City Council - Special Meeting

for e is uh Jackie um while they're in the room e [Music] okay folks online can you hear us yeah I can hear you can you hear me okay now I canc speaker Dan can you let us know if you can hear us yeah can you hear me okay we're all set up okay so I'm gonna call meeting to order um Michael I'm gonna turn it over to you just in a minute um you're at the is that you at the head of the table there yes okay all right um so I'm G to call this meeting to order it is H Friday August 2nd and it's 1:00 10:1 in the afternoon here and this is a special meeting a joint meeting between uh city council and County council members Port of Bellingham and other uh stakeholders go ahead Michael take it over um first of all thank you every for coming here to be clear um I suggested in the city is hosting this meeting but this is really a meeting that's part of the County's ongoing comp planning process it's not a city-led meeting um there was interest in elected officials talking amongst each other I'm not going to try to preside over this meeting I'm going to think we should just have a round table including elected officials and other attendees um I sent out some some teaser questions we don't have to use them if a conversation has its own energy um I really don't have I might have things I want to say but I don't have an agenda about what we will say to each other um so I'm going to stop talking and but I'm going to suggest that we go around the room introduce each other and let's start over

here with the outside Iris go hi I'm Iris not I'm the legislative policy analyst the city of Bellingham can workiz private citizen I'm the director and if you're luy you have to sit at the table Tod yeah Forest long deput administrator i s city council let go the outside ring so Jackie oh I'm Jackie Weller and the um office manager city council offic Chris be long range division manager in City Bingham planning and Community Development J Jones Engineers Cortez City I'm on the Planning Commission but I'm here so on my public city council skip Williams Bellingham city council Ben Ellen boss disgruntled citizen District 5 Council representative Scott CTE happy citizen City Lyon when you're in Lyndon everyone's happy I know that's what we're talking about Kevin Ash city of noack uh Kaye Gall County Council Kim L mayor Bellingham oh Greg Hansen mayor of the city of pero Richard May bla city council Mark strumer wam County Council District 4 Todd Donovan wam County Council trying to get on internet Hanah Stone Bellingham city council Lisa Anderson Bellingham city council who wants to go first oh on line I'm sorry herb part with you herb Porter Ferndale city council did you hear me did okay to Mike beor planner C bla Bruce BOS Su did you say Gina hi uh Gina Stark Port of Bellingham Economic Development we do economic development for all of Walkin County and then Dan last name unverified cogo Dan Hamill Bellingham city council president and we have someone new arrived gu playing you

got some on the sidebar um who else is here yeah oh I see uh Perry ESD Bruce Bosch um David R he's with the city Heidi Heidi I don't think go introduce yourself Heidi Heidi goody city linon city of linon thank you and I can't see very well um Bob car Bob carmichel are you representing any particular client Bob well he's City attorney City attorney but I don't know if that's why he's here but we'll just give him that credit you're pays yours okay there's be a lot of people here are there any other elected officials who are attending remotely I think we should okay John anybody else who John Perry city of everon thank you John call that Ben well I I'll say what I hope to come away from this meeting with um so even though I'm going to go out of the Lim and say I'm one of the younger people in the room even though I don't look like it um I've been involved for a very long time because right out of college um I bought a property and tried to do something with it then I met Mar person the rest is history and the fundamentals of everything I'd ever been taught in school or at home about how life is supposed to function cease to exist because I met planning and development services and granted I went to Huxley College of the environment and things still didn't function the way that I was taught in was schol um even at hxy College of the environment so with that being said this isn't all just about you know a disgruntled North County property rights activist which some people might

say I am but I don't feel that way at all um so I've been involved in the public process and comp plan updates probably longer than most and it shocks me that here we are in 2024 getting ready for a 2025 comp plan update and we're still talking about the same stuff that we talked about when I first got involved in the early 2000s um and I hope I don't you know offend more than just Mark personius Mark I Mark I feel like Mark's a good friend and I know he knows that I'm coming from uh a good place and trying to be fun but um the thing that shocked me a lot was that we do planning based off of you know what we have in place and what historical data shows us and if we plan for growth not in an area or if we plan for no Economic Development and then we don't get it then we use that as an excuse for not planning for it in the future and I'll give you an example up in you know Maple Falls and Kindle there's like 7 or 8,000 people up there that have to drive 45 minutes to get to a grocery store and I can remember in our last comp plan update having planners tell me Well Ben there's never been a there's no drive for that zoning in that area so we're not going to provide it this time and to me I look at the growth management act and it tells me that I will provide Zoning for communities like that um the things they need which is jobs which is um you know Retail Sales locations for clothing or for food in their community so they don't have to drive I mean that's the way I read some of

the the goals of the comp plan and so like I said here we are 25 years later and we still have communities like kindall that are food deserts and we're saying oh we need to do something about this but we've been saying we need to do something about it for 25 years but then the planners are coming to us with while projections say that we don't you know it's never been there in the past so why do we need it in the future and I just think that we can be more thoughtful and more um proactive in 2025 and maybe solve some of these problems that we talk about a lot um by saying we understand that this is why there's never been a need there but in reality the people do live there and they you know granted nobody's ever built a grocery store up there maybe that's cuz we didn't let them um so I'm just hoping that we can get outside of the box and look at what our community is screaming for and um not totally disregard planning um and projections and all of those things but be able to think logically in in providing what the future is going to need um even even if it feels different than what we've done in the past thank you and thank you um what I'm hoping and this won't be accomplished in this meeting but I'm hoping we can communicate some of the needs um for growth and planning because in our ug areas um eventually the city will bring in some of those into the City Annex um but we kind of inherit the zoning and so I would like to try to align through the comp plan how the zoning in

those areas will meet the future need of the city um so when it comes to housing I would really love to see that um mobile mobile home parks being zoned in and maybe identified areas where this area will be zoned so that we could have those because they are inherently some of the most economically affordable housing um that are independent as far as not you know multi complexes but also looking at areas um especially in the north area that we might Annex that can be industrial um light industrial because that's going to be our employment sector and to my knowledge that's not necessarily addressed and that would be the comp plan would be the time for that um also the situation that we dealt with um out at um the north county when it came to the heavy industrial with the um the family housing around the area um with the potential of the Shredder and I know that there's that could be tabled at this point but ensuring that the appropriate um industrial zoning um up against uh family housing and schools will be addressed um so looking at where we can um make sure that our annexed areas will have the retail is always going to take care of itself right now let industrial portable housing that we can make sure that we're LED so that um when we do Annex it it's going to be easier for us to meet the needs within Bellingham and also by meeting that needs it's also the greater County area um so that would be my goal also last um Lake walkom uh because the city is spending quite a bit of

