digital resources, including hyperlinked chapters with nested policy connections, an interactive zoning map viewer, a goal and policy search tool developed by senior GIS analyst Kate Newell, multiple document formats (print view and screen reader accessible versions), and a new "Housing and Development Rule Updates" page designed to help the public navigate recent legislative changes without requiring code expertise.

Agenda items (3)

Procedural (1)

1ProceduralRoll Call

Attendance check to confirm which council members are present at the meeting.

What happened

General Business

2General BusinessBriefing on Bellingham's Interim Landmark Tree Ordinance

Informational presentation on Bellingham's temporary rules protecting significant trees on private and public property until a permanent ordinance is adopted.

What happened

3General BusinessAccessing the Bellingham Plan and Related Resources

Overview of how residents and businesses can access and use the Bellingham Plan (the city's comprehensive land use and development guide) and related planning documents.

What happened

Additional votes recorded in minutes

Adopt October meeting minutes

aye 1

voice voteaye

Elect Jed Belaloo as Planning Commission Chair

aye 1

voice voteaye

Elect Rose Le as Planning Commission Vice Chair

aye 1

voice voteaye

Verbatim transcript available

472 transcript segments indexed

[music] Okay, welcome everyone. Uh, I'd like to call to order the February 19th, 2026 meeting of the Bellingham Planning Commission. Heather, can you call the role? >> Mike Estes >> here. >> Dan Plunker >> here.

>> Jed Belaloo >> here. >> Jerry Richmond >> here. >> Lisa Marks >> here. >> Rose Le >> here. >> Okay. Um, we had some minutes sent out over email from October, uh, covering the the meeting discussing the ADU updates and the, um, co-living amendments.

Um, those are sent over email. Typically, we just unless there's an objection or an [clears throat] edit or a modification, someone raise your hand if you have an issue. Otherwise, we'll consider the minutes adopted.

Last call. Okay. Um, tonight's agenda, four items. We're going to elect new commission uh chair and vice chair. Then we have uh three presentations uh in a work session covering transportation impact fee updates, an update on the landmark tree ordinance, and um talking about the public um availability of the Bellingham plan and resources online.

Uh so before we get into all that uh we'd like to offer the public opportunity to do public comment. So this is your one chance. Um if you're online on Zoom, raise your hand. Or here in person, come on down.

We offer three minutes on any topic related to planning you'd like to talk to us about. Come on down. >> Hello. Um Miles from the Cordana neighborhood tuning in. I'd like to talk about a couple things.

First, um with the reszoning likely coming up this year, I would like to see um consideration of allowing adaptive zoning particularly in the old street grid. But to be honest, anywhere that is outside the Lake Watcom wershed.

And the idea with this is that the amount of height or density allowed would be based on being slightly more than the current context on a lot or a neighborhood. There are different ways that could be calculated, but the idea with this is that any neighborhood would by right be allowed to get a little bit denser to have a few more people than it currently does.

And so then all neighborhoods throughout the city can gradually grow. This becomes extra useful as code reforms at the local and state level make it easier to build smaller apartment buildings and the like.

Um so that would so that is my ask there. Um in addition I would like to comment on fair haven specifically um density and design standards. Density limitations in Fair Haven should be less strict because a lot of people like the traditional character and urban density of Fair Haven and there is no reason that allowing more height it or eight stories.

There is no reason that allowing more height would conflict with that. And in addition on on the other hand, design standards in Fair Haven should be stricter because what really when I'm walking in Fair Haven, what I notice much less than height is if a building feels less traditional in its design.

So both the historic district and to the extent possible the historic influence area as well should be as rigorous as possible about encouraging traditional architecture, traditional proportions and ornamentation and and the like because people want that and Fair Haven should be a place that encourages that type of character whereas downtown can encourage more modern designs.

Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Anyone else on Zoom for public comment? All right, we will close the public comment period. Next up, elections. Uh we will take So any nominations for chair? I would like to nominate uh Rose uh B Throw.

Yeah. >> Um well, I >> to be to be clear, >> do you accept? [laughter] >> Um I Yeah, I think Jed um I'd like to nominate Jed as our chair. Um do I get into my rationale or just leave it at that? >> Okay.

And then I would accept a nomination as a vice chair. >> So you decline and deflect. >> Yeah. [laughter] Yes. >> Um okay. We have one nomination for chair and that is Jed. Are there any other nominations for the position of chair?

>> Okay. So we'll do a quick vote. We should vote on this. Yes. Uh >> [laughter] >> Well, I appreciate the nomination. Um, I know it is definitely extra work and I've seen what uh we've had to do here to keep the thing on the rails every once in a while.

So, I will try to do do my best to uh keep an organized and well structured meeting and uh keep the agenda moving and um yeah, I look forward to it. >> Okay. Uh all those in favor of Jed for chair uh say I >> I opposed.

>> Okay. Uh Jed will be chair the six to zero. Any nominations for vice chair. >> Now I nominate Rose. [laughter] >> Uh do you accept slash speech please? >> Uh I am happy to take the vice chair position.

Um, one of the things that I've witnessed is that there's very little that the [laughter] chair has done over the years. Um, and also Mike, uh, if I can take this moment to thank you for, um, displaying such great example of how to hold these meetings.

You've done such an excellent job making sure that everybody's voice gets heard, that everybody feels respected, and um, it's been such an honor um, to serve with you. So, thank you. Um it is truly you do a a magnificent job and um Jed, you've got big shoes to fill, but I believe you can do it.

Um just do what he does. [laughter] >> Well, thank you. The pandering has earned at least one vote. [laughter] Uh any other nominations for vice chair? >> Okay. Uh, all in favor for Rose for vice chair.

>> I >> post. Okay. 6 Rose as vice chair. >> You want to switch seats? >> Is that officially the word? >> Let's do it. >> Do one more round if you want. >> Yeah. One more. >> Got take notes. >> All right.

I told I told Heather I was going to recline for the rest of it, but we can do that. uh agenda. Chris, you want to jump into um >> Yeah. Before we pass it off on the on the first item, I just I would just echo um the comments here that staff have appreciated your chairmanship and uh we just thank you for your service in that role and we look forward to one more year of you on the commission.

So, um, also I wanted to, uh, relay, um, I think you've all, uh, heard that, uh, Russ has, uh, chosen not to renew his, uh, application for filling a second term on the commission. So, we do have a vacancy.

He also, and I'll just let you know that the, uh, staff has forwarded uh, some candidates to the mayor's office, and we're coordinating with them um, on deciding on a final candidate. So, you'll see that coming forward um, hopefully in the next month.

uh for approval. Um but also I just wanted to relay from Russ a message that he just wanted to uh say that he's grateful and thankful for the opportunity to serve uh for these past years with you all in the commission just to communicate that.

So if you see him p in passing in the community, give him a pat on the back and give him thanks. But he's uh just attending some family and isn't able to to make the meetings this year. So that's why he didn't renew.

So, um, and with that, um, I'll pass it off to our public works friends and the TIFF conversation. >> Good afternoon, planning commission, or evening. Um, thanks for having us. Uh, I am going to introduce uh, Chris Ko behind me.

He is a senior planner with transpo um has done and is doing very similar tiff rate studies for other jurisdictions within the region and all throughout the state. Um he is also a previous um city of Bellingham staff member.

So he is he has extensive knowledge and of the history and how the transportation impact fee program here has um evolved over the years. So, here we go. New technology. Good evening, commissioners. Uh, waiting for the technology to come up.

Um, thank you for having me. Thank you, staff, for the introduction. Um, we've put together a presentation to walk you through what we've done to update the city's transportation impact fees. Um this is typically something that any agency would do after adopting its comprehensive plan.

So um that's why we're here. Uh the the point of doing impact fees is it's one of the big uh first implementation steps in a comprehensive plan. So I will go ahead and uh jump right in. There's been uh several changes uh with impact fees and we'll talk about a lot of changes.

Um but the first thing we want to talk about is the statutory authority that allows cities to uh assess impact fees on new development. Um so there's significant amount of code uh that regulates impact fees.

You can have transportation impact fees, park impact fees, school impact fees, and and fire impact fees. And Bellingham has three of those four. In addition to that, um there's been a recent uh US Supreme Court decision, the Sheets decision.

I don't know if any of you have heard about it, but what the the essence of it is [clears throat] that whereas in the past uh if there was a a challenge to transportation impact fees, the burden of proof would al often fall on the appellant.

In other words, they would have to show that the city was in the wrong and and bring forward their rationale for that. That essentially has been flipped. Now the city has to justify uh how it's been done and um has to show their work essentially.

So, what you're going to see tonight is a whole bunch of information as to how this update is supporting the comprehensive plan that's just been passed. Um, in addition to that, if if people are interested in more information about impact fees, you can go to the municipal research and services center.

Uh, it's a fantastic um place to find information. Hopefully, everybody's familiar with that. Um, but all of the uh royal blue text in the slides are live texts or live links, excuse me. And if you get a PDF copy of this, if you click on it, it'll take you right to the resource that we're talking about.

So, as I mentioned, um, impact fees are one of the first big implementation steps when an agency passes a transportation element. Um, the GMA is very clear. Uh, the transportation element is literally supposed to implement the land use element and they're supposed to be integrated and um, one is supposed inform the other.

Uh, and with the transportation element, um, you've got to show that you have an adequate multimodal transportation system, and that's typically done with a 20-year project list. That's in the appendix A of the the Bellingham comp plan or the Bellingham plan.

[snorts] And of course, uh, the transportation plan needs to be financially feasible, or at least the agency's got to show if there's, uh, a gap between funding and cost, how you propose to, uh, fill that gap.

an impact phase is one way to do that. Um, and what you do is you you look at your 20-year list and then you ask the question, how much growth is is the city planning for? That's all been documented in the plan and um and then you look at what development's proportionate share might be of that and we'll walk you through that methodology.

But just to give you a little bit of background information, um, Bellingham Municipal Code 1906 is which is what covers impact fees. The city first uh adopted impact fees back in 1995 after the first GMA compliant comprehensive plan.

after the next one in 2006 that was followed up by a change. The original uh impact fee system had 18 individual zones and it was administratively burdensome and very inequitable from zone to zone. Uh you had 18 different tiff rates depending on where you were at in the city.

There's I'm not going to go into the details of that, but there there was a lot to it. Uh in 2007 when we updated the uh the impact fee system, it went to a onezone system across the entire city with the entire capital project list informing that and it was based on a Washington Supreme Court decision called Dre Drebik versus the city of Olympia and it it upheld the the rationale for the the one zone system.

After that, uh, we developed, uh, an urban village tiff reduction program that incentivized infill that was called for in the land use element in all of the master planned urban villages in Bellingham.

It gave credit for the presence of pedestrian and bicycle uh, infrastructure, the ability to walk and bike more, and it also looked at the proximity of transit, and so giving credit for WTA's transit system, which had just been reworked, and high frequency transit connected all the urban villages.

So it was in recognition that there was lower vehicle trip generation in these areas in particular and so it lowered the the transportation impact fee requirements in those areas. Not going to go into the details of that.

It's just something that the city's had for quite a while. Uh then in 2018 uh went from uh the vehiclebased uh form of impact fees to multimodal and person tripbased uh form. And this is something that a lot of places have been doing over the years.

More and more agencies each year do this. And what it's recognizing is that it's really looking at how many people are able to experience the mobility benefits of all the infrastructure that an agency provides, not just vehicle trips.

Now, here we are in 2006. Um, that methodology is still the same. There's some slight differences in methodology, as you might imagine. Over the years, methodology changes and evolves. And so the newest uh is being used and we're going to walk you through what that looks like here.

So as I mentioned earlier um the comprehensive plan details or documents um the number of housing units in the amount of jobs that are being planned for in the next 20 years. And um what the planning department has done is they informed the Wacom Council of Governments um what that looks like.

And then the Wacom Council of Governments embedded that into the transportation analysis zones in the regional travel demand model. And we're not going to get into the the nuts and bolts of that. Um but it's essentially a platform that looks at existing conditions.

It looks at where growth is happening, housing and employment in particular. Uh it then distributes trips across the network and then conversion factors are used to look at um vehicle trips versus person trips.

It's based on a lot of research. We'll touch upon that as we go. Um, but this is what the growth looks like in terms of housing units and employment. You'll see these numbers again in some of the tables we'll cover.

