September 12, 2022 6:30pm
Present:
Martha Worcester (Redwood Estates), Charlotte Persons (Bigelow), Bob Jacobs (Governor Stevens), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive), Judy Bardin (Northwest), Darrah Johnson (Wildwood),
Darrah Johnson (Wildwood), Dana McAvoy (East Bay), Lisa Riener (Burbank Elliott), Dave Marty (Indian Creek), Bruce Coulter (Northwest), Judy Bardin (Northwest), David Ginther, (City Planner), Tim Smith (City Planner), Cari Hornbein (Senior Planner), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham), Dontae Payne (Councilmember), Victor Minjares (South Capitol) and Karen Clemens (Eastside), Mark Toy (SWONA), and Dirk Havlak (Ken Lake).
6:30 – 7:00 Neighborhood Reports
Martha Worcester – Reported about a grant to work on a circle in their area with lots of people involved. Had a big party celebrating all the work and really cleaned the area up. Thankful for the grant. A big concern is the green space between the road and the sidewalk planting area near Fones Road and 18th the area in the circle is overgrown and blocks the view of vehicles. Between Redwood Place and Craig Street there is no overgrowth and asked who she could talk to about it. Sophie Stimson recommended going to Oly Connects.
Charlette Persons – Spoke about a successful Annual Meeting on August 2nd along with the National Night Out. She was elected President and some new Board members. They have put a new Little Free Library. A neighborhood park cleanup is scheduled and work on the Jay Elder Orchard that will include a tree planting.
Bob Jacobs – Had annual BBQ and fabulous attendance with over 50 people and lots of little kids.
Dana McAvoy – Board meeting last Tuesday and did final planning for picnic. About 50 people showed up and best attendance in the last 8 years.
Judy Bardin – Having a Board meeting next week. A big neighborhood meeting in October.
Darrah Johnson – Planning for October’s Annual Meeting. Last quarterly meeting was the Night Out.
Larry Dzieza – Related the request from Nottingham neighbors for vehicles to slow down and drive more carefully. He described his “open letter” to the neighborhood about careful driving. Larry asked what is possible to do to improve the situation. Martha said that people put out the little triangle signs and children at play signs that constrict the street width. Tim Smith suggested connecting with Transportation in Public Works. Sophie Stimson suggested the yard signs suggesting slowing down. Larry said we have 10 of them.
7:00 – 7:15 Council Liaison Report
There was no Council Report this month.
7:10 – 7:40 Flights and Airport Expansions – Warren Hendrickson, Airport Senior Manager, Olympia Regional Airport
New to the Port of Olympia but has long career in aviation and previously worked as the Director at the Bremerton National Airport. On Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission (CACC). Related an experience with neighborhoods where City of Tacoma owned Tacoma Narrows Airport but it was surrounded by the county, not city voters. Pierce County traded for the airport from the City of Tacoma.
835 Acres is the Airport footprint plus an addition 550 acres in the New Market Industrial Campus. Revenues come to the Airport business unit and financially it is in the black.
Tumwater rules on all the development issues for the Airport.
The airport is home to three endangered species and is working with other governments to address the issues.
Regarding noise from the airport. Below is the typical aircraft. Civilian and military.
There is no noise or time of day curfew for Olympia. The noise abatement program is voluntary and only applies to those craft based in Olympia so that a flight from Portland to Olympia is not addressed.
The minimum legal altitude is 1,000 feet above the ground. Orbiting circles with inadequately muffled engines can be a nuisance. Who is responsible for addressing that? He is personally willing to engage with problem flyers but he has no legal foundation to require it.
He cited an Oregon based aircraft that was violating the rules but said he has no authority and did not engage him because its from Oregon. If it was based in Olympia, he would have a conversation about the altitude or duration loitering over an area.
His authority is limited to aircraft on the ground. FAA is responsible for aircraft in the air. He can get complainants in touch with the right person to complain to.
