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2017-12-20 Economic Development Commission MinutesCITY OF EDMONDS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION December 20, 2017 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT Mary Monroe Vice -Chair Stephen Clifton (arrived at 6:19 p.m.) Matthew Waldron Nicole Hughes Michael Schindler Darrol Haug COMMISSIONERS ABSENT Aseem Prakash Jamie Reece, Chair George Bennett Bruce Faires, Port Commissioner, ex-officio Nathan Monroe, Planning Board, ex officio Neil Tibbott, Councilmember, ex officio Greg Urban, Edmonds Chamber, ex officio STAFF PRESENT: Patrick Doherty, Econ. Dev & Comm. Serv. Dir. Cindi Cruz, Program Coordinator 1. Economic Development Commission meeting called to order by Mary Monroe at 6:03 p.m. 2. Approval of Agenda: Approved as submitted. 3. Approval of 11/15/17 EDC Minutes: Nicole moved to approve minutes, Matt seconded; motion passed. 4. Audience Comments: None 5. Old Business: Subgroup Discussion (60 minutes): Development Feasibility: Mary discussed memo regarding 15-foot minimum ground floor requirements in BD1 zone. General consensus is this is a well -written, informative memo supporting changes in ground floor minimum requirements in the BD 1 zone and it should be forwarded to Mayor and Council. Nicole supports an advocacy role for the EDC to help lay groundwork on how beneficial this would be for the City and encouraging development and redevelopment. Patrick talked about logistics of getting the memo to Council and the somewhat lengthy process of any eventual code changes. The Edmonds Chamber networking opportunities could be used to educate and ask for the business community's support. The EDC could develop an education strategy. The process is: send memo to Council & Mayor, discuss with Council President and potentially have presentation to full Council. The Council would most likely not debate the subject at that point but send concept to Planning Division and ultimately Planning Board for their review and to send back to Council with options. Council Retreat could be possibility for a presentation. Darrol is on board of ACE and could bring to that group for a presentation. Some issues against the change are the desire to preserve the existing buildings and support keeping old architecture. Patrick will discuss with Mike Nelson, incoming Council President, regarding a presentation to full Council on January 16 agenda. Darrol discussed proposal for redevelopment at 6th & Main and how this project could benefit from the reduction to a 12-foot minimum ground -floor height in BD1-zone. The owner of this property is interested in making a presentation to the EDC as he is in the process of developing concept renderings and predesign work. Matt moved for approval of memo and to proceed with presentation to Mayor and Council, Mike seconded for discussion Stephen had a suggestion for a minor text change as anamendment, which was approved. Motion passed unanimously. Approved Meeting Summary Economic Development Commission December 20, 2017 Page 1 Art: Mary reported on the draft Economic Impact of Arts & Culture study. Still in draft form and consultants will be refining before report is released. Provided some of the statistical responses regarding volunteers, where are visitors are coming from, overnight stays and lodging statistics, community visitor surveys were very responsive: 1/2 from Edmonds residents, average expenditure by visitors is $31.47 per visit, half of that for food and beverage. Most of these were daytrippers. Annual household spending in Edmonds $500 or less per year on tickets and admission fees. Older demographics spend more on attending arts events or admissions. Total economic impact, using the State's input-output model, yielded from $24M to $84M in direct, indirect and induced economic impact, employing from 200 to 700 people. Key findings: positive impact, variety of attractions support this impact, how to involve younger demographics, integrate arts & culture. Marketing regionally with partners to attract tourism is part of preliminary recommendations. Presentation to Council on 2/6/18 after report is refined. Civic Facilities: Matt provided update. George is working on memo which will be provided at next meeting. Summarized information gathered on moving city facilities from downtown Edmonds to a more central location. Existing building is three stories and grandfathered in because it is higher than allowed by current code, accumulating inventory of City property, catalyst project to encourage development on Highway 99 could be moving city facilities to a Highway 99 location. This has been discussed with Councilmembers Tibbott & Fraley-Monillas and Chief Compaan who are supportive of the concept of a move to a more central location. One proposal would be to hire a real estate consultant to look at feasibility of movement. Is