December 2016 Meeting Minutes

Important Upcoming Meetings and Events

• Dec 15th - Joint study session for the Houghton Community Council and the Planning Commission.  They will be discussing which options to bring forward to the public hearing in January concerning the Houghton Everest Neighborhood Center.  There will be an Open House from 6:00 to 7:00 that evening to allow citizens to come early and ask questions.
• Sunday, 12/18 is the 5K walk/run starts at 9:30, 12K run starts at 9:35
• Next CHNA meeting January 4th
• February Officer Elections (please let us know if you are interested)

Minutes from December Meeting
John Marasco from Security Properties and PCC talked with us about potential future plans for PCC store. The current PCC store is not ideal for them. The PCC Fremont and Columbia City stores are closer to what they are hoping to have here in Kirkland. Current Kirkland store is about 12K sq ft and they would like to go to 25K sq ft with community space and cooking demo area. John wanted to hear what the neighborhood would like to see built in the area between Teriyaki Madness to Shamiana.

Comments made regarding the PCC property:

• Free parking, underground parking, some curbside parking for quick access
• Concerns around traffic – provide better access in/out of area as well as within the area
• If housing is added, want to be residents of neighborhood, not resident housing for local companies
• Wide sidewalks, set backs, bulk of building off the street
• Keep the charm of our neighborhood – make it look like Kirkland
• Make employee parking planned into the development
• Underground power
• Not 5 stories

Some of John’s comments about the area:

• Site can handle more retail than just PCC
• Currently 30’ – area would go from 2 to 3-5 stories.
• PCC is owner of land
• Most likely be mix use – commercial space @ ground level, housing above
• Discussion at HENC workshop did not give a conclusive answer to how to handle these areas.
• Neighborhood should look at using incentives as a tradeoff to height increases. As an example, “only develop 70% above X stories with setbacks”.

The timeline for the HENC project:

• 12/15/16 Joint Planning Commission & Houghton Community Council Study Session (Open House from 6:00 to 7:00)
• 01/17/17 City Council Study Session Update
• 01/26/17 Joint Hearing Planning Commission & Houghton Community Council
• After the January 26th meeting, they will determine if we need to continue the hearing and/or need an additional meeting in February to complete the recommendation to the City Council.

Comments and emails to:
Houghton Community Council HoughtonCouncil@kirklandwa.gov
Planning Commission PlanningCommissioners@kirklandwa.gov
And the senior Planner for the project, Angela Ruggeri aruggeri@kirklandwa.gov

NORTHWEST UNIVERSITY MASTER PLAN
Sidebar has all the specific sections of the proposed Plan. Of special interest is the Project Narrative and the Traffic Impact Analysis pdfs.

Major highlights:

• Over the next 6-years or by 2022, an increase of approximately 370 students is projected for the Kirkland campus resulting in a total campus population of 1,600 students. In 20-years (2037), the campus student population is anticipated to increase by approximately 770 students for a total of approximately 2,000 students.
• 6 court tennis facility that will be a 50’ high building along 53rd Street, first item to be constructed
• 300 bed dorm addition
• Athletic Field Improvements including new AstroTurf and lighting(80’ tall, on until 9:30 at night) with New Field House and bleachers at the athletic fields. These fields will also be “rented out” to other sports teams. Traffic to enter/exit along 53rd Street.
• Additional new trips(cars traffic) per day from new students, tennis center and sports fields is 2,130 by 2022 and 3,820 by 2037, along 53rd Street and 108th Avenue. See Traffic Impact Analysis, page 29, Table 16

All comments to go to Senior planner, Tony Leavitt tleavitt@kirklandwa.gov

The 12K of Christmas map is below:

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