Uh, and this is what the zoning the future zoning map looks like for Bellingham and densities. And so there's a couple things happening. In addition to the the things happening with all the regulatory things involving transportation, there was also a number of things that changed with zoning and um residential development uh including uh allowance of ADUs and significant increases for residential density in all sorts of different places.

Um different forms of multif family housing and multiple homes on individual lots. I think you're all aware of that and so that's something that's definitely informing this as well. In addition to that, again, the impact fees are trying to help the city not only show what development's proportionate share is, but also accomplish the goals that have been established in the plan itself.

So, they're very policy oriented oriented, pointing everything in the direction that the city wants to go. So, for a long time, since 2006, the city of Bellingham's had this urban village connectivity approach where um master planned urban villages, and there's seven of them here in Bellingham, are all connected with highfrequency uh WTA transit.

And um all of these areas have uh more pedestrian bicycle infrastructure than most of the other places in town. And this is where the pockets of density are. that cities relying on these urban villages to accommodate about 30% of all the future growth.

So in the land use element, there's very specific policies that talk about transit supportive development as well and a and a transit corridor approach to planning. The idea is if you can take advantage of where some of these arterial corridors are that are served by transit, you load up the density, it's much more likely that people will choose to use transit or at least take less vehicle trips.

you can then bolster it with pedestrian bicycle infrastructure and make it a truly multimodal situation. This is also supported by a number of other uh plans, the ADA transition plan, the pedestrian bicycle master plans as well as WTA's plans uh for transit.

So uh we get into some other transportation related things. um the mode shift goals that have been established for a very long time again since 2006. City and WTA collaborated on those and these have now been uh reported on for a very long time.

Uh more recently in this uh planning effort, the city took a look at these and made some adjustments to recognize um that that they needed to to be a little bit more realistic and and adjust the the different modal shares.

This is reported on each year typically in the annual report that the city does and the data comes from the US census uh ACS data. It's it's standardized. It allows the city to compare itself to other cities.

Um and uh it's it's free at least at this point. We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but um it's a good metric for the city. It's not perfect. Um but there isn't very many other information sources like this.

In addition to that, for a long time, the city has had a very strong complete streets focus, looking at when infrastructure is built. Um, providing facilities for all groups of users and trying to look at balancing the needs.

And this will be important as we talk about the next thing, the transportation modal hierarchy. when the city established its complete ne networks approach in 2016 with the comp plan uh the modal hierarchy was established but this time around the city looked at at that and said yes um this is great and we're going to make sure that pedestrian safety is always the highest priority but there's some corridors that are actually going to be prioritized for bicycle uses and others that are prioritized for transit uses and then of course all the other uses are still in there but they're not as high a priority on some of these corridors.

So there are some adjust adjustments made here um from that standpoint. So when we start getting into okay all of this is great but how does it affect what development is going to be charged for impact fees?

We look at the growth the housing and employment information and then we we look at all the different these these broad categories here that in the table and we look at the institute of transportation engineers trip generation manual that's a starting point.

The reason for that is that is the industry standard. It's uh this is now on the 12th edition. It was published in two 2025. Um and and with each new edition of the manual, it becomes more and more progressive.

There's literally thousands of traffic studies done to inform these manuals. This edition, there's 166 individual land use categories. If you're curious, if a development comes in and and Dylan is having to process an application, he's not quite sure which category is the best fit.

Maybe it's in between two categories. you got two that are similar names. It allows you to go in and look at the actual definition. How many studies are available and you can look at it in different ways whether it's a thousand square feet or by employees or or whatever the metric might be.

But this is it's the starting point for how to figure out okay what kind of vehicle trip generation rate is there and that's the second column you see there. And then we use the most recent research that's available and that's in the footnotes here talking about person trip conversion factors.

And this is based on the Wacom Council of Government's model as well as a Puget Sound Regional Council model as well as some national research um from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

And so that's all there. You're welcome to go look at that. We're not going to talk about that in detail. It's just very well informed. So we then look at uh okay uh we convert that to person trips based on the housing and employment.

Um we look at the system improvements and on the 20-year project list. Some are tiff eligible, some are not. We'll talk about that in a in a little bit. Um but it's not just new growth that's demanding the infrastructure.

There's already some gaps in the system. There's some needs that are out there and have been for a while. So there's some public responsibility as well and some people might call that deficiencies, some might just call it lack of improvements.

So it's just recognized that new growth is not the only reason for new infrastructure. Uh so then um we go ahead and look at where there are vehicle traffic and active system gaps um that are that can be related to growth.

We calculate up what the proportionate benefit of those might be by TAZ. We'll show you here in a minute um how we take the projects that are on the list and overlay them on that TAZ structure. And then consistent uh with the state law, it's it's really important to understand that new development and we've been talking about this um it cannot be held accountable for 100% of all the new project costs.

Again, there's some public responsibility. So the project list is in appendix A of the Bellingham plan and you can go look at all of that. But what came out of it as TIFF eligible were 24 uh multimmodal projects and these are kind of the they're bigger almost all of them involve pedestrian and bicycle features but they're really kind of corridor related.

They might include signals or roundabouts things like that. Um but they can be attributed generally for um multimodal uh category. Then there's some individual pedestrian bicycle projects. In this case, there's there's 10 from the pedestrian master plan and 12 from the bicycle master plan.

But these aren't just 10 sidewalk projects or 10 bikeway projects. These are groups of projects. And we'll talk about that a little bit more as we show you the tables. Um so think about it as you know the 10 sidewalk projects.

It's probably more like around 30 actual sidewalk pieces. Um but they're in groups called catalyst projects. >> [snorts] >> As I mentioned a moment ago, there's several projects on the 20-year list that are not TIFFL eligible.

And the state law is pretty clear and and the practice of of calculating transportation impact fees is pretty clear. You can't have maintenance or repair activities, things that are features on the street.

They might be safety features like street lights. Um, you can't do studies with impact fee money. We can't charge for that. Bridge reconstruction and projects required for mitigation reasons. those are not tiff eligible projects.

So those have not been calculated in to the growth costs. So um we're looking at projects um that uh they're located uh within the city and they can be shown um on the the COG travel demand model uh growth.

You're going to see that here in just a second. We're looking at the urban village areas, infill, transit supportive development, transit, transportation efficient uh growth strategies that the city's got embedded in their goal and policy language.

We're looking at the modal hierarchy. We're looking at the bike and ped plans. And we're looking at the transportation mode share goals, what the city wants to achieve with mode shares. So this creates that measurable nexus that we were talking about in terms of the sheets decision flipping the responsibility from the development community onto the cities.

And so this is this is all leading up to helping the city make sure that they can make a case for how this was all done and why it can be supported. This is part of the project list, the 20-year project list from the the comp plan.

These are all the multimodal projects, the 24. And so, as we mentioned, most of these include bicycle pedestrian features, but they're much bigger than just that. So, they're in the multimodal category.

This is what that looks like. These are the projects that were overlaid then on the TAZ structure showing housing and employment. This is the uh pedestrian portion. Uh there's 10 of these catalyst projects.

Um and again, they're groups, not just individual sidewalks. This is what that looks like. And if you look at the maps, and I'm sure it's it's very difficult to see these real close, but you can tell there's many more than 10 on here.

These are these these groups. Um, and some of them will maybe be grant eligible. Some of them will have to be funded locally. Then here's the the bicycle projects. And again, same thing. They're groups of projects.

In this case, uh, 12 of them. Same thing. And you can see here easily there there's more than just 12 sections of bikeway being talked about. These are groups of projects. And so taking all of that and and taking all of the estimated costs from the project list um and calculating how much of it is TIFF eligible and that's based on the TAZ structure that can then there's a total cost that can be calculated and then with the person trip conversion factors that we've shown you this is how it uh multiplies out and it leads to a cost per person trip.

And in this case, $1,770.13. And initially, when you look at that, it's like, huh, well, that that's lower than what we currently charge. But you have to remember that this is calculated in person trips, not vehicle trips.

So, that gets multiplied. And and um when Dylan does his calculations, he'll be able to show he'll be able to use this uh sheet. We'll show you in just a second, the the rate sheet. But again, um this is all based on a number of things.

As I mentioned the this is the 12th edition of the IT trip generation manual and and that's a new change. There's been the evolution of person trip methodology over the years and then there's a new project list compared to the old project list.

So it's not an apples and apples comparison of the way it was done before and the way it is now and it it can't be because of all these changes. So, just as an example, um here's a comparison of of tiff rate uh calculations um showing in this case for a single family development and it it shows you the difference in cost and the new rates are slightly less than what the city has been charging in 2025.

I'll just remind everybody that back in 2018 when it went from uh vehicle trips to person trips, there was a significant cost increase and rather than um force that all onto the development community all at one time, the city council decided, nope, we're going to offer to increase it uh each year incrementally in segments up to the legal maximum.

And so every year for the last seven years, it's been increasing automatically. In this case, this will be one rate um for the foreseeable future with the exception of um cost increases for inflation um that the the department will apply uh just like they do with construction costs.

Um and and this is how uh it pans out. Then instead of the cost right now of 38 thou $3,85729 per home, it'll be $3,239.34. And that's just an example. for every category it will have the same effect.

Um it's also important um to be able to see how Bellingham compares to other places, but there's very important differences between some of these places. Um at the top are places that may not have much of an indust commercial industrial tax base.

So they have to rely very very heavily on residential tax revenue. You'll see Northbend and Seamish up there at the very top. Those are $15,000 per single family home for a transportation impact fee. And it's because that's that's the revenue that they have.

Um that's all they have available. Bellingham has always been in about the 25th percentile area of this chart. This chart's been published for a number of years. It's available on the MRSC web page. Um and so you can see how Billingham compares to other places if you go to look at that.

So, I mentioned a tiff rate schedule that that'll be uh Dylan's main tool for calculating impact fees. Um, and it shows all the conversion factors. They're embedded in the spreadsheet. Um, and it'll allow him to very easily see what's coming in in terms of what category it fits in, then what applies, and that's the beginning of the calculation.

If there's reason to, at some point, you can look at making adjustments. And here's an example of what that looks like, showing both industrial and residential land uses, factors that are used, um, vehicle trips, person trips, and then how it translates.

It even includes the urban village tiff reductions on the far right columns. So, uh, there were two errors in the packet. We caught that, uh, staff and I, um, there was a 44% passby rate for daycare facilities that was reported in there.

It was was actually shown for churches. Well, churches don't typically have a pass by reduction. Um, so that was just a misplacement on the chart. Um, and so that was adjusted. And then what I noticed when when we were doing that is it was also reported for daycare facilities that it was looked at per thousand square feet, but it's really per student or that's how it should be done and that's how it has been done here in the city.

So both of these errors have been fixed on the spreadsheet. Just wanted to point that out if anybody else noticed that. And uh as we've been talking about, you know, this is where it all starts, but there are options um to make adjustments as you go.

The code uh lays this out. section 190630. It lists credits and exemptions and it walks you through uh ways to reduce tiffs ADUs mixeduse urban villages um different looking at um you know the presence of sidewalks, bikeways and proximity to transit just like we've been talking about with all the policy approach.

Um you can there's an 80% reduction for affordable housing. Um there's other legitimate transportation industry accepted methods that can be used if there's a reason to do so. And this is where the code allows the city to make adjustments, but it has to be defensible.

Um and so if the staff can make that determination, um that can stand and and again, you know, just the city always wants to be able to protect its decisions. So that's it. Oh, this this uh shows from the transportation commission, but this is an information item uh rather than an action item.

So, or that. That's it for me. Be happy to answer questions. >> We have one question. Um nice to see you, Chris. >> Nice to see you, Rose. Um when you say uh projects for private development um what's how do you define like when is a project triggered because of a project that isn't covered by impact fees for um this kind of work?

I guess am I making sense my question? I guess I think if a development is paying their impact fees, >> um at what point does it trigger um is there the size of the project that then triggers a transportation impact study that then would say like, oh, we need some off-site improvements that your transportation impact fees don't cover.

>> Yeah, that's a little bit different. And and I don't know if Dylan wants to answer this or not. Um but that's a traffic study requirement. That's from a SEPA standpoint, not not the impact fee standpoint.

And there there are thresholds for that. That you want me to go for? >> Yeah, I guess. Um, so the the calculation sheet that was mentioned a few times is kind of where that determination is made. It states in our in our code, I believe it's in 1906 as well, um that any any development that creates more than 50 PM peak vehicle trips um would then be required to have a transportation impact analysis that goes along with it.

Um, and I I would add that there are circumstances where if if there's a known location that has issues already, there may be reason for the city to require a traffic study for other reasons than just the sheer number of trips.

