Liveable Kirkland Newsletter 02/22/26

🌲 Joint City Council - Park Board Study Session

The City Council and the Park Board held a joint meeting discussing the following topics:

🅿️ Parking Requirements Reform

Staff briefed the City Council on how parking requirements must change by the time SB 5184 takes effect in January 2027. Staff is recommending an early implementation of the new requirements as an economic development measure. Since the coming changes are known, developers seeking to build less parking than what is required today will simply wait until SB 5184 takes effect, or possibly decide to build in another city that is already compliant.

The 3 options staff presented were:

Options 2 and 3 do go beyond the requirements of SB 5184, but they are closely related to the goals of that bill, and economic development. Because updating the zoning code will take some time to finalize, staff also recommended adopting an ordinance to change the city’s parking regulations rapidly, and then adopt changes to clean up the code and match the ordinance at a slightly later date.

All councilmembers favored the “early action” approach of passing an ordinance as soon as possible. 

While most councilmembers supported Option 2, Councilmember Black expressed wanting to have uniform regulations throughout the city where possible, and Councilmember Prem concurred. Deputy Mayor Arnold was supportive, but wanted Staff to assess if it would be better to eliminate parking requirements in just part of the Station Area. Councilmember Falcone highlighted that there were many requests for early implementation at a recent economic development breakfast the City hosted, and Councilmember Pascal emphasized that the 85th St Station Area needs something unique to draw in activity.

All councilmembers expressed support for adding on Option 3, recognizing that the current state of regulations make it difficult for small businesses to expand, move to a new location, or even get started at all. This is an issue already affecting businesses today, so acting quickly is a meaningful difference compared to waiting until January.

🏊 Peter Kirkland Pool Improvements

Staff presented a recommended scope of work totaling about $10.1 million. $7 million of this work is necessary to maintain current operations and improve ADA compliance, with $3 million being spent on replacing the existing wading pool with a larger activity pool. The activity pool would expand swim lesson capacity and also add capabilities for new types of programming. Staff estimated that the activity pool would increase swim lesson capacity by 22% over the current swim lesson season. The scope does not include enclosing the pool due to budget constraints, but it would be an option in the future. An enclosure would cost at least an additional $17 million.

The exact funding mix has not been determined, but Staff believes there are sufficient options. $4.1 million is already allocated towards improving the Peter Kirk Pool. An additional $2.5 million will be available via the King County Parks levy. The city can also use Park Impact Fees collected from housing projects, but this money is used to fund all types of parkland expansion/acquisition, so it would be an opportunity cost. There has been an average of $1-1.5 million of impact fees available per year, but it varies with construction activity. Finally, the city has $10.5 million worth of debt capacity that it could use. This capacity was earmarked to benefit projects at the Houghton Village site, but this has been freed up now that the city intends to sell that property.

Councilmembers highlighted that their top priority for investing in the Peter Kirk Pool is to increase swim lesson capacity. To that end, Staff suggested that the swim lesson season could be extended to include May and September in 2027(versus the current season of June through August). This would have increased operational costs that would not be totally covered by lesson fees, and there could be staffing challenges, but it could increase swim lesson capacity by 42% for a cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, not millions. The Council broadly supported this idea.

Councilmember Falcone, Councilmember Pascal and Mayor Kurtis were curious about why the wading pool renovation was recommended before an enclosure, and which would be better for lesson capacity. Staff explained that their reasoning for including the wading pool project first was primarily budget motivated. Currently, there’s just no viable route towards funding the enclosure along with needed maintenance. Enclosing the pool is also not universally supported, and would take longer to build. The structure would have to stay up during the summer, eliminating the current open-air experience.

All Councilmembers supported starting the design process for the recommended scope of work. This design work can be done with funds already budgeted by the city, and will refine the cost estimates for construction. The City will determine how exactly to fund the whole project during the 2027-28 budget cycle discussion.