money um because we do have the revenue source to do that to purchase a lot of land that is not in the city in order to protect the Watershed and so I think we need to align better some of our environmental requirements when it comes to housing along with the county because there is discrepancies between the two and I think we need to have just really when it comes to some of the requirements for building an environmental um addressing water quality um that we're aligned in there um because that will make a lot more sense um so that we're not um overall meeting the goals of the community when it comes to protecting that water source I'd like to see a little bit more um collaboration and also how can we jointly work together when it comes to preservation um and purchasing of property and then Dan also has hand up too okay well Dan we'll get you next but I think ago yeah so when we were talking about setting this meeting Michael bouncing stuff off like I want to hear from folks on the table who are elected officials what they want staff to hear um I think we're starting with that but like so we get the Consultants report about population allocations I before we just and they punted like where do we put 20% of people in the rural Zone and do do what do we hear from Lyndon or Ferndale about like how much they want or don't want and how do we communicate that to staff and and the same the annexation stuff like when we're doing the comp plan update what is the city of bellingham's

plan for actually annexing things that have been lingering in ugas forever and if we're not going to do it then that really we need to know that now before we start having these discussions and staff I think needs to know that because if if bellingham's not going to Annex this stuff how do we have the conversation about we're going to put 20% of the future population allocations into rural areas that we can't put them in um or do we like cram them all into lynon and and and we heard we had this kind of candid discussion the other day when it's like we don't want all that yeah so how do we deal with the the zoning that's inherited like and what did the people representing their constituents want that we can tell staff rather than staff telling us here's where the population projections are going and and does Bellingham need to take more than what the the screen had up there the last time we're in the room it's just 42% versus 50% but that's we I'm hoping what we can get out of these kind of meetings is not waiting for staff to come to us with that but we we tell them like this is what our constituents are expecting or want this is what's going to happen I'm hoping we're not planning on putting the numbers into the unincorporated area that the Consultants are saying that's a policy decision you just make it so as we go around the table like what are we telling them you know planning staff and and get that up get that on the table I want Bellingham to take more I want to know

what Lyndon wants to do um I want to know how we're going to what we think about what we're going to do with the projections that say we're going to put 18 or 20% of future population growth in in unincorporate areas which we can't I I want to know what bla wants to do do you want to know what Bellingham wants to do just to tell us no I want us to tell staff like are you going to Annex anything are these ugas what's the state law about what we do with ugas have been Ling there for 20 years like what do we do that's not wait for staff let's hear what Bellingham has to say let's hear what bla has to say let's he what Lyndon has to say and my favorite days are when I agree with Todd Donovan a great day we started early yeah Dan Hamill why don't you go ahead and then we'll hear from Richard sure thanks um so I'm I'm just kind of going off of what um CC member Donovan and Anderson just just mentioned so Bellingham has seven Urban Villages and they comprise just under uh 4% of city of the city land's uh Supply but they're expected to accommodate 30% of future growth so that just want to put that on the table the other part is that um we have uh a number of ugas especially in our Northern um area that would affect how we interact with um the City of Ferndale and County um wam County and I think it's important to um to consider what that will look like in the near-term uh future we also have the Alderwood area that was um theoretically going going to be annexed at some point and I

think uh covid uh pandemic did didn't do us any favors on that one uh so we we've got a we're in an opp opportunity here where we can discuss what that's going to look like for for future growth does Bellingham uh in 25 years um does the city limit touch the edge of Ferndale for example where does it go in the northern uh part of the county how does it affect farmland and um food production so I think that those questions need to be answered at some point here um and I just wanted to throw those items on the table thank you so uh uh Ben one of my favorite guys uh you you brought up a Kendall there and and it reminds me of this cycle that happens there is the uh some people are living in Kendall because the rent's really cheap out there and maybe the rent is really cheap out there because they don't have amenities because they don't have a grocery store or whatever so if we give them all the missing amenities will that make housing providers start to say well now you got this this convenient grocery store in the gas station and the this and the that and and then that would make it more a more desirable area and that and that plays into the entire uh purpose of the growth management Act is that uh you know people see a a piece of vacant farmland or something has no amenities no uh there's no Library no no sidewalk no utilities going there and so super cheap land and they get that and and they' love to just grab that all cheap develop it and then the local government say oh now

we have to give them sidewalks and and you know EMS coverage and and in a library and and and all all these other amenities there and that's why the growth management Act is trying to say please everyone do your population growth and you're developing where all those things are already in place or where at least you've already got the pipes so you can add on another uh you know add on another little bit to it because it's it's it's adjacent and and so that's that's always going to be wrestling that and and uh something that no one's brought up yet here is that people keep talking about uh if we you know if we just have less regulations then the developers developers will develop more and then there'll just be a higher inventory of Housing and and then uh and then of course the prices will come down because of of course housing providers are going to lower the price at some point because uh the the inventory will will surely catch up with the demand if we just let them build whatever they want wherever they want and and so uh so unintended consequences is always on my mind when we're having these discussions uh about where where to put amenities and where to put the people and I'm going to lean towards what the growth management act's purpose is which is to try and put stuff where we already have all all the amenities I didn't put the 8,000 people there they there though I went there because it's cheap one thing that has been a big concern to me since I got elected and before

was correcting the mistakes that we've made in the past with establishing ugas BL might be in a unique position of having their City cut in half we have two non-contiguous parts for some reason the county took cat the area that connects them around Jon harb and 30 some years ago somebody made a really bad mistake and because they thought a golf course was going in they extended blame East along the Canadian border through the most heavily forested wetest area of all of the surrounding area of bla way to Iowa so we're out in the grandis pond area we're in one of our critical water areas and I'm told over and over again by our planning department that we must develop that because we can't do anything anything else until we fill it up well are we so stupid that we can't see that we made a mistake and somehow have a way to correct it we need to get that land out of the UT back to the county where it can be protected for its resources and develop the area that joins the two pieces of blame where we have population that have no sewer that have all kinds of storm damage and drain off problems that we could resolve as a city but we're prohibited s Paul yeah I just wanted to make sorry for being late um questions were sent and I it made me think about that I think the keeping with status quo is not a successful plan for our County it failed to produce any special or extraordinary results in either housing or Economic Development so we should do what we have been doing for last 20 30

years the other thing is we must consciously abandon the policy make it harder to build and people won't come we we've seen that people are coming so we must make our policies which facilitate all kinds of Housing and all kinds of Economic Development we must focus on those two things we have tied ourselves into Nots with our own rules and own regulations because that's how it was done I would urge our comp plan should be transformational means it should not look like what we already have it should be something totally new if we cannot take that kind of bold action just taking who's going to take few more people who going to take few less people is not going to solve the problem problem past mistakes past things we must get over that I think that this is a very very critical point the society is changing at much faster Pace our society not only social things our economic things the Gap economic equity Gap all things increased by us doing incremental steps will not catch up with that so that's my opening statement I want to hear others I have some VI more notes and I'll share with you thank you hey everyone uh John scanley from County Council um I'd love to see some modeling of things so we can actually take a look at what this would would be like remember having some discussions with some of our counc mg over there meeting with some public work staff looking at this and it' be interesting to see well what ises that look like you know if we do put 18% in the rural Zone what

