Whew! Between the celebrations for the opening of the full 2 Line across Lake Washington, and the No Kings protests in Kirkland and the rest of the country, Saturday was pretty packed! So this week we’re going to highlight some photos of the events snapped by Liveable Kirkland members:

P.S. Kirkland’s No Kings protest had 6500 attendees — a new record for attendance for one of these events on the Eastside ❗

P.P.S. We’ll be making bracelets with the info for the Eastside Rapid Response team at April 20th’s Monday Meetup if you’re looking for more hands on ways to give back to our community 😃

Ready to make a visible difference? Liveable Kirkland is heading out for our third litter cleanup, and we’d love your help! We’ve officially adopted two stretches of road—one in North Juanita and one in Kingsgate—and it’s time to give them some TLC 🧹 .

We’ll start at 10a at both sites and will probably finish around noon. Don’t worry about gear; the City of Kirkland provides everything you need (pickers, vests, gloves, and bags). It’s a rewarding way to spend a morning outdoors with neighbors. Many hands make light work!

Sign up here to join the crew

Sound Transit is navigating a critical phase in determining what the future of light rail will look like. Following announced cost overruns of around $35 billion for the long-range plan, the agency is reassessing how to deliver the transit system voters approved while facing real financial and logistical challenges. Although Seattle and the Eastside will finally be connected by light rail, decisions will need to be made by Sound Transit Board members concerning the 4-line from Kirkland to Issaquah and system expansion as a whole.

Come learn what is on the table and ask questions to King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci and Redmond Mayor Angela Birney. The event will be a hybrid town hall with a brief presentation from Sound Transit on the Enterprise Initiative, a structured Q&A, and then an open Q&A.

(RSVP requested here)

85th St Code Updates

The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council adopt the code amendments proposed by staff. The Commission also ask staff to add a few more things:

Kim Faust, co-president of Main Street property group, gave testimony during the Public Hearing in support of the code updates. Main Street is based in Kirkland and is working on the townhome project at the Crescent Lighting site. They are also looking to do a project in the Urban Flex district which will need a height limit adjustment, among other things.

Planning Work Program

The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend the updated Planning Work Program provided by staff in the meeting packet, with one addition.

Vice Chair Jacobson moved an amendment for the description of the new Middle Housing Focused Implementation project scheduled for this year. The amendment adds topics that the city will consider: floor area ratio; incentives for projects that support aging in place; and incentives to provide off street parking. It also specifies various topics that will not be discussed in this first phase: heights, setbacks, affordable housing, tree protection, stormwater, or units per acre. This is in line with the Council’s request for a targeted scope. 

Commissioner Bouniol recalled that middle housing developers were being outbid by single family home developers, and wondered if this scope would actually address the problem. Vice Chair Jacobson shared that his amendment was created in response to developer feedback, where floor area ratio was one of the top concerns. They had other asks as well, but they were too big in scope for this year. Developers also stated that consolidating low density zones wouldn’t change much for them. 

While increasing floor area ratios doesn’t decrease the purchase price of land, intuitively it should allow developers to get more out of the land they buy. This could help triplex and fourplex buildings become more viable, which are legal in Kirkland but simply aren’t built.

The next Council meeting won’t be until April 7th due to how the calendar lines up, so we’ll have details on the agenda next week!

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!)