>> Yeah. Any any development that creates more than one PM peak person trip is required to pay a transportation impact fee. Um, so there's there's quite a quite a difference between [clears throat] the impact fees and then when the TIA, the transportation impact analysis is is required.

>> I've heard discussion of certain project types like uh public schools being potentially exempted from traffic impact fees. Um, I didn't know if that's something that is being considered or is that more of a a state law side of things or or are there other project types that we feel like should be taken off the table?

>> Well, that's something that the city would have to decide on and actually put it into the code, the municipal code, if you wanted to do something like that. But the purpose of an impact fee is to recognize whether an impact is happening or not on and off a site.

and schools absolutely have an impact. I I will say though uh remember that a lot of this is based on PM peak traffic and so schools have less of a PM peak impact than other uses. Um so there are ways to adjust that as well but the reality is there's often activities going on at the school at many hours of the day.

Um so that has to be looked at. I guess one one thing I would add to that is kind of in in the Bellingham context, how the Bellingham uh school district is is replacing schools with new schools. Um if there was if it was the school a school that could handle the same capacity of students that it currently exists, they would get a credit for what is there now.

Um if it was the exact same size, then they would and that schools are calculated by the number of students. If they projected to have the same number of students in a new school, they likely wouldn't pay a tiff.

Um, if that was to be expanded, they would pay a tiff just based on what the expansion of students is in that school. >> Everything that Dylan just said applies to every other form of development. They they would all get credit for what was there before, no matter what it was.

Um, and and looking at the net impact. Chris are um are the impact fees funded by anything else other than building permits? >> No, it's it's new development um and including redevelopment, but again uh redevelopment often gets credit and it can it can sometimes eliminate the impact fee.

>> Fundamentally, is a pedestrian trip to a local convenience store is that the same as a cross city vehicle trip in realm of cost for this? uh it it's not quite as simple as parsing it that way. Um again, it's it's all calculated up.

They're they're trips. It's not vehicle or person trip. It's it's person trips in general. So, what we don't know on a regular basis is well, how many people are in the car? So, we don't know what the people moving capacity of the car is.

I mean, we can calculate what the capacity is. We don't know what the occupancy rate is. But so, that that's why these person trip conversion factors are so important. They're they're universal across the board.

trip is a trip >> regardless of distance or actual use of how much the consumption >> distance is important but but that's where that's why the model is used that's what the model looks at it distributes those trips across the entire network and so it's looking at it fairly >> but if you are a use that has a lot of small short trips that's going to be penalized as opposed to long single trips >> no not necessarily um again it depends where you're at in the city.

The urban villages are treated very differently than the other parts of this city. Those are the highest density areas of the city. They have the most bike and pet infrastructure. So, if there's a lot of walking going on there, they're going to end up paying a lot less in impact fees.

>> I'm sorry. You the person trips, how is that divorced from if a person walks or bikes versus shows up in a car? Is that not still a singular person trip? >> Okay. Uh so the methodology is again it's it's universal trips and and what goes into that um is all sorts of trips.

Again you start with vehicle trips use a conversion factor to recognize that in some cases there's more than one person in the car and based on the research that goes into the person trip conversion factor those those factors are included in what we're using here.

So, we don't have time to walk into the details of each of the methodologies or or what comes out of the COG model or the the PSRC model, but those are the sources, but I'll be happy to talk to you offline about that.

I I do get that there is many sources and there you referenced 166 studies, but it seems like person trips are a lot more dependent upon the regional infrastructure and what that geography looks like, whether there's dense businesses, whether there's accessible pathways.

It seems like there's a bit of a we're trying to apply a one-sizefits-all metric here of every convenience store is the same, every single family home is the same. Well, um I I have to say that that's not actually what's being portrayed here in the IT trip generation manual has 166 different categories.

Just as an example, in the residential section, each of the residential categories has a different trip generation rate. The higher density has a lower trip generation rate than a single family low density home.

So it's inherent in the trip generation rates even for vehicles that there's less vehicle trip production from the higher density forms of development. >> And if I could add, I think this kind of gets to the the last bullet on the screen right now.

um if you know if that convenience store would like to come up with their own trip generation that is that is legitimate and defensible um they are welcome to do so. Um it's just yeah it just seems a little bit odd that it is that is a discretionary policy.

It can be very much dependent on the whims of whomever is looking at it. uh that convenience store is paying $176,000 per thousand square feet and a Costco is paying $10,000 per thousand square feet based on that trip generation.

Just seems very disparit in the types of trips that you're going to see for each of those businesses. >> I had a related convenience store question. Um, when does tenant improvements trigger tiff versus like building permit?

Like I'm thinking multi-use building, 50 over one, commercial, ground floor commercial required, empty shell sitting there, three years later, could be a bookstore, could be a restaurant, could be a convenience store comes along.

Does that build out, you know, you know, and and and we often see those sit empty? I've heard one of the barriers to retail coming in is that the tiff of the change of use can be very expensive and and specifically like a downtown convenience store, however many multiples of $176,000 if that's what this means for what might be a hundred walking person trips a day to that new convenience store.

You know, I I get a 7-Eleven out in a neighborhood might generate a lot of car traffic. a convenience store in a neighborhood or especially downtown, you know, those those overwhelmingly walking trips.

It's just con convenience store can mean so many different things and having one price point in all those different situations. And so my actual question is how does the change of use of a tenant improvement in an empty retail shell change post building permit what the cost might be?

>> It's an excellent question. Um, I'll lay it out for you in terms of how the city does this in practice. So, uh, for a long time, mixeduse development in particular, the city has offered the developers, well, you know, we know the residential unit count.

We can tell you what that looks like. And so, here's what the impact fee would be for that. That's required to be paid at the building impact, I'm sorry, the building permit issuance. And then the developer has a choice to make at that point.

Um, or or this is the way it used to be. uh the developer could decide to go ahead and pay the impact fee for a general category um called specialty retail that had a actually a relatively low trip generation rate.

And then when a tenant improvement came in, you would look at well what was paid versus what is actually going in there. And that's the problem is you don't know exactly what's going to go in the ground floor unit.

And so that was a way for the city to at least cover its bases and get some form of impact fee. And then whatever came in there was normally going to be higher than that anyway or or equal. Um but in some cases um developers don't well they often don't want to pay that ground floor commercial rate and unfortunately they often don't inform the new tenants that this may require an impact fee that hasn't yet been paid.

And so that's where this becomes an issue. But in some of the examples that you used, whether it's a convenience store or any other use downtown, it's automatically going to get the urban village tiff reduction, even if it's brand new development, that's going to scrape off almost 25% automatically.

There's voluntary things that could be done to bring that up to 50% if they wanted to do that. Um, and then, uh, you start with the trip generation rates on that table and then you look at all the other things that may affect that.

And if it's in the downtown and it's something that's clearly going to be, you know, generating more walking trips because people are already downtown for that particular type of use and the demand period.

And you can use uh different factors like diverted links or other things to reduce the tiff, but doing it in a legitimate industry accepted way because again it the decision has to be defended. the city has to be able to stand by whatever the the collection was on the impact fee rate.

So, there's many different ways to look at that. The neighborhood convenience store, it's one thing if you're you're having a neighborhood grocery store. It's a different thing when you've got that plus gas pumps out front that's attracting vehicles.

And so, that kind of convenience store, yeah, it's going to pay an impact fee, [laughter] a big one. Commissioners, Tim Holman. I'm the assistant public works director over transportation. I just wanted to have uh Dylan read to you uh folks what the actual definition of that convenience store is because I think when you hear it, you might actually realize we don't want one of those downtown.

Uh Dylan, if you don't mind. >> Yeah, sure. Yeah, like Chris had mentioned, um, in the IT trip generation manual, for all of these 161 different land use categories, they have pretty detailed descriptions.

And specifically for 851, the convenience store, uh, the the description is a convenience store that is a small retail business that sells grocery and other everyday items that a person may need or want as a matter of convenience.

Convenience stores are typically located along major thoroughares to optimize motorist convenience. extended hours of operation with many open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Um, further to support the convenience of the store.

A convenience store is also called a convenience market. Um, so that's the that's the the the gist of the of the description there. And within those 161 different um land use categories, there is a number of other categories that or other land use codes that you know for this for this convenience store that's being referenced that could be in downtown that that could definitely be used such as a a variety market.

um and and like other shopping related shopping related uh land use codes that are that are much much lower trip generations than than this specific convenience store land use. So I'll also just throw out since a downtown example was used, you know, there used to be a Wraid store on the corner of Cornwall and Magnolia and been shuttered.

Who knows what's going to go in there next, but whatever it is is going to get full credit for what was there before. So the impact fee is going to be this big. whatever it is. Um, nope. You know, that's how it works.

That the city's not trying to overcharge um for this. And it'll also be recognized, you know, that, you know, yeah, you can walk here and there's probably going to be a ton of walking, but remember this is about PM peak and that's typically uh how the industry works whether you like it or not.

That's just the way it works. Um, so a lot of this is at the peak vehicle demand period of the day as well. And so that's why there's such a focus on vehicle trips. But again, Bellingham's been looking at person trips for many years now.

So this isn't a huge change from what the city's already been doing. So another question I had was we noticed a significant increase in the rate for single family homes from 130ish to 18ish. What changed to generate that kind of level of 40% increase?

>> I'm sorry. Are you say you're saying you saw an increase in the single family home rate? >> Yes. At the beginning of I believe the one packet that we had online, it showed >> Are you talking about the person trip conversion factor?

>> The person trip rate from the last iteration to the current iteration. >> It went from 145 to 183. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's based on the the evolution of the methodology. What it's doing is it's calculating more person trips >> per single family home.

I think that was the basis. It's it's a conversion factor. So it's not based on just the land use. It's it's just all trips or that category residential, not just single family home, but residential. >> And what for all categories of residential, do we know what the underlying reason for that increase was?

>> Again, it's it's it's the evolution of the methodology. You know, the first time the city used this, it was based on methodology from the early to mid 201s. Now it's the later teens and early 2020s methodology.

So, and that's the best answer I can give you right now. >> That's right. I did I did notice that the most recent it did remove studies from the 70s to the '9s. That happens every time the new edition.

I mean, it is continuously collecting new information and and putting old stuff to bed. wondering like just pick on a a new business that's new to Bellingham and just to kind of like understand how uh you would treat like a Chick-fil-A like a a business that we know gets lots and lots of peak um PM probably traffic like how would that look different than say some fast food restaurant that is not going to generate that level of uh of of use?

It's an excellent question and I think that's something that comes uh during the conversation the pre-application conversation that the city has with a development like that. Um and it's true that there are some brands that are more popular and may may attract more trips than other brands.

You start with the IT manual. You look at other things. Something like that's generating so much traffic it might trigger a traffic study. And that's again where you can start looking at what is the actual trip demand being created.

That's what a traffic study does much more thoroughly than just looking at through the lens of impact fees. >> And I assume that a lot of projects are going to get a traffic study. It's probably not that big of a threshold.

>> Yeah. No, traffic studies are usually reserved for the the bigger, more impactful developments. Although, if it's in a place that's already got some problems, then the city may want to say, "Sorry, um, you need to do this so that we can make sure you're not creating an even worse situation." >> And Chick-fil-A did pay a pretty hefty transportation impact fee, and they did indeed do a transportation impact analysis as part of that as well.

>> I I think that's what I was hoping to hear. Um, thanks. >> Well, I think, you know, think about it. It's like they got a double drive-thru. And so even just looking at the IT categories, it's like a times two, you know?

I mean, it's got to be looked at realistically. I mean, I've worked on projects for like truck stops and things like that. And I've seen some of those impact fees can be enormous. I've also seen where, and this wasn't necessarily Bellingham, it could be other municipalities, but where the developers have been able to negotiate lesser um impact fees.

Is that something that is happens regularly or is that like what is the are these rare cases? >> Impact fees aren't negotiable but as Dylan mentioned if if a developer wants to bring forward some other way of looking at it and it can be supported and it's legitimate and defensible then the city can entertain that.

I think one of one of the crux of the the matter on redevelopment is is looking at that pre pre-existing use and and the calculation of the trips that the existing use generated and then the transportation impact fee is only the delta between the person trips of the existing use to the new use.

So, like you say, a truck stop on the edge of town on a vacant piece of property is going to play pay a very high impact fee just like Chick-fil-A did on a vacant piece of property in town but near the edge of town.