does that look like if we go over 50% in Bellingham or in other cities what does that look like there are some fun ways to do it I had a friend few months back show me an AI version right you can go into Ai and ask what would Bellingham look like mayor 150,000 people there's street cars we could bring back the street cars that this city wants at right there are some ways to do it that that you know folks can look at and see hey is this look scary to us or is this okay but there are other ways to do that too that would take some investment we only have a little bit of time to do that but that might be something for all of us to look at from a funing perspective but I think modeling out some of the options can let us know what is it as opposed to us sitting here spitballing um I think that would be really [Music] helpful um I just really appreciate the spirit of South Paul's comments and I would Echo those and I really think we need to be very forward looking right now growth is happening it is coming we're growing towards one another how are we going to do this together we are all in this throughout the county and I think can Bellingham do more I think we can do more I think it's the conversation I would like is to have us have a shared commitment to the income allocation piece right and I think that's that's going to be one of the trickier points as we approach this we have a mandate to address um at all different income levels and you know as we say Bellingham you do more

well yes but how and yes exactly and I think that's where the F's going to meet to in this conversation so I'm going to jump in and take a turn I I sent this around um I asked our staff have to develop it it's just one way I'm trying to look at um the amount of rural poverty or poverty around the county um these are poverty numbers but you can kind of map those on to the Ami tranches that we use for for planning um low income housing is is is an issue all over um one of the suggestions that we heard at the last meeting is that some facilities like permanent support of housing you shouldn't assign any portion of that to unincorporated areas it should be assigned cities that's where those Supportive Housing facilities should be so that's maybe largely Bellingham maybe not all Bellingham um but but definitely in the cities and so there was a question about if we sign some of those lowest income housing to Incorporated areas do we have to move the numbers around and give it back to the unincorporated areas if we took it away um I'm going to suggest I've been persuaded by talking to our own staff that no we shouldn't we that the rather than like fixing the books by transferring um if we transfer some housing allocations out of the unincorporated areas I don't think we have to then transfer some other ones back in let's just assign more growth to all the cities appropriately let's not let's not put any more in the unincorporated areas let's not look for reasons for putting growth

in unincorporated areas other than the natural reasons that already exist so that's just one issue that has to do with with one uh income level great yeah and to to kind of add to that and what mayor Len said I think you know what we're looking for is a degree of partnership uh with the county and some of the jurisdictions that are adjacent us and perhaps all the jurisdictions in wam County kind of to what uh uh Michael just said but that you know I think one of the things that we see um that that I bla could might be able to speak to this as well is that um you know there's the the the development in in urban growth reserve for example that um you know people get their five acres and their house and they build it right in the middle but that's in the pathway of growth for Ferndale in 20 years we're going to be coming for that they don't want it they got their five acres of paradise and and they're going to fight tooth and nail to prevent annexations and and you know I know that bla has experienced something like that and we have we've experienced that recently on a much much smaller scale but that you know and so what I mean by partnership and collaboration is um that that there's some kind of I don't know agreement deal struck between the jurisdictions and the uh and the county for how we're going to treat our Urban growth areas and our Urban growth reserves um and perhaps you know being much more serious and looking very long term about you know where are we actually going

to be growing our cities right you know Bellingham and infernale are eventually going to you know border each other I don't know I don't know if we're ever going to get there in Lyon but maybe you never know um you know we're moving North we're headed out towards Custer sorry man um and and so whether we get there in the next 20 years or whether it's 50 years you know I think we need to be intentional about where we're going to grow what kind of densities we're going to need in order to actually meet some of these growth projections and and I think it's unrealistic for most communities in wam County uh to to say well we just don't want to grow and we don't want to you know we I don't like the numbers that we're getting um from office of financial management and so we're just going to say no right we don't get to close our doors and so how do we work together in order to make sure that that cities can grow appropriately at their boundaries and grow the densities that we need to in order to hit some of our um our our Ami members as well so that's what we're hoping to see from this yeah I would agree with partnership because I guess I feel like if you look at the numbers from the last 10 years cities Lyndon Ferndale blae everon we've grown at the highest percentage rates annually compared to the other cities and so I've got citizens pushing back we're growing too fast um and so I'm more than willing to take my for fair share but I don't want to take more than my fair share and

so and I guess I mean you know we I I look at Bingham as frustrating what they've done in the past maybe it's changing in the future which would be great and I think it is there are some signs of changing I I hear your planning department is now pushing BL through quicker so that that's just good stuff happening to cause some of the I mean people will come to s cities like Ferndale and linen because their planning departments are easier to work with um there's just no question about it and so but I the other side of this coin we have all these people coming here they all got to work too and um Lyon's got a pretty good size Industrial Area out in out in West London that is slowly starting to fill up and could fill up in a hurry and we're annexing some new land that will increase our industrial area but um we can't do it alone we need all of the cities to add Industrial Area uh and I think again particularly Bellingham and again I'll you know my frustration with Bellingham is your citizens don't like industrial growth um and whenever it comes up it seems like they push them away um and of course lynon we're open for that kind of business and so they come out to us um so we're growing it and we put um stuff in place to allow us to grow but I'd like to see that partnership as well with the other cities is that we can see more growth um and uh and I guess there's some talk about limiting County growth I I I hear it but uh the count is going to have to take some of this pressure

it's not going to all end up in cities and I guess in my mind maybe even it's something as simple as um opening up more adus in the county where you have it let's get adus on these places um somehow get the planning people to agree that that's a good relief valve out in the county adus I mean that's another thing I've heard about and I've heard it's been discouraged by the county so maybe that's a thing we got to look at is can we do adus in the county adus in the urban growth areas and I agree with Blaine let's review our Urban growth areas are the the right ones if they're not right let's change them um all it's done for us is bring us grief and our citizens are up in arms yeah yeah and I know Bruce mayor Bosch is on I know Suz has got issues with theirs because it happens to be in a flood plane I we're going to grow there probably not um so let's let's start opening up dialogue where else can we grow because I know Ferndale like Lyndon we're growing in into some of the most expensive areas to develop possible and then we we've talked about affordable housing meanwhile the state's throwing on additional regulations and we're required to grow in areas that are the most expensive to develop and we can't talk about affordable housing and what we're doing in the same sense because they don't exist in my humble occasion so I know I know that um South Paul will still again but Kevin or Bruce can we hear from either of you if you have any thoughts right now or John John well I'm

listening to all the input that um Blaine and Ferndale and lyen and Bellingham put in our biggest problem right now is we we can't grow because we're out of space but in addition to that we can't expand into it flood plane so where do we go you know and so we have an industrial Zone we have a residential but um again you know flood the flood [Music] problem we justly face so that's where we're at right now yeah so we've got we've always been we're the small little city and we've always been a bedroom community out there and still pretty much are so kind of the same thing that Scott's got with Lyndon you know we've got a lot of people that are like no we don't want to grow anymore we want to maintain our our small town atmosphere and stuff the population projections that were prepared by that Consultant Group were pretty low in our estimation we will blow through those in the next year and a half to two years just with existing developments that are going in or planed to go in um in regards to that we've also uh you know with our we pretty much exhausted what was our ug areas we we've annexed them in so in this comp plan we're going to be asking for more ug areas specifically along kind of our business Corridor and stuff there and we're planning on bringing those in you know as more of a commercial light industrial type aspect um we just annexed this year one of our ug's 33 Acres in as light industrial because that's kind of where we're shifting a little bit of our focus is