Bob Jacobs says that large military helicopters fly low and slow and are on ongoing problem. Why do they need to fly here? Says he will provide a point of contact for reporting on the military craft. https://home.army.mil/lewis-mcchord/index.php/my-Joint-Base-Lewis-Mcchord/all-services/noise-and-public-disturbances
Larry said he will provide the link to a flight tracking system that identifies the craft, its altitude and speed, and flight path. That can be helpful to reporting on problem craft. https://flightaware.com/live/.
Regional airport proposal.
CACC established by State legislature to prepare for a need by 2050 to meet regions need for air services. By middle of October there will be two sites selected and a final one by June 2023.
Mr. Hendrickson is the vice-chair of the CACC and was appointed by Gov. Inslee. He is a non-voting member 15 voting and 11 non-voting members.
Olympia is not on the list, but the “industry” wants a site in the South Sound. In the “Greenfield” list, Olympia does show up. A greenfield is where no airport currently exists. Washington Aviation System Plan (WASP), however, is looking at the entire state which allows for Olympia to be considered. The ASP is operated out of the State Department of Transportation. The full report is on WSDOT website.
Contact information
Rob Hodgman
Senior Aviation Planner
He reported that the FAA has approved an unleaded aviation fuel which is a breakthrough. Particulate matter may be helped by electric aircraft and would like to see hydrogen and electric capabilities here in Olympia.
Big recruiting drive to bring new members to the Board’s citizens advisory committee. https://portolympia.com/commission/citizen-advisory-committee/citizens-advisory-committee-volunteer-application/
Bob Jacobs – Concern about the promise of technology improvements may be used to alleviate concerns with promises for the future that may never happen.
Larry Dzieza asked if the pressure point to stop the SeaTac airport in Thurston county is the WSDOT, Governor appointed agency? The answer was yes, in fact any of your elected representatives would be useful. Larry observed that if Boeing wants it, the state usually gives it to them.
Larry asked about the impact of the big airport on the Port’s airport. It could cause a big issue in terms of flight restrictions.
Larry asked if an unmuffled plane is reported, what happens? Answer: there is no law against it for propeller aircraft.
Bob Jacobs, thanked Warren for the excellent well organized and delivered presentation. Warren thanked Bob and said he is about building bridges to the community.
7:40 – 8:00 Reducing Requirement for Developers to Provide Parking – Gary Cooper, City of Olympia
Mr. Cooper is on contract working on two grants with the city.
Mr. Cooper says that the parking issue is about making it easier to build more housing of more types.
Parking for a 30-unit market rate apartment could cost $1.35 million more and 13,000 more s/f for housing.
Website
Although there is a 0 requirement for parking for buildings in Downtown Olympia, they all offer parking at a rate of about .7 spaces per unit.
Scope is still be worked on.
Questionnaire sometime in October.
Judy asked if Neighborhoods will be stakeholders and the CNA? Cooper said not sure how it will work.
Tim could not define who would be engaged from neighborhoods or the format.
Cooper said he will share the idea to create a formal stakeholder group with Communications.
These standards are supposed to be for new development (or major redevelopment). And probably would be mostly along corridors and multi-family.
Larry raised an issue that there is a tendency, just as Mr. Cooper’s slide show has, to conflate these reduction in costs for private developers as resulting in more affordable housing despite any evidence to confirm that it does. It shows a big savings to developers and investors.
Larry recommended that if you are going to give a guaranteed benefit to developers and investors, then don’t blindly trust the free market to trickle down the benefits to the public with no guarantees that it will. If, as in the example you gave, save a developer $1.35 million dollars by not requiring parking and give them room to build 13,000 more s/f of units that is also results in more profit, the city should require the developer to provide below market housing and low-income units in perpetuity in exchange. A guaranteed public benefit for guaranteeing greater profits for developers.
Mr. Cooper said that it was a good idea that he has thought about before. This is designed to incentivize but it doesn’t have any hooks in it so far to do that.
Larry pointed out that there is 0 parking required downtown but the new units are far from affordable.