You know, a new uh development, redeveloping a piece of property downtown, like like Chris said, that that uh Ride building downtown's going to get credit for all the trips generated by Ride. So, if they're bringing in a similar use or even a less intense trip generating use, they may get a zero or significantly lowered uh transportation impact.

>> Just to understand, I mean, sorry to nerd out on this, but um if you were to demolish say Ride Aid and then build something on a vacant piece of land, would that then void the previous uh transportation?

I'd also like to point out that the city's got some other arrangements and I'll just use the waterfront as an example. Um when the waterfront master plan was done, one of the things that was baked into it was the historic traffic credit um that that site had.

And so the port has the ability, they've got a credit line essentially, and when new development comes in, the port gets to decide whether they're going to cover the impact fee for the the new development or offer partial credit.

And so the city staff just simply uh accepts a letter from the port stating what percent if any uh impact fee credit they're offering to this new development. It's to to attract development, make it uh incentivize, you know, economic development, make it affordable, all that.

And they don't have to do it, but they have that credit line. And that's that's to try to make sure that it's recognized what happened down there. That was all part of the the arrangement with the city and the port on the waterfront.

That applies to facilities that existed even prior to the existence of TIFFs. >> Yeah, that that's in the agreement between the city and the port, >> but that would apply generally as well. Like say you're redeveloping an old single family home that was built in the 50s, that is that rate of a single family home is built into >> Oh yeah.

If you're if you're redeveloping if you're you're putting a if you the example I just used, if you demolish something, it's recognized something was there. you get credit for what was there. >> And if you think about it, that that's because that home when it was built in the 50s has paid their share of the development of the city uh from 1950 until now.

So that's why they receive that credit functionally. >> And sorry, the the waterfront isn't alone in that in that tiff line of credit. um other developments that have such as King Mountain that have built infrastructure that goes beyond the impact of what they have developed today also have a line of credit for future development that they do.

Um Barkley Village is a similar similar circumstance. Uh, so bringing that like redevelopment of a lot down to the missing middle area. Like I'm I'm looking at these line items we have in residential on the um the tiff rate schedule.

We have single family detached, single family attached, multif family housing, low, medium, high-rise, etc. Is that granular enough for the new housing forms we're going to see coming in? And you know I so I'm assuming if you tear down a single family home and put in a quadplex you're now at four dwelling units.

That's going to be an increase in your tiff cost. You you get a credit for the one that was there but it's a net increase of three new dwelling units. >> Well yes but not three new single family dwelling units.

And so it's it's the net impact using the existing rates. And so the as I said earlier the multif family rates inherently have lower trip generation rates and and the reason for that is in many cases that form of housing is typically found closer to the core of an urban area and so there's more opportunities for walking and biking and using transit and so that's how that happens.

Would would a missing middle in the new zoning housing forms would that come in like a town homes, stacked flats, quadplex, would that come in under low-rise multif family or single family attached? >> The town homes would be single family attached.

Um, depending on the multifamily form, I mean, that's where Dylan would break out the manual and see what the definitions say and find the closest fit. >> And now that I'm looking, the price is about the same.

>> [laughter] >> But in general, like as we're bringing this new stuff online, do we feel good that this classification is going to meet what we're expecting to see? Also, I wanted to point out with regard to the middle, you know, the missing middle, one of the credits that uh state law mandates that we actually have is is we give a 50% credit to accessory dwelling units.

So, that comes out of the state law, but it's adopted in into city code as well. So that's that's a incentive that's being provided to uh to help with that missing middle a little bit. >> I guess one one little nuance to that is it's it's a 50% of what the principal unit is.

So for example, if it's a single family house that has four ADUs on the same in the same parcel, um they would pay 50% of that single family house rate, which ends up being lower than what they would have paid otherwise.

Good. >> Well, all of this has got me thinking. [laughter] Um, and you have the income restricted affordable housing gives you a reduction in your tiff and then there's a a line in here for affordable housing and I I'm assuming that the 50% can be applied to the affordable housing category.

>> So, affordable housing is actually reduced by 80%. So yes, any any affordable housing unit that comes into the city um off the bottom line of their tiff fee, they only pay 20% of what that would have been had it had it not been an affordable housing.

>> And if it's in an urban village, it's even more. [snorts] >> Is the bottom line multi like the housing form or is the bottom line affordable housing because it's its own line item in here? >> Either way, I'm I'm winning.

[laughter] By >> how much? Well, this is anformational item. I can stand up here and continue to ask answer questions. Um, but I know you have other business, so I'd be happy to move along. It's up to you.

>> I have one semi unrelated but fairly related question, which is the the project list. And what's the process? And it doesn't have to be extensive answer, but I'm curious about the process in which you guys prioritize which projects come first.

>> So that 20-year project list and the comp plan that I think you you had all seen months months ago um was all developed based on current plans that we have. um the the transportation improvement plan, the the TIP um the bike and ped master plans, um studies that have been done in the past such as the Lincoln Lakeway study.

All of those projects that are on that list were all came out of existing approved plans or studies that the city had done. >> And then I think maybe to get at the heart, Rose, how do we pick projects off the 20-year list?

I think there's a We have a lot of discussions. Um I think we do that annually uh through a prior prioritization uh of the six-year transportation improvement plan which we're required to by state law to produce uh by January 1 of each year.

That runs through the transportation commission. So that's not something you folks here at the planning commission get to see, but that does go through council to get approval. Uh so that's a you know essentially a transportation planning process.

We're grabbing off of all of those same studies uh that that Chris uh did, applying our um professional expertise to it, our budget of our our knowledge of what the budgets are going to be and you know what that kind of budgeting climate is as well as a little bit of grant strategy and what projects we think are going to be eligible for the grants we are know are coming out on any given year or any given uh you know state and federal cycles.

Uh so you know so it's a a little bit of a lot of discussions. Um but that process is all bears out through that tip development process in you know May and June of each year. And then last thing is um if there's a middle housing project and it um they it's required to do street frontage improvement but it's on the transportation impact or the transportation improvement plan and we're paying the transportation impact fees that are essentially supposed to go to pay for the project that you're then are we paying for it twice?

>> No, that's a great question and it's actually covered in the code. They do get credit for that >> and that's Dylan mentioned the uh the King Mountain credits that they have. That's exactly where that comes from.

They needed to build an arterial street on the city's arterial list in order to access their development. So, because they get credit for building that arterial street, which was on the 20-year plan and in the transportation improvement plan, there's there's projects also for Barkley Village that exist on the tip.

Um, but we know they're going to be built by that development when it gets to that certain point. >> Thank you. >> Um, scanning down the list of random very expensive items is daycare center and I I'm guessing that literally the transportation trips generated by daycare center warrants that price tag.

When we have topics that are like in the crisis zone, are we willing to entertain like special case price reductions for someone say coming to us wanting to build a daycare center? >> Yes. So, actually that is a that is a a relatively recent thing that came out in state law similar to the similar to the affordable housing.

um a daycare center can receive that same 80% reduction and that is something that I think we are we are actively discussing and likely going to bring forward to council to make that policy decision. >> No such break for dog parks.

[laughter] >> Any other questions or feedback before we move on? >> One last one. So, I think at the transportation commission, you guys said that we had a slightly bumper year of transportation impact fees last year around $2 million a year.

Um, how does 2 million a year square with a 20 or$und4 million program? >> Yeah, I think that comes down to uh exactly what Chris was saying about the 20-year project list. We can't um only certain certain percentage of the projects are eligible for charging back to development.

The city still has to grow and and meet its transportation needs uh as as a city as a whole. Uh so only a certain amount is allocatable to develop to development and new development. I think the other uh way to answer that question is also all of these credits are not calculated into that project list.

So they come after that's why we call them credits. Uh so the the methodology we we build out as legally defensible but then council and and state law get to give us policy direction uh where we want to incentivize and we do that through credits.

But just like on your taxes, those come later in the calculation. So yes, we will never collect uh the full amount of our transportation impact fee calculation number. >> Got ready to move on to the next agenda item.

Thanks >> very much. have an ICV >> and we we shared the obviously you have the packet um we gave you hard copies but we can share a digital copy of the slides too so that you can have the copy with the hyperlink so we'll send that out to you All right.

Should we keep the fun going? >> Let's do it. >> All right. >> Talk about trees. >> So, for the record, my name is Blake Lion. I'm the director of planning and community development. Apologize for my voice.

I'm just getting over the crud. But um here to talk to you guys a little bit tonight about the um landmark tree ordinance as you saw in your packet and I'll go through for the community's benefit and for those that may be watching online as well uh a little bit of the background of kind of how we got here and then hopefully spend a little bit of time walking you through kind of where we think we might go.

Obviously that uh future state is certainly subject to your input, subject to the community's input and may evolve and change. But um you all may recall over the last several years uh we've been going through and kind of started this effort through the urban forest management plan.

So in uh 2020 2021 we went through kind of phase one which was kind of doing an inventory or an assessment of what the city's urban forest uh was various different health of it the the density of it the overall canopy structure um kind of looking at different forms based on neighborhoods and kind of laid out just an overall kind of where are we in the present day time um specifically with the idea of thinking about strategies and I and I'll use uh hone in a little bit um specifically on the term management because there is a real interest and effort in trying to think through it's not just hey let everything kind of go to its own devices.

there is opportunity and there is need to think about how we manage some of that urban forest. And and so you can imagine that some of those areas that we have in the city are very um natural and ecological areas that are you know maybe the think of the lake walk and watershed or other areas where they're not as uh urbanized and developed and so that has a little different uh component to it.

Then we have kind of stuff that's maybe a little bit more spread out throughout the city that might be parks and open space and natural lands. You can think about the arburedom preserve or other areas where they're kind of a little more naturalized areas of parks, trails, those kinds of things.

And then you get kind of a little bit more into the urban core uh or maybe some of our more dense housing development areas, commercial areas where you have street trees and you know maybe green roofs or other things that um you know um bio swailes that kind of serve as a green infrastructure component.

So the urban forestry plan kind of looks at all of that in totality and identifies different strategies and methods to help manage that overall effort. And so then in about [clears throat] 20 uh 22 we went through and we started kind of establishing what our community values were, what our goals were, started thinking about objectives, looking at canopy covers, uh and what our target rate is for that.

Uh Bellingham, I won't go into too much detail, but Bellingham has about a 40% uh tree canopy coverage. Um currently, city council, at least in their thought process, um at that time, was trying to be a little more aspirational and say, "Hey, what would it take to get us to kind of 45%." That's a pretty aggressive target to be frank.

uh especially when you're thinking about the amount of housing and development and density and uh the targets that we need both from a job and from housing creation. And so um that's still subject to discussion.

There's a there's not a formal adopted rate at this point. Uh but that was kind of setting the tone and say, "Hey, what would it take? Can we afford to get to that?" Um and look at some of those things.

And then phase three which really started kind of in 24 um and to some degree in 25 looked at um kind of best management practices various different things that would would go into what would it take to do we have the resources do we have the ability what does it look like from a um development code perspective um and so the city has and just to kind of give you a quick reference um on here and I won't take the time to go through it but we have on our website co.org.

We've got a a reference to the urban forest plan. There's a variety of information up there from a kind of a story map to a video to a more wonky technical report um and some community tree program uh effort available kind of again talking about the variety of those different things um that are available in the community.

that urban forestry plan. Uh when we started getting into uh some of our budget constraints, some of our staffing issues, we put a pause. So that effort for for the most part of 25 has been kind of put on hold.

Um and we're in the process right now of trying to think about how to restaff that. We had a changeover um in the head of um public works natural resources. And so there's a few things that we just moving pieces that we need to get dialed in before we can come back in earnest and and bring this overall effort.

One of the things that we saw, and this is kind of now transitioning and parling from the urban forestry management plan into some of the development regulations, is as we were going through some of those conversations and as some uh members in our community were anticipating development regulations, we saw a really high influx of people um going out and preemptively removing trees.

And that was concerning to a number of us. and we said, "Okay, this is something we need to uh put a stop to uh at least in the in the near term." And so in May of 24, the city council adopted an emergency ordinance which basically allows them to take action at their meeting and make it effective the next day.

Um, and under state law, we then have to come back within 60 days and do a public hearing and kind of go through that. And you can so it starts as an emergency ordinance because it's it's an important need right at the front.

Um and then it shifts to what we refer to as an interim ordinance. U and so we now have the ability to update that and extend that interim ordinance. By law, we have to do it in six-month increments. So, you probably saw in your packet, there's been a number of them for a variety of different reasons where we have continued to um extend that interim ordinance.