more business and industry out there we've got a lot of people that are moving out there and purchasing homes let's give them some industry some jobs some some things that they need and in regards to potential future residential growth where we're looking for ugas is really the only place that we have high ground you know um up up the hill there the the floods were a big thing for us out there and uh you know that's uh that's a pretty important aspect and there's really only one way for us to grow with that's got any elevation that isn't bordering or in a flood plane or a flood way out there so um so that's kind of what we're looking at that PA yeah so in addition to that I just wanted to make a statement that you know what we can do we can change the direction of this big ship that should be our first priority that how do we change our thinking in term terms of this 10 years half of us will be retired from these political jobs by the time these things start making impact so I think but the thing the biggest thing is how we change our thinking what our coming needs we are talking about you take 2% more from me I'll take 3% more from you yes it's it's going to be some horse training but I think the biggest issue is that the the you know like what stops US between Hanan and guide and Smith Ro you know why don't we consider it as expansion for Bellingham because there's a wetland there but that's the most ideal place for us to grow Bellingham we can put 30,000 people there but

we don't think in terms is too expensive because we not letting Private Industry open we are always looking we don't have money as a city so we don't want to grow because we can provide the U there are other ways to do that because we have to open up for that think outside the box you know we talk about uh low-income housing it's on everybody's mind it's it's a good phrase politically that we are doing comp plan so we looking after uh the low-income housing that's not the only part of our society what about high-end income homes where are we going to accommodate that or leave them to their own mechanism they all seem to be going to blame so please you will get your time no what I'm I'm just making people think in many different ways because those are a large part of part of our society also will come build them two3 million homes they not not only bring lot a large tax base they bring a lot of income they bring a lot of other assets to our County can't just say to to look after only these people and rest will take care of itself we have to plan for that the other part is is that uh industrial growth I think the county if you you want to use County use County for industry let people come live in a city that's where they should be living that's where the schools are everything is let's build more industry in the county I made the statement before and I may be wrong that if tax is the problem that those County will get all the tax and we don't we can we can come up with the

formula and share that we have the ability as a county to do that but we start looking at oh we need industrial base too to survive and they need industrial base to survive we cannot look at comprehens small County anyways to start with their city is bigger than whole County so so I think we have to look at that how we can overall bring our growth adjust our growth and then worry about who will share that Revenue where and the expense there are lot of Private Industry you open the gates and really literally open the gates make it easy to build people will come the the the unless we have Wetland Bank we can't build anything here a guy with a with a clipboard and a pen can walk on your 100 property and come out out after 2 hours and tell you you got only 40 2 hours with little pen and and a paper they can mark it up and walk in say you got only 40 acres to build now go figure out yourself can't we have another guy from the government with a clipboard and a pen who can walk and say this is this is this is what we'll do here is a b you can mitigate and you still have your ad Acres not 100 that's what we have empowered this kind of thing that they can walk in in two hours half over your property is gone can't we make the rules on the other way also why it takes 8 years to get a gutland bank 8 years I'm not break saying you we should flout our laws but the solutions are 8 years away problems come in two hours I'm sorry could you explain what you mean about Wetland Banks I haven't

heard this brought up yet mitigation Bank a mitigation Bank yeah you can go offsite and mitigate you and create some Wetlands there some somewhere else that you can get what I'm saying is we have to start thinking in those dire I'll stop here thank you Ben and then I see Todd and Lisa I think Lisa was first Lisa Lisa Ben Tod yeah so to kind of address uh Todd's question something that I've been bringing up at the city is that you know as Dan has stated you know we have the seven ugas and that's the area that is supposed to take the most growth something that I've been asking and I hope we're going to accomplish at the that's why I wish mayor Kim was here to hear this that I think we need to rank the viability of our ugas and which ones are going to come in first because one that allows development and the owners to know that within the next two years this UJ is going to come in but that also allows us to work with the county that we need the right zoning in those locations and that's the area to focus so that we can meet those benchmarks of housing needs and jobs um and but you know to set Paul's thought ultimately though the realistic is what is our budgets now so there are some areas of our ugas that when we've looked at them it is just too cost prohibitive to bring into the city because they're pretty developed so even with the state changes we might get more housing but are those Property Owners living on an acre going to want to build a six Flex there with their little

area of paradise probably not but how many tens of millions or more is it going to cost the city to put the fire station there to put a satellite Police Department there to bring in the level of services that there's an expectation that now you're part of the city of Bellingham you would get not to say it's never going to happen but if we have seven ugas which ones are we going to be able to meet those housing needs those job needs and be able to economically make it viable in the short term versus which ones are the long term but also like Blain we need to do the analysis are all the ugas do they make sense to still be part of Bellingham or does another area need to be looked at to be brought in because that's going be the direction we go in I'm not going to say what areas of the ug that um around Bellingham that I don't think makes a lot of sense um there are some but I I really don't want the land owners there to show up at my house with pitch courts but they've been in the ug for an incredible long time and we need to be realistic so that every time we deal with a comp plan at the city we're not getting really inundated like you need to bring my property in or you need to bring this area in because I've made this investment because what the city's going to get over the next 10 years doesn't make sense compared to other areas so I think internally as a city I would highly encourage that we go through and get that analysis done so that we can work with the county to make

sure that our um zoning is really going to match up with the needs so that we can meet the growth over the next 10 years and I think that ranking is really important but also be open to work with our County planners and counterparts do we look at other areas to be brought in as part of the ug do we let go of some that just doesn't make a lot of sense I'm hoping that is going to be some of the stuff that we can get accomplished this time around it definitely didn't happen last time I was on the Planning Commission last time during this process I kind of came in Midstream but I was really surprised that none of us were having that conversation um and that was 5 years ago so six years ago so I'm hoping this time around we'll be successful and we got a very short window to do it can I just add one line have we looked at that if we put this thing in the lab of the private investment why we think that city has to create the fire station and the road and the sewer and everything if we give open-ended invitation to private people this ug would like to have 500 homes anybody put up in your hand to do this and these are the conditions it's the Staffing that Paul it runs millions of dollars a year but rather than us thinking that we have to have that money to build and since we can build a fire station so let's not develop it I don't know you guys know more I'm not a planner I'm point is the capital in the problem operating the problem operating is prohibit oh let's let Todd go you

didn't okay um you two are cute by just we hear that all the time yeah we we you know we travel to schools and have a little comedy circuit that we do anyway um uh you know it's it's funny to me to sit here as um I don't know if Scott can smell it or skip right you can smell the cow on my boots well I wasn't going to say anything but I I can definitely smell it I'm sorry I thought I put the the clean ones on this morning but I didn't even the clean ones smell like C but so I'm sitting here from a little different perspective than all you guys um and I'm hearing us talk about growth and housing affordability and and all of these different thoughts are triggering in my mind um and you know one of the things that I would love to be able to do and I think we've touched on it is is like what works and what hasn't worked and um I think one of my biggest arguments like my entire time I've been in the political realm it's like we do all these things with an end goal in mind but then after 20 years when the end goal isn't being accomplished we do nothing to change course kind of like sat Paul was saying about let's write the ship and and so like I think uh when I was on the Planning Commission we had a um the rural element got challenged because of adus almost and and The Way We Were allowing them right Mark if I remember correct that was part of it too much growth yep and so that you know that was going to CH that was going to change the rural character of these adus but I think that

