Thanks,

   -Jonathan

  Regards,

    -Jonathan

Dear Neighbors, Here is a quick summary of what has happened with the project in the past month: * About 20 Vuecrest neighbors attended the meeting at City Hall, bringing up a number of issues around the proposed development and its impacts on the area. Thanks to all who participated. * The "Vuecrest Drive-In" screen has been removed from the plans. * The first floor will contain common areas, rental offices, and apartments only. No retail. * The architects proposed a temporary parking area for deliveries, Uber, etc. But this temporary space blocks the loading dock, significantly decreases visibility of cars exiting the parking lot, and is not visible from the main entrance waiting area. * It has become increasingly clear that the parking provided is inadequate, given that there are only 9 more parking spaces than apartments (even though there are two- and three-bedroom apartments), and several of the spaces will be regularly taken by apartment employees, housecleaners, etc. Further, many of the parking spots will be smaller "Compact" spaces. * The City asked for the developer to address several issues (see attached document), but their deadline of June 3 was not met. The City has given the developer an extension to July 3 to respond. * The City is planning to set up a second meeting to discuss this project with neighbors, but this has yet to be scheduled. A meeting with the City's Transportation department is also being planned, but not yet scheduled. Judith White and I met with Mark Brennan (the City's lead for this project), then took some time afterwards to look over the submitted plans. After a few minutes of review, Judith and I were able to find several more potential issues with the currently-submitted plans: * The submission to Republic Services (who handles garbage and recycling) was both incomplete (omitted the wheel path diagrams showing how little room for error there is) and inaccurate (map showed a public street immediately to the East of the project, which does not exist). * The architect provided FAR bonus calculations, but not height bonus calculations (which are required if the building is to exceed 45'). * The SEPA (Environmental Impact) assessment noted that there would be 2-3 full-time employees working in the building. I don't believe that this was included in their submitted peak-hour trip calculations. If so, this would cause the project to exceed the threshold required to trigger a broader traffic impact study. In addition, I have noticed that in the past few weeks, a larger number of buses have been parked in the layover area behind the QFC (and across the street from this project). I have contacted Community Transit (the agency that runs the 532 and 535 bus routes) about this, and shared details of how the planned development would impact their usage of this area. Community Transit is now investigating this issue and is reaching out to Bellevue for more information. I am also working with members of the Bellevue City Council and City Managers to look into updating the city code to reflect more modern "Peak Traffic Hours" (they are currently 4-6pm) and to investigate the City's failure to inform members of the Vuecrest neighborhood about the project when plans were first submitted in October. Going forward, there are many opportunities for Vuecrest to work with the City and the developers of this project to mitigate the impacts to our neighborhood. If you are interested in helping (especially if you have a background in architecture, city/transportation planning, or development permitting), please contact me. Thanks, -Jonathan Jonathan Kagle Vice President Vuecrest Community Association www.vuecrest.net<about:blank> From: Jonathan Kagle Sent: Monday, April 23, 2018 12:23 PM To: 'everyone@vuecrest.net' <everyone@vuecrest.net<mailto:everyone@vuecrest.net>> Subject: Meeting: Proposed 7-story apartment building on NE 10th Dear Neighbors, There is a proposal to build a new seven-story, 102-unit apartment building near the east entrance of Vuecrest on NE 10th Street. This location currently holds a small, brown-shingled medical/optical office, and is immediately east of the apartment building that is nearing completion. At the request of the Vuecrest Board, the City of Bellevue is holding a public meeting to share details of the project proposal, and to hear our feedback. This meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 8th at 6:00pm in Bellevue City Hall, Room 1E-108. The Vuecrest Board encourages neighbors to attend and participate in this meeting. Here is more information on the project proposal, based on plan reviews and meetings with the city's planning department: * The apartment building will be seven stories tall, plus a rooftop deck. The ground floor will house retail businesses; the upper floors will contain 102 apartments; the basement will have 111 parking stalls. * In comparison, the newly-named "Lux Apartments" next door is five stories tall, has 137 apartments, 190 parking stalls, and no retail. * The lot for this development is 0.36 acres, which is slightly larger than the average Vuecrest lot, and many lots in Vuecrest are bigger (my home is on 0.38 acre). The property does not include the parking lot next to it. * According to the plans, the rooftop deck features an outdoor kitchen, 9-foot-tall wood trellises, raised planters, a fire pit and TV area, and a "Cinema Screen". * The "Cinema Screen" faces the Vuecrest neighborhood and measures 32 feet in length (assuming a 16x9 aspect ratio, the screen would be 18 feet tall). I refer to this feature as "The Vuecrest Drive-In", as the movie screen will be visible from many homes on Vineyard Crest and Hilltop. * There is no provision for Uber/Lyft pickup or short-term delivery vehicles. They will have a loading dock with a locked garage door, but it is too small for even a full-sized U-Haul, and I expect will be too cumbersome for Amazon Fresh. * Their traffic study proposal claims that the apartment/retail complex will have an insignificant increase in peak-hour trips when compared to the current use as a medical office building, and therefore doesn't require "concurrency testing" of traffic impact. * Target date for final COB approval is May 24, 2018. If you are unable to attend the meeting and would like to see the plans and related documents, you can view them at City Hall by contacting the Land Use Planner overseeing this development, Mark Brennan at mcbrennan@bellevewa.gov<mailto:mcbrennan@bellevewa.gov> (425-452-2973). Regards, -Jonathan Jonathan Kagle Vice President Vuecrest Community Association www.vuecrest.net P.S. I have heard that PDC/Fortin Group is in the process of selling their properties (QFC+Bartell+PDC office building+Le Chateau apartments+parking lots). I will share more information as soon as I get it. Figure 1: Front view (white outline on left represents apartment building under construction at corner of 10th and 100th). Note trellis is shown in rendering, but not other features (e.g. Drive-In Movie screen). [cid:image005.jpg@01D40001.A0844FA0] Figure 2: The view from the ramp leaving QFC, towards 10th. [cid:image009.jpg@01D40001.A0844FA0] Figure 3: The super-tight path of a small-sized moving van (the two largest U-Hauls are 32' and 34' long). Remember that these are apartments, not condos, so end-of-month turnover may be significant. [cid:image011.jpg@01D40001.A0844FA0]