We're going to go be going back to the city council on Monday to ask for yet again another extension. Part of that will allow us to come back to you all and do the type six legislative process. So, we will this is kind of the kickoff to that, if you will, to give you a little bit of introduction on what uh what's out there and what's in the draft uh or the interim ordinance right now.

And I'm going to share with you a little bit tonight some of the things the way it's structured a little bit. I'm not going to go into exhaustive detail on that, but then I'll come back and kind of give you a little bit of an idea of what's working well, maybe where there's an opportunity to kind of refine a few things.

Uh we've got Susan Hutton here from Wakamillian Trees. She's been a part of our conversations as well. We've also been working with our development community um and trying to make sure that we find an opportunity again to meet the needs of the city which uh in large part is housing and attainable housing but not do so at the full detriment of our natural environment.

So we're going to walk through that a little bit as well. Um all right. So, let me take a few minutes uh orient you to So, we've got the uh also a city website for those that might want to uh inform themselves a little bit more on the interim landmark tree ordinance.

You'll see a link hyperlink in there to the current version of the ordinance. I'm going to jump over there uh right now and kind of walk you through a little bit. So, [clears throat] um, the whereas statements are all the reasons why the city feels that it's important to do this.

And I'm not going to take the time to go through all these. Uh, but again, the goal and its most simple form is to um protect preserve the most significant trees that we have in the city. Landmark trees based on this interim ordinance are defined as trees that are 36 in at uh at breast height which is typically about 4 and 1/2 ft.

Uh and so you talk about a fairly significant size tree. Now there is an opportunity in the interim ordinance where you can um find a tree that may be less than that 36 in but has some um significant cultural value and you can nominate a tree and and have it be considered there.

There's also a few exceptions as to um why you know like we don't have cottonwoods as part of our uh landmark tree and that's a point of discussion we'll get to a little bit further. So it's set up with a bunch of whereases at the beginning.

Again, a lot of the wise what we're trying to achieve in here. Um those whereases are adopted as findings of fact uh in section one there. And then we go through kind of all the purpose. These are the things the goals objectives that we're trying to achieve in this interim ordinance.

Uh and again part of that is again protecting uh the the natural environment but also trying to find a balance with the built environment and what we can do in that respect. Um, as is with any ordinance, you got to define a few things.

I'm not going to uh spend a ton of time going through all these, but there's a couple that I want to draw your attention to um in here. One of which is what we refer to as a certified arborist. That's an arborist that has a specific training, this tracks or this tree risk assessment, and that will become relevant here in a little bit.

Um there's also a definition for critical root zone. Uh and so one of the things that you look there if at that definition is it really establishes it's not just the tree trunk itself but it it starts to think about how those roots uh expand out from that and it becomes important about what kind of development impacts are happening in that because you don't want to undermine the integrity of the tree as we think about its adjacency to to development impacts.

Another one that comes in there is that you might have groves uh which may be smaller, not that 36 inch, but you can think of about them coming up as a cluster and maybe so you have a couple leads that come out of that or you might have a couple groupings um you know in in a smaller area and so Grove can be uh an opportunity to nominate that as well.

Um so I think I'm going to stop there as far as the definitions are concerned. Again, this is all I think we put the provided the links for you and certainly on the the um city's website. Then you go into the landmark tree inventory.

This is and if I jump back here for a quick second to the city's web page. Oh, the maps there. Uh if we zoom in a little bit, sorry it's a little small right now, but you can start to see, you know, these are trees.

If they're 36 in, they're defaulted to a landmark tree. And then you see the yellow are ones that have been nominated and we'll go through and we'll we'll evaluate those. Um part of one of the changes that happened in one of the iterations was uh initially we required um you could nominate a tree on somebody else's property.

That became problematic pretty quickly. [laughter] Uh and so now it is that you have to you have to do so with their acknowledgement and their and their blessing. Um but again if it's over 36 inches by default it already is a landmark tree.

Um and then what we jump into is tree preservation. So this ordinance is written in its current uh form where it starts from the premise of the protection of that tree and the preservation of that tree.

There are opportunities to look at where and when it might be appropriate to remove that. But we also start from the the vantage point that and you can see here no person may remove, damage or harm any landmark tree unless it falls in those provisions.

So we're starting from that uh perspective of protecting and preserving these and then it goes on from there. Um there are things that are allowed you know to like normal pruning and maintenance of a tree is certainly an exempt activity.

there are other exemptions uh for um utilities and other state agencies that are doing work. Um and then you can start to see here in section six where it talks about the ability to remove those trees.

One of the things that I'll touch on just really quickly uh in this portion of it is this is where we talk about the tracks. So you have an arborist, certified arborist that goes out to the property and does an assessment of that tree and tries to identify is that landmark tree dead, disease, dying um and what are the potential risks of failure for that particular tree.

So you can see in here extreme risk, high risk, moderate, low and so it defines all of those as to what the potential for that failure is and it addresses a need to look at that and talk through what the different approaches are in that respect.

Um and then we can go through and we can have a different approach. Again, it's kind of when we think about it, especially if you're familiar with how we deal with wetlands, it's avoidance first and then there's kind of a cascading approach to this.

So, we want to try to to u allow for again allow for some of that removal u but but do so when it's when it's most appropriate. Um the other thing I'll mention too uh when we talk about the removal is I'm g see if I can find it really quickly.

Um, sure. There's Yeah. So, under item A here, uh, I'm going to give you a little bit of a preview of, um, this. You can see in here that, uh, sorry, it's all it says that you're enable that if removal, damage, impact, or harm is necessary to enable construction on or reasonable use of a property.

That term reasonable gives us a certain degree of flexibility, but one of the challenges it has presented is there's not enough clarity or certainty of what is considered to be reasonable. And then you go on further in that same provision and it says, but the applicant has the responsibility to demonstrate that all reasonable efforts have been made uh you know before you start the removal.

So again, you've got kind of got reasonleness on two sides of the equation. you can have reasonable use of the property, but you have to demonstrate that you've given reasonable consideration as to um other alternatives that may be considered rather than just immediately going for removal.

So, I I'll circle back to that a little bit as we talk through some of the things that we're considering. Um, jumping down, I mentioned the exceptions, we also have what we consider a landmark tree committee.

it is. So in the city there we're trying to you've heard the mayor describe kind of that one city approach trying to look at uh we don't want different departments to be siloed. We don't want to give different information depending on which department you're talking to.

So this really is an effort to bring kind of the three departments that are most heavily engaged in this. So the planning side of things, uh the parks side of things and the public works side of things.

So it it establishes that uh that committee allows us to um you'll have a application that comes in from uh a property owner um to consider that. We have both uh we have professional arborists both on parks and public works staff.

And so they'll often go out to the property, look at it, see if they agree with the professional assessment that's been provided. Um and then we ultimately arrive at a decision point. Um and so uh that's how the committee is set up to evaluate all of those.

Um they also look at the at the nominations as well. So if somebody does nominate it, that's that's the group who's deciding whether or not that they agree with that nomination. Um, and so then it goes, I'm not going to go through all this, but it goes through the review and how what's what all is involved in that review piece.

Um, then let's see, emergency actions. It gives the ability um weather being unpredictable at times and certain circumstances happening. Uh if you have a tree that has um created an emergency concern, you can come back and kind of retroactively address that.

You have 14 days to come back and try to acknowledge and address that. And if there is a need for removal, then there's an opportunity to go through and kind of think about replacement requirements or think about what the U mitigation for that might be.

Um there's a bunch of stuff about fees and violations. Um and then if it conflicts with other provisions. So I'm not going to go through all of this uh in great detail. I want to spend the balance of our time here kind of going through a little bit of um what's expected in the type six process and then what's kind of working well, what's what are areas of concerns and and go forward from there.

So, um, we fully expect to have as we get into this, uh, more formalization of this to have some public outreach. I said like work with Susan, work with other developers, think through those pros and cons, the competing points of interest maybe that are out there.

So, we want to have that um kind of engagement effort and then we'll come back to you to consider and ruminate on what we've heard u what the recommendations might be. I don't want you to presume that it's going to come back in this entirety uh in this form because I think there are some things that we do need to address.

U but you'll have the opportunity to do that. We'll have a public hearing person. You'll make your recommendation and then we'll go forward to the city council. They'll have a public hearing and ultimately they'll be the deciding body.

So that typical type six process. So this will play out over the next u months um throughout this year. All right. So let's talk a little bit about I'm going to turn this off for a minute. Um what's working well um there's a few things I think from our perspective and I talked to a variety of staff and some other members in the community.

I think we are getting protections. Yes, we are absolutely. We had a a bit of a learning curve up front where people were um few people went a little bit far a field and we had some enforcement actions, but by and large we've seen a lot of protections out there.

We haven't seen people coming in uh and cutting trees down and then asking for permission later. So, we had the desired impact of like, hey, let's stop this action that we don't want right away. Um, I think the inventory that we you saw that I referenced earlier has been a a good contribution in addition to it.

So, we kind of have a sense of what's out there in the community a little bit. Um, you know, and I think that that gives us the ability to take a wide range and wide variety of opinions and uh expertise that many of the community members have and some of our developers have as well uh into consideration.

So we we certainly have feel like there's a real value and it it's also had a lot more interdep departmental communication which has been a real benefit to to the overall kind of how we've processed this.

Um and I don't I don't mean to imply that the concerns outweigh the the benefits but there are more things to enumerate on in that respect. So, I think one of the things that has become very apparent in this interim ordinance is, and those of you that are in the kind of the development field can probably appreciate this, this ordinance requires a lot more due diligence and upfront work than what was pro previously required to figure out if a project's going to work.

So for example, you now have if if if you know it's a landmark tree, you now have to go out and hire the certified arborist. You have to think through what the health of the tree is if the tree is there.

And you have to demonstrate how you can approach reasonable opportunities that preserve that tree and you have to think through a little bit of the kind of civic design work and the utility coordination.

So there's a there's a lot more kind of upfront work and cost and time that goes into figuring out if a project's feasible. Um and they're not always feasible or they're not feasible with the idea that you had in mind.

So um I don't want to under mind that but there is a significant amount of kind of upfront effort that goes into that. um there are some challenges and some limitations to how much the development uh of a property can can be achieved and so especially [clears throat] in the light of trying to do middle housing and some of these other things it space is constrained.

We've we've been able to address some of that through reductions in minimum parking requirements through um there's provisions in the ordinance that allow for uh if you're trying to protect and preserve a landmark tree, you can reduce um setbacks and you can increase lot coverage and we try to do a lot of things that kind of give some degree of flexibility with the goal of preserving and protecting that tree.

Um but but in many lots there's a space constraint that goes along with that. And so we just want to acknowledge that that that is certainly something um there's been a fair bit of investment both from city staff perspective and from our development community's perspective on learning and and navigating and figuring this stuff out.

I mean, it's it's been at least probably the first six months of these ordinances. It was the majority of our workload at staff is answering tree questions and trying to help people figure out how to navigate that stuff.

Um, there's a debate and a discussion that I think is worth having about whether cottonwoods are worthy of being exempt. There's there's a there's an offer out there that really cottonwoods uh could be considered landmark trees and maybe there's other species that might be better candidates for being exempt out of there.

So like Lombardi poppplers, they t typically have a short lifespan, they're faster growing, they've got aggressive roots and so we can we can do a little bit more to kind of flush that out a little bit.

Um, see, I think I'll stop there. I think, um, a couple areas that we are looking for refinement. Um, I'm working on what I call a a reasonableness memo. It's really getting at that provision I was talking about a little bit earlier, which is if you have a infill single lot, what what's kind of the the general reasonable standard for development?

If you're building within your envelopes of setbacks and things like that, should you have the reasonable presumption of being able to remove a landmark tree in order to materialize that? How do we kind of work through that?

How what do we consider reasonable in terms of the development community providing us alternatives? I don't want to come in and be exhaustive and say, "Okay, I need to see 20 different alternatives." That's not appropriate.

But if somebody comes in and says, "Hey, I've looked at these two or three different iterations or four iterations. What does that look like?" Is that a reasonable approach to doing so? So giving some uh a little bit more guidance, a little bit more direction, a little bit more certainty about what that means so that people aren't taking a shot in the dark and then getting frustrated when we come in and say, "Well, no, that's not it." You know, so giving some of sharing our thinking a little bit.