mindset has changed over time and like Kaylee and I um have talked about adus and and like from a young farmer Farmer like I am the next generation of farmer I'm the guy that you're preserving the farmland for and I'm sitting here telling you you know 20 years in I still can't make a successful run with a business model that the somebody like the community in Bellingham is looking for that direct Market food born here grown here raised here processed here onto your plate I can't eff and do it and it's because of the stupid well I'm not going to say well you got a cow problem too some of some I do have a cow problem some of the some of the regulations um that are well meaning but they not hitting the goal and those are the things I wish we could like talk about the problem is is we can't we don't have an honors conversation about it we start getting these politically charged or emotionally charged conversations what regul are these land use regular oh yeah slaughterhouse 2013 we were trying to get I I was just telling Scott I have to drive six hours to Odessa to pick up four steers that I had to drive there from Lyon to get butchered and then I got drive back 2 weeks later to pick them up to bring them back here to sell them on the farm that they were born on I mean that animal was born right here raised right here and then I have to traumatize it with a six-hour drive to Eastern Washington to get it processed and that's not what you're looking for a slaughter house in Lindon

no well that's this again it goes what this is It's kind of what I the Nuance is that you can't even fathom but you're the ones that are elected to fix it and so I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe as electeds we should look at the people that know the business and know or the actions for guidance instead of looking at them all suspect because yes there is a slaughterous in lyen but it's not USD inspected therefore I can't sell you a New York steak if you want a New York steak I can only sell you the whole cow and you don't have $4,000 or the freezer space to buy it so one not the other that so so that that's that's sort of what's on my mind is like hey what are the things that are just blatantly obvious that we can all kind of come to an agreement on whether you're North County or Bellingham whether you're an environmental activist or a farmer what are the things that we can all kind of get to that aren't going to cost us money and one of the things Scott brought up was like adus and I think that the mindset of the state level has changed around adus and so I would love for us as a County and as the cities to kind of come together and say look State this is what we need from you guys in order to do what we should be doing on the ground and you know a lot of things get done in the name of preserving farmland and um I put those in quotes because I hear people care about Farmland when we're talking about developing North Bellingham but then they don't really care about

Farmland when we're talking about water rates adjudication um the biggest thing that chews up Farmland in my lifetime um has is planning and developments interpretations of uh environmental regulations and setbacks and I'm saying their interpretation because there's a lot of people that don't interpret it the same way and I'll give you an example Planning and Development had a developer tunnel under a 10x10 foot section of canary grass because canary grass is a wetland indicator species what functional good is a 10x10 area of canary grass doing to the Watershed they could have tore it up planted the canary grass right back over it would have saved the developer $300,000 and if you don't believe me I got the pictures on my phone and the pits that were on either side of the of the um of the tunnel that they were putting the infrastructure in were 30 ft deep and not one of them had a drop of water in them and they didn't have a pump so was that really a wet land and so um we could do a probably a better job of our interpretations around what is and isn't a functional Wetland we could do I mean I think everyone can agree that larger larger wetlands are going to be more beneficial so we could work together trying to get these wet mitigation banks that would be larger that would actually have a a functional benefit to water quality or species that are involved but like telling me that um you know I've got 102 acres in the flood plane right now it's August I've got 10 acres that are

still underwater because nobody's letting the ditch District clean the ditch are you guys protecting my Farmland right now are you protecting my ability to farm are you protecting uh the long the economic viability of the Agland by not letting me Farm because Fisheries isn't given a permit to the ditch District so now I've got a field that's been a farm since the beginning of Walkin County and the ditch that goes through my place is a ditch it's man-made it was specifically put there to drain because that soil is prime if drained are you are we helping agriculture there no we're really not and so those are the things where it's like hey if agriculture is important let's make it important where it's important and do smart things like okay we are going to grow food here we're not going to we're not going to put regulations in place that say oh council member ellenos hasn't planted that 10 acres in the last three years so now it's going to revert to a wetland Mark which is what we've been doing so things like adus um I think are something we could all come together on and it's not going to cost us a dime to make a land use policy like that change like that we just all need to be on the same page and all ask for it together I think it'll help and when I when I say that in the rural area you can have an Adu on a 10 acre parcel and some of the five acre Parcels but if you get down to R2 you're not allowed to have an Adu and for me I think we should have our land use policy written

because especially on R2 there's not a lot of meaningful agriculture that's going to happen in an R2 parcel in fact we should probably have the adus geared towards the smaller Parcels because they're not going to attemp r1's going to be EG and could be used r five could be used as EG but R2 probably isn't so if we can get the setbacks off of a wetland or the setbacks off of a well head and and have the services available we should be encouraging people to put aduse on R2 and I don't think very many people will disagree with me but the state law I don't think will allow it at the moment and so these are the things where I think we can come together and find find specific policy issues like that that are kind Nob Raiders and I think we could actually make some change right cuz I have four kids that are between 17 and 26 and two grandkids and you know one daughter works at the Wheelhouse I got a son that pours concrete I got another son that works for CHS and none of them make enough money that they can afford their own place they either live with me they live with their mom or they are I'm subsidizing their housing and it's like uh that's the reality of where we're at if I could throw an Adu in I could have a son live with me or Grandma and Grandpa could live with me you know those types of things so uh lots of times I know Todd I'm very long- winded and when you do that it makes me even longer winded but these are the types of things where they're just little but they actually

would um make a difference still we were talking about talking outside of the box I'm going to just back into the box cuz the Adu stuff the R2 like those are maybe GMA things but a lot of the stuff talking about implementing coo code whether Mark staff does stuff efficiently or not like that's not this meeting so but I'm hoping this meeting is about what we're doing with the comp plan update and the are2 the Adu stuff I that fits in the that fits into our zoning stuff in the comp plan update but what what I'm hearing around the room is um Kim's not here so hopefully it's very important um like what is what's the shared commitment from the county as the county we need to know what that means and when people talk about the cities talk about reviewing the ugas do you want them smaller do you want them bigger we we need to like put cards on the table so planning staff knows what what folks mean by that can can we agree to talk about it both from a percentage of growth and an overall number because I heard the comments earlier about we're growing a higher percentage rate it's a very different conversation when you're starting from 16,000 and you're growing about x% when you're starting by 90,000 going by x% so I think it's important to have both sides of that conversation yeah I don't know if we're going to get to numbers in this meeter any but just so that you folks know what people mean by reviewing the ugas you know is it to have more industrial less what do we do with flood