Larry again urged Mr. Cooper to fix his slide deck and not infer that reducing parking requirements results in providing low-income housing.
Judy took exception with his statement that it will not affect existing neighborhoods. New development without parking will result in people going to great distances to find a place to park and that would include parking in existing neighborhoods. Cooper recognized as it as a legitimate issue.
Larry took exception to the use of language calling the requirement “voluntary minimum”. Bob affirmed the point by saying a zero to 1.5 minimum is a 0 minimum and we should be clear. Mr. Cooper acknowledged the language usage issue.
Dana McAvoy related his Seattle experience with zero parking requirements where a half mile away developments adversely impact neighborhoods parking availability. It is a real impact. We had no parking afterwards.
Larry and Martha both pointed that low-income people need cars too and need a place to park them. More than higher income people, a worker who cobbles together 3 part time jobs, often with hours assigned on short notice, cannot use public transportation to get to where they need to be in time. Add family duties like childcare, medical appointments and basic living requirements and a car is a necessity. The flexibility provided by a car is more critical for them than a wealthier person. To imply that the desire for parking is a rich person’s issue is presumptive and in error. Mr. Cooper acknowledged that some low-income people may need cars very badly, other maybe not. He will revisit the messaging if it needs it.
Charlotte raised the recommendation that parking include electrical charging elements.
Larry also strongly recommended that the survey they develop be professionally developed and not biased in terms of the construction. You don’t want public affairs developing the survey with an advocacy orientation in mind. Judy suggested getting help from the colleges and universities or Dept of Health.
8:00 – 8:15 Capital Facility Plan – Mark Russell, Joyce Phillips, Sophie Stimson
Joyce reviewed the CFP overview.
October 18 City Council hearing.
Larry raised the sidewalk issue for 2023.
Larry said that no one could say who and where the $200k goes. Joyce took exception and said that the $200k will go into design work that will eventually become projects. Staff is working on those, but it won’t show up in 2023. Larry pointed out that $200k for roads and $200 for sidewalks means a much greater percentage of administrative costs are going to the much smaller sidewalk program. On a cost allocation basis it doesn’t seem fair. Sophie said she doesn’t know the methodology.
Mark Russell said these are project funded FTEs. This is capital money, and allocations are not the actuals. If we didn’t do this, we wouldn’t have the employees to do the projects. Why isn’t there any 2023 projects? Because projects like Fones Road have taken a significant money being used for those sidewalks.
Larry asked if this method was always used. Why doesn’t the road project bear the cost of the sidewalk replacement, much of which is being displaced by the road changes and take it out of the VUT? Mark said that they need the money. Why wouldn’t the sidewalk be encompassed by the road improvement funds instead of the VUT? Mark replied that it takes multiple funding sources to fund a $17 million project. We can’t just use street repair money, we are using grants, the Voted Utility Tax for the sidewalks, we are using almost every funding source we have at some level to fund that project. Larry asked if before the VUT was passed by the voters and you had a project like this wasn’t the funding from the road project funds? Mark replied, yes, we wouldn’t be able to do a project like this or we would have to wait for more grants. Larry observed that the VUT is enabling the road project that wouldn’t otherwise be able to be done. Mark: it is an approved project that has an enormous amount of sidewalks on it. On both sides of the street sidewalks some sidewalk is missing and is a legitimate use of the VUT.
Larry asked about the General Fund appropriation for sidewalks before the VUT was passed by the voters. Sophie Stimson replied, yes, it was around $200,000. Larry asked what happened to the funding? Sophie said she couldn’t tell me exactly and assumed that it has been reallocated to other places. She confirmed that the maintenance of effort for sidewalks from the GF was substituted with the VUT.
Larry and Joyce reported that the Planning Commission asked about if sidewalk condition assessments are being done. The answer is that they are not currently being performed like they do for roads.
8:15 – 8:30 Minutes Approval and Agenda Ideas
Minutes were adopted.
8:30 Adjourn
Council of Neighborhood Associations 