this the highest and best use of City Hall building? Change of use to city facilities in the downtown could have a parking impact and impact businesses by changing demographics. There will be a memo available at next meeting. Affordable Housing: Nicole reported nothing new after last meeting. Patrick advised that because of discussions that EDC had, the Council has added the condo issue to the 2018 legislative agenda at the state level. Darrol attended the Mayor's Task Force on affordable housing; there is a cross-section of different members. The Task Force is close to talking about alternatives but not available yet. Data based on South Snohomish County. Jamie is a representative on the Task Force. Incentives and subsidizing are discussion points although that creates problem of supporting infrastructure development. Inventory and affordability are factors. Workers commute into Edmonds because of inability to afford to own home in Edmonds. There will be more info to come in 2018. 6. New Business: Sub -Committee coordination of meetings: Could sub -committees coordinate their own meetings to take burden off of Patrick for coordination? Use City issued a -mails with Outlook to schedule meetings. Discussion on future of sub -committees based on need of meetings and/or subject matter. Will meet only if needed and Patrick will send out e-mail for scheduling. 7. Roundtable Discussion (Council, Commissioners, City, Liaisons): Darrol discussed phone meeting requirement and how to proceed. Darrol mentioned that he was profoundly moved by Nicole's comments that related to the use of our modern technologies to allow more people to participate in government. Without these technologies many people would not be able to participate. The quality of people volunteering for boards and commissions is enhanced if we can use these technologies to participate in meetings. Participation by phone in meetings for listening in/discussion is permissible until the Council acts on the code amendment. Darrol supports Nicole's comments on phone attendance and use of technology to attend and participate in meetings. Patrick has written code that will go to Council committee first and he will schedule. Council must approve code before Commission can allow members who phone in to count towards a quorum and/or vote. Approved Minutes Economic Development Commission December 20, 2017 Page 2 Darrol passed out parking notes (Attachment A) assessment of accomplishments and potential action on downtown parking. Place on agenda for discussion at January meeting. Mike discussed building south of ferry dock regarding development and will discuss further with Patrick. Patrick updated on Bartell's mixed use development at Westgate which received building permits issued today. Tourism website is up and revised, so please check out. Majority of visitors to Edmonds are day-trippers and unfortunately hotel/tourism promotion lobby tries to limit range of expenditures of lodging tax revenue, proposing requirements to be only spent on promotion of activities that produce "heads in beds". City will be discouraging any change in lodging tax - related legislation. At state level the "Creative District" now has dedicated staff whom Frances Chapin and Patrick spoke with. They are still in the process of developing their guidelines for application for Creative District designation, and the City will respond as soon as they are available. Wayfinding signage has been installed at NW corner of 5th/Main. Signage at split of SR104 and 5th Avenue is at design and schematic level; it will have to go to WSDOT for approval, will not be classified as art, will provide a welcome entry to "Downtown Edmonds." Budget passed but Council will meet 21St on reconsideration for budget amendment to add Federal lobbyist back into budget, as well as creation of fund for potential open space acquisition. 8. Adjourned at 7:58 p.m. Next regular meeting: January 17, 2018, 6 PM Approved Minutes Economic Development Commission December 20, 2017 Page 3 ATTACHMENT A Notes on Parking Issues in Edmonds Darrol Haug November 11, 2017 Progress has been made over the last year, but more can be done. A review of the current accomplishments suggests some options that can improve parking in DT. While incremental improvements can be made we need a policy review for comprehensive parking improvements including discussion of new parking facilities and better utilization of existing parking in DT. Some improvements may be by administrative action while others will take council policy changes. Accomplishments over the last year: 1. Enforcement: With added enforcement tickets are up but enforcement is still not full time nor does is cover the entire enforcement day. The Chief can provide us with the data collected since the changes in enforcement earlier this year. 2. Employee parking: The move slightly away from DT has provided added DT spaces. 