planes because that that's that's like what we're doing with the compound update is like where where do we shrink expand ugas the population allocations always going to be in the middle we're going to but so like you know get but when people say partner with the county I need to know what that means like does that mean we need interlocs with with um the Count's going to be funding some of the infrastructure for annexations when you talk about like inheriting zoning your former planning director said it was a moral imperative to NX Alderwood and then it didn't happen and you left us twisting in the Wind so you're going to inherit what we do cuz you're not doing anything that's just that's my perspective like what do how do we get you wanting to do that so when you say partner with the county with ug it's like what do you tell my point you know the planning staff what do you mean like let them know yeah there okay back in the Box um us we ask for Jonathan then was it Scott yeah and then I'll take it did you someone else did and I'll take a turn after that yeah so I think we've shown how we can fill up an hour pretty quick and you see why some of our meetings go to 11 11:30 at night right no it's not we we no we all do it right say no we don't all do it but here's what I'm trying to get at this is too big of a group to make decisions I think one thing we could do in half hour is lay out some of those things Todd just mentioned for work groups and come back because if we're

working small groups of three will be way more efficient than how however many here and how many in zoom and then we'll run out the clock on our comp plan update so that's a proposal I have what we could do in the next half hour before go to Scott small groups Mark I really am viewing this as one of the conversations that are part of the county Le planning process I I don't want to I like the suggestion but it's not my process so I don't know if you want to respond to the rest of the of the the stakeholder or elected official process you guys having this conversation is great thing I mean I wish you had more of these kind of conversations so whatever you guys want to do just find with us I will just tell you we've got these quarterly meetings and the next one is 911 and um we'll have a some of the Consultants will come back we'll give you an update on draft Eis and schedule give you an update on the hat which is the housing for all planning tool um which is hb2 20 implementation and it's where uh we are slicing and dicing those numbers but we have to take care of um affordable housing targets for everybody and the challenges we as the county in particular have on accommodating the 0 to 30 to 50 Ami very go because we're rural um so there's a lot of conversations going on with your staffs about that um and amongst us uh we'll give you an update on that um that issue as well so anything else you guys want to do to help move those conversations along um we're we're fine with uh

let me just say you know we're supposed to adopt uh all of us are supposed to adopt the councils are supposed to adopt the updates by December 31st 2025 never once been on schedule so I would not worry about that but at the same time we can't go forever so um you know there's if we need time to have those conversations all the better Scott you had your hand up and as part of your contribution can you talk about maybe hosting a future future I got that right here on the side right here there you go so um first of all Bellingham your ug when I bring up a map it appears that those are already the populated areas most of them unfortunately yeah and I I guess so then from my perspective if you don't want those get some new ug that you can grow into um and I think okay i' I'm I'm a farmer from way back just like Ben I farmed the Wilder Ranch it is not Farmland just flat out and we farm land out at Birch Bay that way that land is not as good as other land in the county Birch Bay probably should become a city it should have be in a urban growth area um and there are certain lands that I think people who don't know think it's great Farmland I whenever people say look at all the Farmland out in the county there used to be hundreds of far I say drive down the noon Road look at all the barns that aren't being used that was Farmland that was productive once you cannot make money farming on that land you can't do it for a myriad of reasons for a myriad of reasons and so I most people who

want to save I most people who want to save Farmland want to have green space they care less about Farm in fact I don't think they want the farm that's probably true they want and the people in this room don't want toay the infrastructure they don't care whether it's farmland or not yeah and so um so I I there's there's a I think what the Farmland thought is it's a red herring in my mind that we're trying to save farmland for Farmland now around Lyon we got great Farmland around Ferndale up in the hill probably not great Farmland but there's probably good my C Scott can I ask that you host the next meeting yeah you hold schedule for um hour and a half and then you actually divide it into three topic areas I don't know what they are but I kind of want to get to Jonathan's suggestion yeah that maybe we need some smaller groups we focus for each half hour on this issue this issue this issue and actually get more back and forth and maybe some resolution because I guess we're seeing no resolution I think that's well today's probably a Ving session more than anything okay and and I guess the other thing that just puzzles me is why a lot in Lyon cost more than a home in I think a half a dozen states in the country an empty lot in Lon supply and demand supply and demand I well I put that at I put that at the growth management act we've been hemmed in for 50 years and I would have response I'm getting the time I want respond to a bunch of things I heard mro responses um Ben you talked

about kind of the error of just planning based on past Trends as opposed to planning based on preferences it's not always an error no no but I I yeah past Trends are darn instructive but I agree with you I don't think I've heard anyone say otherwise I think there is an appetite for finding out how we want to deviate on purpose uh from Trends um Todd you you and I have talked before and I think WEA touched on it I I think it's really important that we find ways working with the county to what I call pre- zoning ations we have plans for that annexation can the county please do pre- zoning or allow us to do pre- zoning work even though it's under your jurisdiction even though legally we can't do any zoning work there but can you work with us and prezone it so annexation is the end of the process not the beginning of the process that's an idea I would like to see that's not keeping you from annexing the we do that in already we we we're growing into there we told them we told people this is what if you come into the city this is what we've got it zoned as okay and and so do and they so whoever's not doing it isn't doing it because they don't want maybe the city needs to do some more preing yeah it's not quite I mean we want to talk about we should talk about what are minimum densities and what yeah this this is industrial land that we an ex in that we said look if it's coming in it's going to be zoned us and so okay um I'm going to continue sorry um like where is she you know

errors in path zoning we have a few errors in past ug areas let's just strike those off the table right now and then rerun the numbers and see about the future needs but we need to take off the the ghost ugas now early in the process um which ones are those well our our ours are in the Watershed where we know there's Geneva there there's no interest by the residents there's no benefit to annexation we need just take them out of they're no longer part of the accounting we can't pretend there's going to be growth there um fale has that too John like idea of running scenarios I kind of I think that ought to be more formal um Scott you talk about industrial lands I have a very strong interest in industrial lands um I'm not sure agree with you set Paul you're talking about having U let's do our industrial lands outside of City Limits because I really do need some of that tax base but I'm talking light industrial when you say light what do you mean by light industrial what do what yes yeah because my idea of what light industrial is is not the same as probably what your I talk to a planning director about that for us reviewing what falls into our categories for industrial it's I can't have a conversation now I I don't know okay um the idea of ugas in rural areas I that doesn't strike me as sprawly and the the previous conversations about too much rural development had to do with fighting sprawl in the lamard or outside of lams I think it's the idea that maybe we as a county should

look at it and takes us going down to the Olympia I think it's already elamor why couldn't we why can't it's already there why can't we make it some nice Ben makes sense to me um I think you said something about are you know when it comes to a does Bingham really want to step up with regard to water rights I'm on the record for 10 years now saying I we as a city have a whole lot of of water rights and frankly I don't want to use them for supporting no offense to lynon growth of lyen but I think that there's a CommunityWide value in the watery discussion in supporting EG well I I think everyone needs to realize it's not like somebody saying like you know it's not thrown up a a false I don't want to say false flag I said that one time Todd got um but it I am 100% genuine in telling you as a 45-year-old farmer if I lose my water rights I'm done I want to walk away today tell me today because I cannot Farm without water I cannot do it and every farmer is in my boat and I do things like cattle which I can get by on marginal stuff you take water from a raspberry grower a potato grower a Dairy Farmer they're done we're just done I cannot speak for the city but for myself I believe strongly continued water rides in pag in Walking county is in bellingham's best interest you you brought so so interesting you brought water because Lyndon is out again we've been out for 20 years but we work with ecology and ecology sat across the table from me three weeks ago and said you know you're out