Uh in that respect, um one of the things that the ordinance doesn't really anticipate right now is the impacts of trees on real property. We only did when we wrote this, we wrote it the other way is what's the impact of property on the tree.

There's a gentleman that we're working with right now who's got a 50inch uh tree that is cracking his foundation and lifted his house so much that he can't close the windows on one side of his house, you know, because it's offset the the framing so much in that regard.

um that's not a pleasant situation to be in in the winter months, right? And so like do we do we allow for it's a you know it's a beautiful tree, it's a healthy tree. Uh it doesn't meet any of the you know extreme examples of being able to be removed but it's it's damaging his home.

And so is that a scenario where by or is there another alternative that we can think about that may allow the tree to stay but you know not I mean he's talked when I talked to him he says he's got to refinance his house to be able to think about whether the cost of removing that tree.

I mean it's a it's a $40,000 price tag you know to do that kind of thing. So um want to make sure we're giving consideration on both sides of it. Um, we have a few procedural things that we're working on too is like uh getting a better application process.

Um, it feels a little clunky. Again, we did it fast. We're trying to improve it a little bit uh more. We're not above uh considering process improvements. Um, it's not just about the ordinance, but it's about how we we process those.

Um, and then a few other things, and this is the the last, excuse me, the last segment that I want to talk to you guys about tonight, but happy to entertain any questions, is other topics that have been kind of bantered around, and we'll we'll frame these up a little bit more for you, but I wanted to just kind of give you a preview of what might be out there.

Um, there are some jurisdictions that allow for uh tree banks. So one of the challenges is um landmark trees we've talked about the 36 inch we also have another tree definition which is uh called significant trees which are 6-in trees and if you're removing any of those then we have a replacement value challenge as we talked about before is you have a finite amount of space so if I'm talking about trying to build multiple units on a particular property and then I have a 3 to1 planting rate replanting ratio you run out of space pretty Uh and so the question then becomes okay is there an opportunity to do a tree bank where you can say hey I'm going to plant it somewhere else in the city um or you know provide some other off-site alternative that might be there or some jurisdictions allow for inlue payments where we say okay I'm going to instead of replanting there's not enough space to do that I will pay a a fee to not have to replant that and then that fee uh can depending on how you structure that can go into um you know being able to maintain street trees or you know or do some other kind of city business pertaining to the overall kind of management of our urban forest component.

So there's an opportunity to consider that um you know is 36 in the right uh measurement? Some people would argue uh either way of that kind of um that kind of dimension and and and see what we can do.

Um we also have the need to think about how this ordinance lays into some other things like our clearing ordinance and our grading ordinance when you're talking talking about new um kind of subdivisions and residential developments and kind of thinking through some of those different dynamics.

And then there's probably a little nuance that we need to go a little more in depth on how we enforce some of this stuff. Um the city's been stretched pretty thin. We have one code enforcement officer in planning and one in in police.

And that's a lot for a city of [snorts] this size. So if we're going to do some of this kind of stuff and have some some teeth behind this, we we need to think through what that looks like. So, I'll stop there with my uh comments and entertain any questions that you might have, but uh if you don't have any tonight, we're happy to continue as we go through the type six process.

>> How many other cities in Washington have an urban tree canopy plan? >> Uh there's a there's a fair number. >> Okay. >> Um I I couldn't give you an absolute. I will tell you that a 40% tree canopy is on the high end.

So for those that have them, um that's pretty impressive. Um it's actually pretty impressive countrywide. Um so to go to 45 would be exceptionally aspirational, but um you know, we are the evergreen state and so there's reasons for that.

Um, so it's just a matter of where we want to be. And as [clears throat] you all know, because you just went through the the comprehensive plan, uh, it's about finding trade-offs. It's about finding balance.

It's about finding that rhythm. And so, one of the things that we're really trying to do, um, you know, is is kind of balance those competing priorities and competing needs. >> I think, uh, some really good work has been done on it.

reading through the first emergency ordinance and then reading through the latest, I can tell you guys have been working hard on it and some of the provisions you mentioned about uh you know setbacks and and what to do with these uh specific uh lots that people want to develop.

Um I can I can see it's why it would be the the major focus uh you know topic of conversation. uh a lot of different viewpoints. Uh the original one seemed like a pretty big overreach. Um language like spiritual connection to trees.

>> Yeah. >> Um I'm glad to see that gone. Cultural. I mean coming from a town that cut down every tree when they landed here. If it's about the tree canopy, I think, you know, talking about the environment and the ecological ramifications are probably what you should stick with.

Um, that all being said, and we kind of glossed over it in the end, um, what I read was it's it's barely even a speed bump or a slap on the hand. It's a maximum of a $2,400 fine to cut down a landmark tree.

what how do you get there? >> Um, part of that is going through conversations on legal and looking at what it is between a misdemeanor and a gross misdemeanor and and there are monetary associations with some of that kind of stuff.

And so it it really drives on kind of which court system and how you're going through some of that. And so that unfortunately it's not not a great answer, but it is. >> No, [laughter] it's the one I expected.

Uh it just seems like there's so much time and effort put into this whole thing. And if somebody finds out, well, it's only going to cost me 2,400 bucks, that's barely more than going through the process or hiring an arborist.

And >> um so what has there been conversation internally about that? >> Yeah, we've continued to debate that. I mean, the the best thing I can say is that um you know, it's a it's a it's a fine that's per you know, per uh violation.

So, if there's more than one, I mean, it can add up a little bit. Um we can continue to work through that, but some of that may be we may be a little bit hamstrung by kind of courts. One of the other things you your your comments uh brought up in my mind that I should mention too is is um trying to make sure we're not we're trying to not lose sight of the ecological benefit overall.

So in fact I credit uh Susan because um she was very helpful. We had a developer that was coming in trying to do a middle housing and we kind of talked through some of the things that we're doing from a staff perspective where this gentleman had three lots that were undeveloped side by side.

Um we had identified four landmark trees in there and then there was you know a dozen or more other trees on these various different properties and going through and thinking about the health of those trees and what the net ecological benefit is in the future.

So, for example, we had one tree that was a landmark tree, but it was in declining health. And then you have another one that's, you know, fairly close distance apart, but it's 32 in, not 36 in. So, technically, you know, it doesn't qualify as a landmark tree.

But we make the decision that like, oh, this one's already failing. I'd rather get rid of the landmark tree that's failing and preserve the 32-inch tree that's not quite there and give it the ability to become a landmark tree.

And there's a net ecological benefit in in some of those things. And so thinking about that and saying, okay, there's enough clarity and enough direction, but a certain amount of flexibility to make the right decision rather not rather than just the coddriven decision.

So we're we're really trying to flex on that. >> Yeah. Um and to your point about um a reasonable um the definition of reasonable, I went through a personal experience where I had a lot with a tree to develop and working with the city.

The lot had a nice bank to it where the ideal location to put the house was on the bank facing west with a view and it had a lower shady marshy area. And the city came back and said, "Well, we think you should put your house here, you know, on the lower marshy area staring at a hill full of blackberries and one landmark tree facing the wrong direction." So, you know, was that an overreach to to have the city dictate to somebody, you know, where they should be put their house?

And, you know, your what is your quality of life and your quality of living when when somebody says, "We're going to save that tree, but you should live here, you know, looking in the shade, not at the view." Well, and I think one of the things that if I bring in a little bit of the work that we're doing with the state laws and some of the new uh development regulations, some of what coming out of that is the need to set clear and objective standards.

So, this uh opinion that might say, "Oh, put your house here like that gets pulled like we pull way back from that." So, um, there may be some discretion in there if that's a perfectly healthy tree and and we're looking for alternatives.

I think part of what we're trying to say is not necessarily that we would dictate where you would build the house, but um, when we look within that kind of building envelope, what are the traditional setbacks?

Can those be uh massage so that you can still get a um you know as close to the preferred location and to protect that tree. There's questions about whether or not you can use um other construction techniques.

So instead of doing slab on grade, maybe you're doing post and beam. Obviously there's a cost implication to that kind of stuff. And so thinking about what those dynamics are. Is there a way to um you know if it's a deck can you build you know you may have seen decks kind of incorporating and and building enough space for the tree to retain in there and it's how you're not loading the root zones and some of those things.

>> Overall like I said in the beginning the direction uh that the ordinance has taken is is impressive. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um I'm just thinking through the we're on the cusp of making some progress in reducing other barriers to to missing middle development.

Do you have a sense of when you know when you talk about the soft costs involved with hiring an arborist and that kind of stuff if it if there's a clear landmark tree and then root ball issues you probably know you need to go incur those soft costs.

What do you have a sense of like in the last year what percentage of projects have been in that zone where they they do need to engage that versus not? >> Um certainly not every project has landmark trees on it.

So uh we could I could certainly kind of poll staff and kind of see what it is in terms of the percentage of projects. Um, if I think back to 2025, and I don't have the absolute number off the top of my head, but we had about 700 new uh dwelling units.

Now, some of those are multif family. Um, and I would say that, you know, based on the amount of time staff spent working with applicants and and design teams, there's a fair amount of those that had those properties that had landmark trees or were trying to work through various different tree issues.

If I had to venture a guess, um, it's probably not 50%, but it's probably not too much under that. Um, because there's a there's a fair number. We have a lot of trees in this city. Uh and and some of them are projects that have a lot more, you know, like for example the um golf course uh the Bellingham golf course over on Meridian and and Birwood.

I mean that was a project that had significant amount of trees. And so um sometimes the the portionate conversations are very different. You know, the example I used were the three lots side by side. They had four landmark trees on those three lots.

Very different than this other one that has a hundred, you know, and so they there's a just a disproportionate amount. But to get I think back to the heart of your question. Um the the I don't want to under represent the the amount of upfront costs that that do go into this because you're hiring an arborist.

That's uh depending on the availability, depending on the size of the scope of work, you're talking thousands of dollars to do that. Um, if you're talking about doing preliminary civil design work and trying to think about where water lines and sewer lines and other things go, that's probably in the tens of thousands of dollars to do that.

So, it's it's not inconceivable that you may have, you know, 10, 15, $20,000 of upfront soft costs before you've even determined if the project is feasible. And the challenge with that becomes if it proves not to be feasible, then you're carrying those costs on to subsequent projects to make up for that, right?

And so you've got to have and so we talk about affordability and attainability of housing. Those co those costs get carried forward into future projects. And so part of what we're trying to do and trying to balance in all of this is understand our goals and objectives um from a natural and ecological perspective, not make it so painful, you know, and trying to work through some of those different dynamics and give that level of predictability.

Um, total sidebar example, if you'll permit me, uh, to go off of this, it's like one of the other things we've been pushing on is, you know, storm water and the need to do storm water assessments. Well, anybody that's built in this city knows that there's only about three lots that you can get infiltration on.

I mean, it's pretty much you're doing you have to do that. So why are we requiring a study a geotech analysis for telling us something that inherently we already know it's not going to infiltrate? I mean there's a couple neighborhoods that maybe that's true.

And so are there things like that where we can kind of build in these logical kind of assumptions or predeterminations and reward people in terms of um speed, efficiency, those kind of things for doing the right thing, protecting, preserving, doing those kind of things.

uh and doing the things that we as a community say we want and then not writing the code for the 2% that are bad actors, you know, and trying to trying to find that that equilibrium if there is one. >> It makes a lot of sense.

My my worry is obviously just the tipping point of with interest rates, construction costs, you know, impact fees is one more line item of unexpected soft costs make things not pencil. Yeah. >> Yeah. And that's part of why we try to build in what are those things that are of our own making.

I mean, setbacks are our own choosing. Um, lot coverages. I mean, some of that goes to impervious surfaces and storm water requirements, but, you know, are there are there incentives that we can build into that that give some degree of flexibility that give some degree of consideration?

Um, especially if they're making an effort to protect and preserve that tree. I think parking went a long way to try to achieve that as well. >> The map that we saw on uh online, is that fairly accurate in terms of like showing all the landmark trees?

>> Um, I will say we're building it out. So, it's as accurate as we have right now, but we're continuing to add to it. So it may not represent everything that's out there, but as things come to our attention, as we're aware of them, then we start to add to that, but we're in that in that respect, we're kind of building the plane as we fly it.

Um, but yeah, I mean, we are trying to to incorporate that. Yeah. Do do you have many projects that have come in since this was enacted that are um adjacent property owners where the trees some you know it's close to their property line and they're like well if I build a driveway here it's going to hit that.

>> Um there definitely have been some I think there's there's been some that have been straddling the front. Is it a is it a street tree? Is it a is it a private property tree that are kind of in that uh vein?

