Building_development

1:28:43 Regarding housing density, the county's materials for this hearing indicate that there is more than enough buildable land to accommodate the chosen growth forecasts. There are countywide surpluses of land for all types of housing, and the biggest surpluses are for housing at the 80% AMI and above, not below. The county numbers also show that most buildable land is zoned for lower and not higher densities. The City of Vancouver has two requests specific to the Vancouver UGA. First, please add small amounts of commercial or employment zoning to parts of the UGA. Second, please add small amounts of commercial or employment zoning to parts of the VUGA that need it. Where in many cases, residents today are forced to drive over a mile to the nearest shopping or work opportunities, this is inconsistent with the County Comprehensive Plan policy as well as GMA requirements.

1:29:40 We've provided a list of potential sites to begin to address this problem. Items 18 and 23 in your decision table are large-scale residential up-zone proposals in the VUGA which could accommodate modest commercial or employment zoning. Second, please add small amounts of commercial or employment zoning to parts of the VUGA that need it. We've provided a list of potential sites to begin to address this problem. Items 18 and 23 in your decision table are large-scale residential up-zone proposals in the VUGA which could accommodate modest commercial or employment zoning. Third, please add small amounts of commercial or employment zoning to parts of the VUGA which could accommodate modest commercial or employment zoning. modest commercial components. We've also identified many other potential sites in earlier testimony as far back as 2024. We would appreciate a council response in the upcoming deliberations. If zoning can't be added to any of these now, we urge you to direct that issue to be addressed in 2027 work plans. Second, we request that you not significantly roll back proposed housing minimum densities before the new plan has had a chance to work, particularly when doing so would be based on incomplete information. A recent DEAB letter raises important considerations about market feasibility, but it appears to be based on skewed and incomplete data and proposes to scale back

1:30:36 minimum density in all VUGA multifamily and mixed-use zones by a full 30 to 40 percent from what's proposed, among other detailed changes. We are not against examining the issue, but please do so after the comprehensive plan has been adopted. This would allow time to get complete