of water rights and we said yes I know and we got this memor of understanding that allows us to use more water than we we've been allocated but uh basically they said you got to stop doing that sometime and it said okay fine I I'll stop growing which which La you want me to break ecologist law or growth management I got a choice today because I can't do them both and so just so it's on the table we're out of water I'm fine but not growing could we also chip in on a desalination plant or there's a lot of water coming down the river and what I need and what I put back in is a drop in the bucket I still have some you guys can take I'd really like to plant got we got a lot we' like to give you anyway thank you for bringing up water yeah no then brought it up um is there any further discussion here I'm wondering if we want to open it up to okay can I just respond to one thing that Todd said I'll make it really quick and I disagree with Todd that this isn't a time to talk about like General policy or like fundamental trying to get us back to like and I'm just going to give one real quick example when Barry and I were doing the fentanyl having meetings about Fentanyl and what we wanted to do um the whole idea was like Hey if status quo has only gotten us to where everything's gotten exponentially worse so let's think about what we can do and we sat there with the superior court and we said hey could we do the reason we do what we do is because as you know as electeds that's the

direction you told us and so I do think it's important for as electeds to give Planning and Development staff for them to hear what we would like to see moving forward because I there's often times I've talked to Mark and Mark's like well that's kind of the direction that I believe that the County elected officials want me to take and I I think he's right and so if Mark hears that maybe we would like to get into some of these more outside the box things then he can advocate for that or work with his staff to get them into a different mindset or or what so I think it is good to talk about more of like the the high level as well as the what what can we actually do amen yeah I was just wondering I mean in talking about next steps you were saying that the next quarterly meeting right is scheduled for September 11th and just thinking about what um John you were mentioning about you know mapping and modeling and when I'm thinking about the things that we've heard today and just looking at the big picture of right countywide unincorporated areas and different cities and um the ugas and other pieces it's just wondering do we because that will be with the Consultants right on September 11th we have another presentation does this group or smaller subset of representatives from different jurisdictions to get together to do more work before that yes September meeting because I feel like we're at right a point where some of what's been shared could be I mean helpful to be in a better

position when we come back on September the record show electric officials want more meetings not less Scott's going to can I ask what time that meeting is on the 11th I have it on my calendar but not the time uh I can't tell you that yeah okay yeah oh I work I'm to get I mean I'm in support of that and happy to have an extra meeting but so I heard two voices saying how about how about August 29 at 1:00 at Lon City Annex that'll give us a couple weeks what time did you say I said 1:00 but I'm I'm open I shouldn't say that I was going to head up the hill I was going to hike never mind as long as you bring a birthday cake for me I'm good it's your birthday your birthday okay we got to sing Happy Birthday I mean we can do it at 10:30 if you wanted or 10 11 1:00 this okay um you and your staff will coordinate that in sure that'd be me all those favor respons thanks guys you're very welcome and I'll I'll talk with a couple people in the room to see if we can come up with some topics that we'll try toch hour and a half again where you say Lon City Annex you said one o' one o' and the annex is are it's across the street closer to Grover by City Hall it's where we have our City Council meetings all right um we were gonna make sure to go around the room that go ahead and start no no she want to have yes please hi um so uh no offense to anybody here but I don't hear any outside of the box speaking today just going to say that out out front I would like to know how many people in the

room and online by show of hands are renters in this town in the county I rent land no just just renting your household right so my children are sitting here today I'm listening to all of these ideas and none of them are addressing the fact that we have a housing crisis right it's not a housing inventory crisis it is an affordability crisis I would like to change the narrative from the word affordability to Workforce housing because this entire work City and the county will shut down if we are not providing for our Workforce and right now our Workforce cannot afford housing in this town and can't afford to live out of the town and drive in right we are hitting a threshold that we are not going to bounce back problem and all of these are nice and fine and fancy you know topics but this has to be addressed um per the numbers coming out of what we've been doing for the comprehensive plan in the city um planning department is that 60% of new development needs to be aimed at the Ami of between $3,000 and $60,000 a year pl we are aiming our housing at 103 per year for a family of four and that doesn't count our students coming out of school it doesn't count our single population it doesn't count our Workforce at all right we have low-income housing it's not perfect it's not fully fulfilling the the job and now we're hearing and we've been hearing it for a while but now there's some pretty hard numbers coming out Private Industry has absolutely no interest in helping us with this

problem and I didn't hear a single person addressing this today I did well a little bit yeah so you guys are all coming from a perspective where you're all homeowners and there's a population in this room it isn't being heard there's a population online that's not being heard there's a population in this County that's not being heard and not being paid attention to because we keep being told it can't be done it can't be done it can't be done and I suggest what we need to be doing is doing a private and Public Partnerships because private is never going to do it public can't afford to do it but if we work together and make combined projects where we have low income and medium income and high income people all living together we build a stronger community on every level thank you anybody else some around the room staff members or whatnot okay we actually still have little more time okay I think should we should look at Sur or abord uh you know sir was a community I mean we talking growth now that's a me of growth right next door to us we should take time to study what how did they manage that right and and we know we haven't seen growth like that we have l more land than they have and we are in trouble and whereas they are managing it's not that their rents are low or the houses are cheap but they're accommodating and and one of the thing was that we're talking Adu they had basement rent also that it was a big Crackdown 10 15 years ago you cannot rent your basement oh it's

unhealthy all kinds of stuff was put up for that then they found out there's no other way to solve this problem then they told everybody if you meet these five six at least now it is in their control you have a kitchen you enough bathrooms you have enough space air everything you can rent a basement meet these conditions like Adu it should be a nonb brainer if somebody wants to build a mother we we call it mother we don't call it ad whatever why is it restriction only your relatives can live here all this this is just from our past brain that what we have been used to and we cannot go over that hurdle then why can't we let the homeowner build another house there I mean that's what I'm meaning transformation not incremental so I I yeah thank you is planning staff leaving the room like thinking you heard stuff that helps today sure oh that's nice thanks Mark I mean like I'm hearing Scott I'm hearing Scott saying like we're we're getting more growth than we can handle I'm hearing cities saying our ugas are not working um that's what I want to make sure that farmer saying Farmland use policy it's not always hitting the Mark I think well I know Mark hears that from you yeah but that so in the next meeting this week like that's like we can like the cliche let's put our cards on the table we don't have to agree but is make sure you all know what the various jurisdictions want or are expecting when we're doing the population allocations and the UG resizes and personally speaking I've

