DRAFT February 12, 2024 CNA Minutes
Location: Zoom
Attending: separately
Bob Jacobs, Gov. Stevens NA; Tim Smith, Olympia; Melissa Allen (Bigelow Highlands), Dana McAvoy (East Bay Drive NA), Jeffery Showman (Wildwood), Karen Sweeney (Eastside NA), John Newman (Burbank/Elliott), Judy Bardin (NWONA), Larry Dzieza (Nottingham NA), Sue Hedrick (South Capitol) Gerald Apple (South Capitol), Derek Anderson, Merryman Place, Justin Belk (SWONA), Jim Rioux (Eastside), Leslie Wolff (NWONA), John Saunders (South Capitol), Robert Vanderpool (Councilmember)
- Introduction: What was your favorite subject or interest in school, and what’s new in your NA?
Dana McEvoy, East Bay Drive – Math. The new website is live, but they are still working on it.
John Newman, Burbank – Music/third grade band. Want more pedestrian and bike-friendly streets. The “Burbank Ditch” drains the area. County allowed a parcel to expand, may get sidewalk improvements on Elliott.
Judy and Leslie, Northwest – Biology for Judy; silent reading and philosophy for Leslie. They have requested neighborhood matching grant funds for hosting a neighborhood café next to the coop, art murals by a neighbor, and summer and fall fun fests. They are looking at collecting dues through the website.
Jeffrey, Wildwood – Math. They hosted our first meeting of the year with speakers from the Parks Department, and submitted a grant application, along with Governor Stevens, to resurface a popular pathway connecting our neighborhoods.
Sue Hedrick, South Capitol – Their annual meeting will be this Thursday and will feature a speaker on Capitol Way traffic. They will also host the new mayor in March to raise this issue. Jeffrey said a Wildwood neighbor is very concerned about Capitol Way traffic, so he will alert her.
Jim and Karen, Eastside – In conjunction with two local churches, their association will be holding a clothing swap, especially looking for children and baby clothes. They are concerned about proposed closure of Madison school. The Board will be having board training and reviewing their bylaws to become a 501(c)(3) organization.
Justin, Southwest – They requested matching grant funds to use for re-engaging neighbors, especially focused on renters.
Derek Anderson, Merryman Place – creative writing was favorite subject. He’s new to CNA. Issues include turnover on their board, updating their bylaws, and mailbox security.
Larry, Nottingham – discussed planning for a harvest/heritage event (e.g., a potluck dinner with food from your family’s background), and the impact of inflation on their HOA costs. The idea of an online Q&A or training session was suggested.
Bob Jacobs, Governor Stevens – Their annual Easter egg hunt in Trillium Park will be held Saturday, March 23.
Gerald Apple, South Capitol – He was interested in traffic safety in school, since his father was a state patrolman, and his mother was a teacher. Their association has applied for a matching grant to fund their annual fall picnic.
- City Council report.
New council member, Robert Vanderpool, was a member of the city’s bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee and will serve on the land use and transportation council committees. His background is history and policy. He is getting up to speed on issues, for instance reading the Capital Mall Triangle plan. There are so many details to consider e.g. budgets and funding, staff, competing priorities, etc. He believes that making the right investments in infrastructure (e.g. sidewalks and bike lanes) can help people switch their mode of transportation by making it safer and more convenient. He invited folks to communicate with him at any time.
- MOU rewrite
Tim Smith, Leonard Bauer, and two council members are reviewing possible changes based on previous city council discussion. Larry reached out to city staff and heard that language changes may be on hold pending the current comprehensive plan reviews that also have equity and engagement elements. Tim said that the city plans on reaching out to neighborhoods at the end of the quarter. Larry suggested that since a sidewalk study is underway at the city, the proposal for a forum on that topic could wait until later.
- City Development report
Tim Smith from the City planning staff highlighted several projects, including:
- A condo project on Water Street with land use approval for 18 units in a 6-story building in the current parking lot by Olympia Supply and Octapas.