3. Tick marks: The trial area has shown better utilization of available space when comparing the before and after observations. 4. Use of existing Business Lots: ED has produced common signage and some businesses are beginning to participate. 5. Residential permits: Nothing was done this year. Potential actions for each of key areas: Enforcement: 1. Our parking time is 18 hours and with 3 hours permitted that has a "churn" of 6 per day. With 2 hours permitted the "churn" would be 9 and with 1 hour the "churn" would be 18. Changing the time limit to 1 or 2 hours should be considered for the DT business district. 2. With a part time enforcement officer, we are not covering enough of the enforcement day. Consideration should be to added enforcement. 3. License plate readers along with parking software should be considered to increase coverage and efficiency. Consideration could be given to using lesser paid enforcement officers to increase enforcement time. 4. Short term parking stalls should be considered 5. We need to understand how we allocate DT street parking to handicap stalls. What is the requirement vs what do we do today? Do we have adequate number of stalls? Employee parking permits: 1. We currently have 500 plus permits at $50 per year or $.25/day. Value of parking stall in DT is more than we are charging. Moving employee parking a bit away from DT was a good first step. Now we should consider raising the price. This will reduce the number sold but it will likely increase revenues for the City. 2. Any price increase could be spread over several years in incremental steps. We could add $25/year for the next 4 years taking the rate to $250 or $1.25 per day. Quantity discounts could be considered. For example 1-5 full rate, 5-10 a 10% discount, 10-20 a 20% discount. Tick Marks: Approved Minutes Economic Development Commission December 20, 2017 Page 4 1. They work. Typically, they have added 6-8 more cars on Main between 5th and 61h. They encourage more efficient parking. 2. Consider adding more streets with tick marks. Business Lots for shared use: 1. ED has done an excellent job to get this process started. The common signage is helpful. 2. Business who share their lots could be given some incentive for sharing. 3. Discounted or free employee permits could be used or public recognition. 4. City could develop a parking app showing locations and times for available around town. Residential Permits: We have around 600 and they have access to parking closer to DT than employee permits. They pay $25/year or $.07/day. We should consider gradually raising the price until we reach a level of $300-400 per year. Short Run vs Long Run Analysis of Parking in Edmonds Edmonds has reached point in its history that suggest a vitality to DT that will challenge residents and visitors to find a place to park in or near DT. In the short run, administration and council are willing to make only incremental changes to the policies and procedures dealing with parking. The changes made to date have improved enforcement and the number of available spaces. The incremental changes discussed above while they will add to the parking stall inventory they will not be enough to deal with the increased vitality of DT. What is needed now is some planning that will explore the options available to increase the supply and the utilization of stalls in DT. The primary options are a parking facility and an increased churn in the stalls we have and increased enforcement. Addition thinking on the best way to deal with employee and resident parking will also be part of the answer. One added idea is to create an Edmonds Residence Permit. These are already paying a car tab tax (Transportation Benefit District Tax) for living in the city. We could ask council to approve the added $20 fee and give a free parking permit allowing for no fee parking DT. This could work well if we either reduce the time from 3 hours to 1 hour, or if we went to a metered parking system. The Port is likely to work with the city and create a parking garage near the Waterfront Center. This is good but will create the message that if we can put a garage there why can we not put a garage closer to DT? Our work as an advisory committee should be to advance ideas that will improve parking in the short run and to set the stage for informed policy decision issues for the long run. Council needs to develop a plan to gather public input to assess how the public feels about parking and the alternative solutions. Parking is vital to the vitality of Edmonds. We need to make incremental improvements as quickly as we can, and we need to engage the public and council into a discussion on the alternatives for the long run. Darrol Haug November 15, 2017 Approved Minutes Economic Development Commission December 20, 2017 Page 5 Approved Minutes Economic Development Commission December 20, 2017 Page 6