heard a lot of discussion I haven't heard a lot of decisions right well you don't hear a lot of us arguing with each other that's positive I mean I think there is there's a common under we need to get to a common understanding we need to have a common language to get to some of those things I do agree with the the con ation about potentially having smaller groups and focusing on some direction and some decision I didn't get a lot of that I mean this is our third comp plan update Rodeo probably but we've never even done this before so so I think there's value I'm not please don't take my comments yeah no no I want to hear what you need to hear so and I would encourage you to talk to your your planning staffs um to make sure you're you're their communicating with you about the conversations that the staffs are having at the staff level on low-income housing allocations and those kinds of issues ug issues population employment industrial lands all that stuff so um that just needs to be a super good communication there so that I think that informs everybody espe you that's a new twist John then Lisa yeah just back to the small group's idea I think I hear about a few things I think Ben if you be to leave like the ad lands group that would be cool sure um Lisa I'm thinking you had some great comments about industrial land when we hear about Workforce that could be something I'm very interested in the ug conversations I'd be happy to you know host a small group on that are there any

others that would want to raise a hand for a small group discussion so we could because I think sometimes small groups are helpful right Clarity John are you are you talking about with like pick some elected officials in the room to have the conversation or are you saying you want me to bring Farm Bureau and family Farmers no I I think small enough where we can get to some of the things that Leisa mentioned earlier that she doesn't want to say in a public meeting that's the kind of conversations I think we should be having public meeting I yeah we could right I mean three four five of us could have those conversations I'll be in the room about ugas and come back in I guess I guess my concern would be is like okay I'm going to pick Richard because I love hanging out with Richard and like Greg cuz we live close to each other right like but are Richard and Greg the people that I need to have in the conversation to move the needle on that my suggestion is approximately three topics and everyone attend they want to attend but that would that would create focus and maybe something like a decision or consensus yeah and my area of interest for industrial is actually in the ugas and I had sideboard real quickly that the reason why I think it's really important for us to look the ugas and make sure our zoning is aligned is that until those ugas come in under the City Zoning there is development that happens but maybe it's not at the level of density that we need it so then we inherit

something or we take on something that is highly developed and not necessarily going to meet our needs for the um the density in order to meet those populations so I think it's really important that we get aligned to make sure that the county is kind of matching where the city is going to need things so that we're not unable to bring in something and then because people have built their house and they they're on that quarter acre and but we needed 10 houses there instead so that's where we really need to look at but also making sure the ugas have the ability that it is going to also have the job so it is part of the ug but it's the big picture of how do we look at that to make sure zoning happens at the county level that's going to meet us but I also think we need to have if we have subcommittees we need to have our respective um planning staff present for that because we can have great ideas but like the decision like how do we do it and how can we afford it but right but how can we like I don't want to sit in a meeting and say these are all the great things that I want to accomplish and not have that sounding board from the staff to be able to say oh actually we're there or no this is impossible because of this or these are the things we' have to change to make that happen and so we have a scope of partnership um because if we're actually going to be productive coming out of these um truly I think having the appropriate staff present is critical and I want to know how do we

work with our staff what do they they need from us to authorize these inner conversations that are going to happen so that they know like some of the goals that we have so you know maybe the city needs to like we might need to meet with our staff and our mayor to say these are the things we really need to focus on and then authorize them to work with the county staff partners and you know the other small municipalities so I'm I'm glad we're here and we first time but I think small group is great but I'm almost thinking that as a city we need to have that meeting first as a city then as a small group to make sure we're able to push out what is um able to be accomplished skon Scott yeah talking about the small groups um conceptually I agree with it but the but the question I have is does each topic have have enough meat in it to focus the work of the group right now and I'm not sure each one of those issues has enough to say here's the priorities here's the things that people are talking about this is our charge it's more like okay here's the idea what do you want to do as as opposed to here's the things we heard some somebody compiling all this and say Here's the things we heard relative to that issue this is what we're going to look up I don't think it's jelled yet but we can certainly start but that's how I'm feeling I'm feeling like I understand that it could be more productive to have three folks and delve in but like I want to be involved in the ug decision because it'll

affect dland I want to be involved in the housing decision because it affects my children you know like right on down the line and so while this may not be the most productive way to do it I feel like all of our opinions matter and coming to a a place of understanding collectively is is probably the most important you want if I go to Kaye to hear from her sure well I don't know that mine sequential to this I just I think as I wrap up today I think something that my mind is still grappling with is you know are we do we want this plan to be aspirational or pragmatic that those things aren't always the same and are we do we want this plan to be big picture Vision or specific and I struggle and granted this is my first comp plan update and and I lack the the history that others in this room have um but what I struggle with is I could look back to the 2016 plan and go well where did this goal come from oh well it's been there for years well why haven't we made progress on it you know whatever right you know it's like what are the land use like what are the code amendments that we're doing what you know like I want to act I know this I know this is visionary but I'm also also wanting to think about like the implementation and the pragmatic of this too because yeah we can talk about housing all day long but if we still have a massive unsheltered homeless population then are we really doing our jobs and so I just like keep going back to these these big questions so anyways that's

kind of where I'm I'm trying to frame and I don't know what the answer is or if this P off on just wanted to share my two thanks for letting me go out of order if I can share that I was part of last comp plan update that was very new on the counil what we did if if I remember correctly that we as set some kind of Direction on all we can pick the five or 10 topics which are covered by this Pi Direction then smaller groups will be very helpful and after we like with Farmers I remember me and Rod Brown we spent two days we went to R of farms and they invited four different farmers at two days we had our Books open we had online stuff at that time and we went line by line and they had prepared themselves what there was important to them what was important to us the da farmers and couple other people we went through all the line by line and and collected all the information uh to the people to be and to be coun so that time will come that will come probably mid 2025 or or early 2025 between now and then I think we can accomplish more if we can uh decide on overall direction on these four five things like even Tye in housing uh how we allocate how we do this what actual line item will change or add will come to that first we have to create that framework where we want to go with this I think if we are able to get there small group large group it doesn't matter but that's more important then small groups know okay this is our domain we're going to work within that and what can we

say and wording and yeah who wants the last word I do go so the next meeting on the 9th at 1:00 what I'm thinking is um focus on farms industrial and ug uh conversations and I'm thinking um like 15 minutes I could maybe give an overview working with a couple people that you know Farms this is kind of where it's at I thought Ben could be part of that I was thinking on Industrial I was wondering if we could get Tyler if it has to be elected or Gina or Gina or if it's got to be like Ken Bell okay I know this guy that works in the ug and then for industrial and then who and then John you said um you said uh ug conversations and then split into three groups anybody who wants to go to anyone can for 45 minutes and then reconvene for the last half hour to get kind of reports from these groups so we can kind of coales that sound like a plan it Happ all right I'll work on it so real quick for real Qui those topics for for some clarity Scott so like as as we talk about like to Sapp's Point as we talk about comp plan goals like and as it pertains to agriculture I don't think you'd see a lot of farmers disagreeing with comp plan goals it's what it's that it's what we do with the comp plan goals as we put it into policy right and so I can come with a list of things where we have a stated goal but it doesn't happen on the ground and that could be what maybe maybe egg pieces a little bit early for that no I'm not at all I'm just start it now start it now all right thank you everyone thank