And then there are others where it's either straddling the property line or maybe it's a it's on the adjacent property but the critical root zone. So right now if you think about it a landmark tree is 36 in or greater and the critical root zone for every inch you have of the tree it's a foot.

>> So if I have a 40inch tree that's a 40 foot >> uh critical root zone. And so that could easily extend onto an adjacent property and does that then impact their ability to build something on that property because it and so part of that reasonleness memo starts to look at okay well what is the exception or what is the the way we can evaluate that.

So for example, we know you got the trunk of the tree and then what you have is the drip line of the tree and maybe that's a little more sacrosen. Maybe we don't allow anything to go in there. But if we think about critical root zones and that may depend on again the overall health of the tree uh you know if is there a slope stability issue that we're trying to to help maintain but maybe there's a percentage within that critical root zone where we can have some encroachment so the corner of a home can go in there or and at what point we don't want to go through like root pruning or something that's going to totally undermine that tree and now in five years we've destabilized this whole side and now we you know created that.

So it's kind of trying to think through again as many of those typical examples and try to anticipate those and give some early guidance and then leave enough room to say we're not going to be able to figure out every we're not going to be able to anticipate everything.

So there's got to be enough room in there to look at things on a case-byase basis and be able to make a educated and informed decision. Does that adjacent property owner who's looking to develop, do they have much sway in terms of like meeting with the city and saying, "I I really need to do this stuff.

I can't develop this property without it." >> Yeah. I mean, that we we do in that situation where let's say Chris has a landmark tree on his property. I'm his neighbor. I want to be able to build on mine.

That reasonleness extends to to my property and my ability to develop my property even though the treerees on on his property. I think where it probably becomes a little bit stickier is when it when it lands right on the property line and you have, you know, clear distinction between I want this, he wants that.

That that becomes a little bit more. One thing that I think I brought it up a long time ago when this first came out was and I this may not even be a realistic concern, but it was just a thought of is there a risk of the urban growth areas of people cutting some most of the larger trees in advance of uh those areas getting annexed and becoming part of the city limits?

>> Yeah, I mean it is possible because we don't our regulations don't apply to them as they're in the UG. I mean, we certainly want to try to um you know, we're going to be going through our annexation plan this year, maybe into next, and trying to do some pre-zoning work and some additional work, but technically it's not within our jurisdiction until it gets annexed in.

So, I'm wondering if there's any thought on creative ways to try to preserve some of those larger trees um before those areas get annexed in the case that that does become >> Yeah, I think education information.

I mean, I think there also the other piece that we've been toying around with, I didn't I didn't mention it earlier this evening, but um the idea of we spend a fair bit of money in this city doing the watershed acquisition uh and you know, millions of dollars buying properties in and around the Lake Wacom wershed and many of those are in very forested conditions.

That's an example of like maybe there's opportunities to do treebank where we can say hey we're you know that's technically not in the city but the city owns those properties and so can we do things like that that might be beneficial to say okay what you know we have an urbanized area we want to do some of that kind of stuff are there ways to you know make that a little bit easier here and and keep our you know our canopy and the health of our forest now there there is also something to be said for not overplanting because you have to deal with wildland fires and you know other health of the forest in general.

So the management portion of that becomes really important to think about those dynamics and so that's that's definitely a part of it. The other thing I'll mention just really briefly because I brought up so the state is going through the legislative process right now.

One of the things that's been hot and heavy both last year and this year is what's uh known as the WOOI, which is the wildland urban interface. And so as you have um development that gets closer to forested lands, that interface between um potential fire risks and and development uh becomes greater.

We saw that a good example of that in California last year uh in multiple different locations and and seen it around uh kind of certainly the west coast of the state. And so there's discussions about what defensible spaces look like and how much vegetation and how many fuel sources and combustible materials.

And to your point earlier, uh, Mike, is, you know, all of those regulations, all of those things add complexity, cost, timing, and so we're trying to kind of balance out the need for again natural and ecological preservation, but also, you know, the need for housing, the need to do uh, you know, to to meet the needs of our community as well.

Lot to think about. Okay. Well, appreciate your time. More >> to come. >> Yes. Thank you, >> Chris. We saved you some time at the end. >> We'll get you out of here. >> Are these autographed? >> We can So before Chris gets started, I just I want to take a personal liberty and say uh it's been a real pleasure to be in my role because we've had such a great um team that's been really working on this.

uh you all in your contributions, the council, the community. Um and as this gets uh distributed or known a little more widely, the amount of accolades that are coming in on this document are really impressive.

Uh I was just talking with somebody today that works in the space of doing professional coaching and counseling for local governments all around the uh western United States and they were saying how amazing this was and how how how great it is to be a digital document and accessible and stuff like that.

So it's u a lot of kudos goes to you to staff uh to the community for the participation in the overall structure of this. So you should be very proud of yourselves. Thanks, Blake. All right, so I'm gonna just give you a quick uh you you've seen pieces of this, and I know you've probably all explored it online a bit, too, since it's been approved, but I'm just going to walk through some of the main pieces of it and different ways to access it.

It's as much for you as for anybody that might be watching this um online or look it up later. Um and then we'll be um at city council uh next Monday to do a very similar kind of orientation. Um so it'll be out there a couple of times but um your key role in in this uh again bringing this through several years of conversation and um we felt it was important to to get in front of you with it.

So I'm just going to say first couple of quick ways to find it when you come um actually let me do my show thing here so you can actually see what I'm pointing at. Go to the city's homepage. Um, I'm just going to show you.

Uh, you can, um, navigate there by going first just to services and then community planning and then it's the first thing on the upper right, the comp plan will get you to the Bellingham plan page. Um, you can also just go from the homepage, open up the search function, and there's a couple of keywords in there.

You can type in comprehensive plan, Bellingham plan. Either one of those will also take you to that same location. So those are Oops, those are >> Yeah, don't ever try to type in public. There you go.

So there's a couple of different ways you can get there. Um you'll also get like the sewer comprehensive plan and a variety of other things, but Bellingham plan will be the first one. There's a whole variety of things on this page that I'll step through in the next couple minutes just in a real general sense so you get in kind of a again just a basic orientation.

Um the main plan is right here. So if we pop into that I just wanted to and this is what you've got in your hands right now. Um highlight just a couple of things. Uh, I think we ran through this with you in a a presentation right near the end, but there is the um if you get into I guess it's on about page 10 is the how to use this document section.

It's just a full page spread. It's got a a couple of pages out of the environment chapter. Again, just to highlight a couple of things. There are at the the front page of every single chapter are is the list of icons and those are jump points to all of the other chapters.

You've got the title and kind of an overall purpose statement. Um the goal and policy sections usually begin on that after the big beautiful picture that you get that leads you into that chapter. All the goals are the kind of larger green font and then there's the main uh which is kind of the main idea for that goal and the actual text of the goal right below that.

And then each of those goals is followed by all the supporting policies. And you'll see that in those kind of rows and columns following that. And each one is numbered again based on the whether it's if it's in land use it's LU.

If it's in housing it's an H. So on um and then on the right side uh after you get again past that big kind of introductory photograph the the first page of each chapter on the right there's the blue bar and that's kind of the resource links section.

There will be uh if that chapter has an adopted by reference document like if you're in transportation you would see for instance the bicycle and pedestrian master plans the tip there would be those things.

Um, sometimes if there isn't an adopted by reference document that relates to that chapter, there'll be other helpful documents um, in the environment chapter, you'd see like the Lake Watkcom wershed management plan or other similar kinds of kinds of plans and documents that provide us guidance as we do um, development review and just go about city business.

So, um, those are all in there. Um, and then uh, you'll also see on the the next page some examples. we have uh call out boxes to kind of um provide additional information about ideas that are expressed in that particular section or the goals and policies in that area.

Um there are also are helpful graphics u depending on what chapter you're in and that might might make take the form of a map. It might be a chart uh all kinds of different things there. Um, but those are also in that area.

And then I'll demonstrate these, but you'll see uh nested next to these collections of goals and policies. You'll see these blue boxes, which are the hyperlinks that take you to related goals and policies in other chapters.

Um, and those are kind of the links that allow you to jump between different pieces of the document. So, those are all kind of different, again, just a an orientation to kind of how the layouts actually work.

Okay. So, let's go um uh again just early in the document when you go from the the um introductory cover uh the contents these are all hyperl so you can jump to a different chapter. Um, if you look at the introduction piece that has a summary of some of the engagement and all of the different meetings that I know you guys were at at many, many of those open houses and meetings and then also a summary of the different conversations we had with you in your official role as the planning commission and um links to our engage page and the the variety of uh wide variety of of public engagement pieces that are there as well.

Um, so that's all summarized in that introduction piece. um kind of memorializing that process. So people that are new to this document and maybe weren't part of the overall communitywide effort um can look at that and understand, oh, this really is reflective of the entire community.

They had broad we had broad engagement when we did this outreach and that we heard from um as many groups as we could uh get in front of and and hear from. Uh just looking at the uh land use chapter, uh I do want to highlight um we'll just demonstrate how the links work.

Um, and again this is uh the uh interactive PDF. Um, all of the links that take you different places in the document uh they work uh in most web browsers. There are a few where the the go back button does not work quite as well.

Edge, which is a city uh browser that we prefer on our website, is one that maybe doesn't work as well as Firefox or some of the other ones that you might prefer. If you're a Mac user, you might have some unique different ones um that might work a little bit better than than Edge does.

So, explore, use that. If if that becomes something that you are a frequent user of, you might find whichever one works best for you. Um, for instance, this is where we're in the language chapter and it's talking about um clustering growth and that relates strongly to some of our housing policies.

And so you see here you can jump to um the related housing section that that [clears throat] reinforces and is also uh informed by some of those land use policies. And then um and again I can hit the go back button.

In this particular browser it's not going to do that. So, I'm just going to hit my page 11 and bounce back to where I was before. Um, again, you can see examples here of the adopted by reference. We're in the land use chapter, which has um a wide variety of adopted by reference plans, including all of our urban village plans and the institutional master plans.

Uh, let's see. Uh the other critical piece I wanted to show you in the land use chapter, if you scroll down to uh the uh LUE and then all of the supporting policies, which are the think of them as the colors on the land use map, all of the different general use types that we have um in our uh zoning code.

Uh you'll see that we have this general map of the city, which clearly illustrates where those are. But um you oftentimes have a need to say, "Hey, I'm looking at a particular block. I want to know which property line that map or that, you know, if it's the residential low and medium transition, where is that boundary on there?" And so there's a little note here on the map that says, "Click on the map to launch the interactive viewer." If you do that, just click anywhere on that side.

It will launch an interactive web map. You'll have to go through the splash screen. And then you have access to this map um which behaves a lot like if you're used to city IQ which is our interactive kind of uh GIS product that has stuff from all different departments in it.

This is just the land use map. If you zoom in far enough you'll see the properties show up and you [snorts] can then again pan around and explore. If you click on an individual area um it will pop up uh highlight again all of that in this case the the residential low zone.

it'll give you the policy number that relates to that and the description of what that policy is. Um, so that's just a a tool that you can use to explore again if you're trying to figure out what um what the particular area that you're looking at is and um what what zoning or land use type that relates to.

So, we'll hit back button there and get back into document. And I want to bounce back out to the main comprehensive plan page. So that's again everything in that gray box. You just click in that and that takes you to the main um full page spread uh digital copy.

We also have um a couple of different versions of things here you can click into. We have a print view which if you open that up um this is the same exact document but it's all it's not the two-page spreads.

It's just an 8 and 1 half x 11 version. This would be like the spiral version I gave you. If you wanted to get a copy of that at one of the print shops in town, you would direct them to our website and say, "Print this copy.

This is the one that's already formatted for 8F1 printing." Um, or if somebody wanted to print something at home, then it's it's an easy way to do that. So, there's that copy there. Same exact document just split into those uh halfpage sizes.

And then we also have um for people that need to use a screen reader, we have a screen reader accessible copy and it is just text. So all of the the pictures and graphics and other pieces that don't play well with screen readers have been removed and it's just the narrative, the goals, the policies.

Um and it has, you know, all the other pieces like glossery and other pieces in there. It's just it's missing all the visual elements. Um, so that's in there for uh the it's the the most consumable piece for people that are using screen readers.

