Keenan Hilton – June 13, 2023 – Remove public process for permitting, eliminate parking minimums

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    Greetings Commissioners,

     

    I wasn’t totally clear on the comment format of the meeting so I didn’t register my comments at the appropriatre time tonight (not a complaint, comments at the beginning seems like a fine notion).

     

    First I would like to congratulate you and staff on the tremendous work you’re doing on the gateway. This is a very impressive planning effort with a robust process and some great ideas in the works. Here are a couple pieces of feedback I would like to offer:

     

    1) Allow staff to administer the ministerial permits (i.e. remove public hearing requirement). Requiring a public process

     

    for a ministerial permit seems like a recipe for needless frustration. It sets up an expectation that even if a project meets

     

    all objective criteria that it can still be denied. Save a lot of headaches and have this ministerial process function like

     

    other ministerial processes.

     

    2) Elimiate parking minimums. I know this one is contentious, but removing minimums doesn’t stop a motivated

     

    developer from putting in parking. Parking is not a valuable enough use of land to require minimums.

     

    3) Increase the minimum heights. This goes hand in hand with removing parking minimums to support transit use and

     

    walkability. Transit ridership rises directly with density. That is, each person is more likely to use transit if they live in a

     

    denser area (Parsons Briickerhoff Quade and Douglas, Transit and Urban Form, TCRP Report 16). Let’s not fall short on

     

    the density goals here ‐ it disproportionately supports many of the other interlocking goals of the plan.

     

    4) Allow for the community square to be car free.

     

    Again I want to end with applause for the vision and process. Looking forward to seeing this adopted. Thank you,

     

    Keenan