- Lansdale Point Apartments, a low-income housing project with 162 units expected to be occupied within 6 to 8 months,
- A proposal to convert the current Olympia Hotel at Capitol Lake (2300 Evergreen Park Dr. SW) from a hotel to apartments will require changing the zoning from commercial to residential, so will go to City Council for approval.
- 16 town home subdivision has been approved on Middle Street SE, with conditions attached.
- A proposed cat café has run into a couple obstacles: the Health Department had concerns about the cats interacting with customers so they will be in a separate room, and it may have to be organized as a non-profit to allow adoptions.
- There were questions about the occupancy rate of new apartment buildings downtown. Tim didn’t have data, but thought they were relatively full.
- Larry wondered about the effect of multi-family housing on school enrollment as what is being approved is seldom large enough to house families with children, as noted by the Olympia School District analysis.
- Question: Will there be more condominium development? We’ll see. There are risks and legal issues. Before Covid, the Rants Group proposed condos downtown, but potential prices didn’t attract customers.
- Meeting participants also discussed school impact fees for downtown, multifamily projects and housing affordability.
- New CNA officers.
Karen Sweeney was elected as the Vice-Chair of the CNA. Gerald Apple may serve as programs and events coordinator; Larry will provide him with a position description.
- Sidewalk news
There is $100,000 funding in the city budget for a sidewalk study, and new coordinator has been hired. The plan is to hire a contractor in the spring, with results expected in the fall. There is also $500,000 for sidewalk repair which will be focused on downtown and major transit routes.
The Sidewalk application for locating and documenting sidewalk issues on cell phones is ready to be released to neighborhoods to start collecting data. Larry provided a presentation showing links to dashboards, map results example, and two instruction manuals (a quick start and a full version). He proposed a phased roll-out to interested Neighborhood Associations that would include a presentation to the RNA, and online training.
Justin asked: Will early entries merge into the latest version? Yes. Will testing data be cleaned up? Probably. Will there be posting controls to ensure quality of data? That is planned.
Leslie asked about the relationship between the city’s study and data collected by the app: The city study will be an engineering study involving a camera-equipped wheeled device and will include estimated costs. The phone application will inform the city of specific neighborhood details, e.g. if the sidewalk is used by students going to school or involves ADA access. Since the sidewalk app displays data on the same digital map that the city uses, it should be possible to layer data. Melissa asked about the learning curve for using the app. Larry said that once installed on a phone, he thought it would take about two minutes to learn.
- Reports
Neighborhood Matching Grant applications are in, and the total is very close to the budgeted amount. Melissa said she was able to upload a map, presumably as part of this program and others said that it was a major improvement and appreciated that the word limitation forced them to be concise in their request.
Comprehensive Planning activity: Larry suggested that if any members read an element of the plan, it would be nice if they could write a brief summary of what is in it that would be informative from a neighborhood perspective.
- Future meeting topics
Judy said it might be nice to hear about the Capitol Mall Triangle sub-area plan.
Members discussed challenges related to maintaining tree-lined sidewalks. Tim Smith said that the city has applied for grants to develop an urban forestry management plan and takes responsibility for certain trees. Gerald Apple raised concerns about tree limbs causing damage to roofs and suggested that the city should take more responsibility for their maintenance. Sue Hedrick expressed her frustration over the city’s stance on the matter, as she had to bear the cost of trimming trees planted by the city.
The January meeting minutes were adopted.
Next steps
• Tim will check with Mike Reid for details on occupancy rates and school impact fees.
• Wildwood and South Capitol neighborhoods will consider joining forces around Capitol Way traffic.
• Learn about the Spokane neighborhood approach.
• Justin will work on getting the word out about the sidewalk survey in his neighborhood association.
• CNA will send out the online sidewalk application training information.
Council of Neighborhood Associations 