4️⃣🚈 Sound Transit 4 Line Letters

Mark Mullet, the Mayor of Issaquah, recently stated that he believes that the South Kirkland Park and Ride stop should be cut from Sound Transit’s future 4 Line. This would cause the 4 Line to only serve Issaquah and Bellevue. The City Manager requested permission from the Council during the meeting to send a letter to Issaquah and Sound Transit voicing strong disapproval, and calling for regional cooperation on transportation. Council members highlighted various topics that they would like to see included in the letter, including how Kirkland needs public transit improvements to meet its growth and sustainability goals, and that Kirkland residents have paid in to Sound Transit’s budget.

📝Legislative Request Memos

Councilmember Tymcyzsyn proposed that Staff provide options on how the City could support a valet car parking program this summer, where a private entity would run a valet stand downtown and park cars in nearby city owned lots. The request was unanimously approved, so Staff will return with options for discussion at a future meeting.

Councilmember Prem proposed that Staff research pilot projects the City could implement to evaluate if AI can do two things: 1) improve traffic flow and safety using the city’s existing transportation assets, and 2) improve the efficiency of development permit processing. Prem mentioned that Bellevue and Seattle are using AI to improve signal timings. Councilmember Falcone expressed support for utilizing AI, but also the desire to establish strong guardrails. Councilmember Pascal agreed, noting that while AI has been used in other cities, it has been in very limited scope. He also amended the traffic flow section of the motion to include “and safety”. The request was unanimously approved, so Staff will return with options for discussion at a future meeting.

On February 25th at 5:30PM in Issaquah’s city council chambers, there will be a Special Meeting for the King County Transportation District. The agenda and other details can be viewed here.

This meeting will discuss the transportation funding needs for the County, and what options could be brought to voters as a ballot measure in 2026.

The King County Transportation District (KCTD) is a Transportation Benefit District which covers all of King County. It was established by King County in 2014, and its board consists of the 9 County Councilmembers, but it is technically a separate government body.  A Transportation Benefit District is a type of taxing district that local governments are allowed to create under state law which can be taxed in certain ways to fund transportation improvements. While King County has created this TBD, the TBD has not yet asked voters to approve any taxes or fees. 22 cities in the County already have TBDs with active taxes and/or fees, including Kirkland’s $20 vehicle registration fee.

This KCTD meeting was mentioned by Kirkland City Manager Kurt Triplett during the February 17th Kirkland City Council meeting. He asked to have someone attend the meeting on the City’s behalf and represent the City’s interest, particularly that some of the funds collected by this TBD should be passed on to cities within King County.  This is similar to how cities receive funds collected by the King County Parks Levy, and other cities within the County share this position.

Claudia Balducci is the Chair of the KCTD and is the King County Councilmember who represents most of Kirkland.

This special meeting comes after various organizations, including Liveable Kirkland, sent a letter to King County Executive Grimay Zahilay calling for a county-wide transit funding measure to appear on the 2026 ballot. The KCTD has discussed ballot measures in past years but has yet to approve any. The need for transportation funding has been highlighted by the aftermath of the massive floods in December. You can read more background information about TBDs and transit funding in Ryan Packer’s article from earlier this month.

The Planning Commission’s next meeting will be Thursday, February 26th at 6PM. Staff will present the same 3 options for implementing parking requirement reforms that the City Council discussed at their February 17th meeting. The Planning Commission will discuss the options and give input to staff about what they’d like to see in the ordinance, and possibly in other parking related projects in the near future, though the City Council has already given direction to staff.

Staff plan to return with a draft ordinance at the March 12th Planning Commission meeting, which will include a public hearing. Then, the City Council would adopt the ordinance in April.

You can view the Agenda materials for this meeting here. 
Written comments can be submitted by emailing [email protected].
Registering to give public comment during the meeting is handled by raising your hand on Zoom or filling out the paper sign-up sheet at City Hall if you attend in person.

The February 25th, 2026 Transportation Commission meeting has been cancelled. The next meeting is scheduled for March 25th.

Join Liveable Kirkland in a conversation about our city’s present and future! We have an active community on Discord and Facebook and we’d love it if you joined in too : )

(And if you add a picture you took to #photos on Discord it might get featured in next week’s issue!)