Um, and then I want to jump into the goal and policy search tool. And I want to give a quick thank you and shout out to Kate Newell, who's our GIS, one of our senior GIS analysts. She's the one that pulled this together.

um from the the you probably remember when you were in the process of reviewing and making a recommendation, we had the big redline strikeout spreadsheet of all of the goals and policies. So, we needed that for the ordinance, but Kate was able to take that on the back end and kind of leverage the fact that we had all that in a spreadsheet and that's driving this tool, which is just uh great that we were able to get some mileage out of that.

Um in this tool there's some instructions and you can just click on uh either select all or you can select a particular uh selection of chapters and then you can put in search terms and you can say something like um affordable and then what you get is the places where that keyword is mentioned and the supporting policies for that you could put in um trying to think one a tree because we were just talking about trees and that's actually [laughter] there's there's a little helpful note here.

Tree is one of the examples we print in here. You can see if you're searching for a specific word, think about other words that might contain that. So tree is one where okay, it makes sense. It's a short little word, but everywhere you see street, you're going to get tree because t re e is in there also.

So that's where if you're following the advice um of the helpful note there, put a space in before um so I'm going to type the space bar tree and then a space and then um here I'm going to hit enter. Just hit reset here.

Select all. Not putting quotes around is the problem. Just going to reset this. Should show I'll have to come back to this. There we go. We got our our policies and then I want to select one or more goals and then just going to select all the environment ones here and say yeah I think it is I think that's what I'm doing wrong.

I'm doing something wrong or it's the browser. We're going to come back to that. I would invite you to explore this at on your home browser. Um, and what you're going to be able to see is that you can you can efficiently search through all of the goals and policies and get them to show up also in and uh you can also do the related goals and policies.

I'm going to bounce back out to our main web page here. So, that's the goal and policy search tool. If you keep going down, you'll see a couple of other uh important pieces in here. There's the original ordinance, which is the based on the recommendation you made to council.

And then this is the uh ordinance that was approved mid December by the council. So, you can go to that. There's also a link to our annual docket page. There's also a link here that talks about learning more about the 2025 periodic update process and that walks you through um a variety of of pieces including links to our engage Bellingham page with all of the process that we went through on that.

Um this talks about past engagement opportunities. One of the really important pieces that are here is you remember each time we revisited you after one of our big engagement pushes. We had a summary report um for phase one, phase two, and phase three.

As we broadened our conversation, we we started out really broad with the whole community. We came forward with chapter by chapter and then we went all the way down to those goal and policy conversations.

Those summary reports are all here along with our different surveys that we took in the community. Um there's also this accordion you can expand which are all of the adopted by reference documents in one place.

So it's an easy easy way to find those. You can also find those on all the other places on our city website like in public works or parks or on the planning department site. Uh but this is just an an overall list of all of them.

And then um there is a list of each uh resources for each chapter that you can go through. And so I'm not going to go through all of these. Um you you if you have an hour or some time, I would invite you to go through these.

They link to uh important sources on our website that are curated by all the different uh subject matter work groups that contributed to the plan in each of these areas um topic areas. Um you can see like for instance under land use links to our permit activity dashboard.

um uh information on historic land use segregation, the city IQ information, uh the environmental impact statement that informed this effort, a a wide variety of different things. Um under [snorts] housing, long list of things including all of our different uh um consolidated plan, all the other uh affordable uh housing documentation, uh information on manufactured home parks, all of those pieces relating to what's in the housing chapter.

um go through uh facilities and services. Uh again, that's our infrastructure chapter. There's one I wanted to call your attention to uh House Bill 1181, which is the climate bill that the state passed, which um is what we use to inform our development of the climate chapter.

Uh one of the pieces that is required in the RCW is that we produce a green infrastructure map and are able to point people in that direction. This is our our compliance with that. If you open this up, this is another web map and it shows citywide in an interactive way.

You can zoom in and you can see what our mapped green infrastructure is. You can see on the the map key over here on the right that that includes things like our above ground storm water facilities that have uh vegetative components to them.

Of course, our parks and open space, conservation easements, um city-owned uh conservation properties. You can also see that um we have uh started efforts to map our street trees and in some areas we have that fairly completely mapped.

In other areas we still have that work to do. Um but there's just all kinds of just a wealth of information here. You can you can click on individual trees and get information about those. So um or about the storm water components or and uh just dig to your heart's content with there.

So that's all um just really again just on that topic really kind of cool stuff to be able to dig into. Uh we have uh again with our environment chapter a variety of uh things including the urban forest plan page that Blake just showed you a few minutes ago.

Of course links to our critical areas ordinance again you know other important environmental documents that guide our work. There's the economic development piece here um which links to some of our not just city information but also some of our economic development partners like the Port of Bellingham.

And then um under community well-being, there's a wealth of information um on all kinds of uh social equity and social justice topics um partner uh community partners like our tribal uh partners, the libraries and museums and the arts areas.

um just all kinds of really interesting rich information that inform development of that chapter and those goals and policies. So that's just kind of a again uh a page and this was really what you see here is the fulfillment of kind of our from the outset of the development of this plan.

We had the 2016 plan which had the goals and policies in each chapter. And then the latter half of at least of each of those chapters and the 2016 plan was a whole variety of supporting statistics, charts, maps, graphs, documents, and other kinds of narrative.

Um, but when we adopted that 2016 plan, those pieces were all frozen and were interesting, but as the years went by, they become less and less helpful. Um, what what we did this time is we said, let's leave most of that out.

We're we're including some critical maps and charts and things in the plan. Everything else, let's put in a resource page like this and we can curate it and keep it up to date as the years go by, add to it.

Um, we can adjust it as needed and we don't need to have a legislative process to do that. It's just a flexible document that helps inform and lives underneath that comp plan to provide that information.

So, that's really what what this is. It's all that stuff we didn't put in, but is really important to help tell the story and to kind of track progress as we as we implement that. Um, the final thing I wanted to touch on, um, looking for neighborhood plans, access archive neighborhood plans.

So, this takes you to a page that we've just stood up in the last uh month or so. And it it explains again we as we've talked with you about and talked with the the public about it, the different open houses and and a variety of different touch points during our process for the Bellingham plan was what is happening with neighborhood plans.

And so this goes through um the discussion about why we're moving away from the the very kind of microlevel planning that you find in those documents to a more equitable citywide approach that's more manageable and more transparent and understandable and um goes through all those points there.

There's more detail um on different pieces of that here. And then you can link to the archive neighborhood plans. What we've done is we've just taken the most current copy of each of the neighborhood plans as they were when the Bellingham plan was adopted and they've been put into a single PDF in alphabetic order.

Um there are these uh kind of the contents page at the beginning which will uh again provide some guidance to to people about what they're seeing here and then you can hyperlink from these if you don't want to scroll to each plan.

And then um they just have a watermark on them to say that they've been archived so there's no confusion for people. But you can still access these and see what they were what what they are, what they were.

Um they just are um as is explained in the narrative on the previous pages, they're no longer a regulatory piece and part of our our land use construct. We just have the Bellingham plan and that points directly at our uh BMC development regulations.

So that's the the location for those. You can also access that if you're used to going to the on the city's website, the neighborhoods web page will also um there's still a lot of information there on neighborhoods, but if you're looking for the plans, it'll direct you to this the same landing spot.

The last thing I wanted to highlight um is not actually part of the Bellingham plan, but it is um let's go back here to our main website. It is a resource I wanted to call your attention to. If you go to again our services page and then uh community planning and instead of going to comp plan if you go to development codes or sorry uh development regulations uh there's this new housing and development rule updates.

Um, there's also, I think, a a page here that takes you to uh state legislation affecting housing, which I'd also invite you to explore that has a lot of things about the last several uh legislative sessions at the state specifically for the housing roles.

But if you open this up, this um includes uh kind of the a summary of and this will probably have new stuff added to it soon, a summary of the uh flurry of legislative activity that we had at the end of the year last year.

If you'll remember, um some of the items came through like the co-l livingiving came through you guys and you made a recommendation to council. Um some of the things that were interim and not permanent regulations just went to council directly, but we had a wide variety of things in the fall that that we did in addition to the Bellingham plan.

And so this is just a jumping jumping off place. Um this is really helpful for our counter staff to direct, you know, people that are coming in wondering what the new rules are and how they can figure out what they are and where they can find the ordinances.

We put this together really for them to be able to have on screen all day and to direct people to, but it's also good for you to know where this is. Um, if you expand each one, it just summarizes what the ordinance is.

Um, you can jump to the ordinance itself and then there's information if you want to learn more about whatever that is. It'll take you to a page specific to that topic. Um, so I would again invite you to just explore these.

It's just kind of a a summary page to say like these are recent things we've adopted related to um housing and development rules and and again without having to be an expert in the BMC and navigating that you can you can find most of what you need there um to kind of get the lay of the land.

So I think that's everything I wanted to show you. Um again just excited to give you a a copy of the document, show you online where it is and again thank you for your role in helping us get across the finish line with that.

So if you have any questions, I'm happy to entertain them. Otherwise, um >> just one comment. Who is the chief overachiever on [laughter] this? This is incredible. Um this is beyond. >> We have a whole department of them.

[laughter] >> Yeah. I mean, this was a true team effort. I mean, you saw our our Bellingham plan team with, you know, Elizabeth, Sydney, myself, Kate here frequently over the past several years. But um that's just the core team.

there's subject matter experts at Dylan and I mean, you know, Blake was a huge help in in so many ways, but I mean, just people in every department. Um, we had a a subject matter experts thank you party a couple weeks ago and and um you know had several dozen people show up, but there were literally like you know there is not a single work group in the city that didn't have a hand in it in one way or another.

So, all right. Well, thank you. Actually, Chris did want to say, uh, hey, whoever's mapping all the street trees, that's incredible. That's so much. I think my jaw actually dropped when I saw the level of detail there.

Um, and second, with the neighborhood plans, I at last check they were still in the BMC. Have they since been kind of removed by reference in there? At last check, they're still there. There are um the neighborhood zoning tables are still in the BMC.

Um the land use plans that were previously adopted by reference under the comprehensive plan have now been archived. >> Gotcha. So yeah, and those you'll see those neighborhood zoning tables persist for at least this year, maybe into next year.

Um as we do things like you know, we're working on new residential zoning code. um you you'll probably and we're talking about this weekly as we talk about it internally what the strategy will be, but you'll probably see sections of those neighborhood zoning tables start to collapse and be aggregated uh much like we did in 2021 with the residential multi- um zoning and um and and you know, so we're we're working towards that kind of vision of a single citywide zoning table, but it's going to take us there will be several steps to get there.

Um before >> one of the big things that we're really this is if you really want to wonk out on this kind of stuff is um >> so our development ordinance right now by and large is what's referred to as a uklitian zoning which is basically very textheavy very kind of narrative based u on that there are different versions that exist out there some may have heard of like formbbased codes which typically are a lot more graphic uh driven they talk more about less use dependent and more how the building presents to the street and the public spaces and then you have what's called a unified development code.

And so we're wrestling with and and working with the mayor's office on trying to figure out what might be the right fit because as big of a lift as this was thinking about that development regulation and the form and the functionality that that takes is probably equally as big of a lift.

Um, and you don't have too many opportunities to do those big wholesale changes. So, that's part of what we're we don't have an answer yet, but we're kind of trying to vet out those different options.

Um, I would say it's probably going to be a hybrid. I I don't think there's a lot of interest in staying traditionally with that ukitian zone. It's fairly dated and archaic and hard to navigate. Um, and then we also are really trying very intensely to take out some of the complexity.

Um, I think it's unnecessarily complicated and so we're trying to think through those ways to still meet the purpose intent. obviously have to comply with state law, but it's just going to it's going to be a big effort of trying to and how do you do that in either bite-sized pieces with a bigger vision in mind or there's just I mean that's that's what we're working through right now.

So happy to entertain any ideas you have on that, but that's what we're wrestling with. >> Very excited to see what you come up with. [laughter] >> Thank you guys. >> All right. Um, as we wrap up, any meeting schedule idea for March, April?

>> We we're we will likely have at least one meeting in March. Um, possibly two. Um, I'm thinking it's probably just going to be the second one though that we're going to have a topic for you. Um, and we'll we'll have an agenda out on that fairly soon.

We have some of the topics that we're we're working on on those code updates that we talked about. uh we need to bring some things forward for you to get some initial feedback and thoughts on. We won't be having things that are we won't have draft ordinances yet for you, but we'll have topics for you to um provide you background on and also things we'll be asking you questions to kind of give us initial feedback on well what do you think about um you know different approaches for for some of the things like like what Blake's talking about.