City planning staff told the Medical Lake Planning Commission that phase two of the comprehensive-plan update will focus on vision statements and community engagement, with “reporter on the street” outreach at local events and targeted meetings with business owners. Planning staff said survey results and draft vision statements were posted online and would be carried to public events such as Linger at the Lake and the farmers market.

Elisa (planning staff) briefed the commission on a separate but related topic: state legislation now requires jurisdictions to allow accessory dwelling units in zones where single-family residences are permitted. “We are required to allow ADUs,” she said, and listed specific requirements the state has imposed, several of which the commission must address in its regulatory updates.

As stated at the meeting, the state rules identified by staff include: allowing up to two ADUs per lot where single-family housing is permitted; prohibiting owner-occupancy requirements for ADUs (with a short-term-rental carve-out); allowing separate sale of ADUs through unit-lot subdivision mechanisms; maximum ADU size up to 1,000 square feet; limited parking requirements (no more than one required parking space for an ADU on lots under 6,000 square feet, and no more than two on larger lots); minimum ADU height allowance of 24 feet in some cases; limiting impact fees to no more than 50% of the fee assessed for the principal unit; and prohibiting a requirement to construct street improvements as a condition of an ADU permit.

Staff clarified zone applicability: the ADU requirement applies wherever single-family housing is allowed (staff cited R-1 and R-2 as the city’s single-family zones). Elisa said the city must adopt the changes within six months of the city’s periodic-update deadline (the city’s deadline was extended by six months), and staff expects to bundle the regulatory changes into the later stage of the comp-plan update.

Commissioners asked process questions about selecting vision-statement topics for outreach events and how staff will synthesize public input. Staff said they will focus each event on a single vision statement and will post clips and summaries on the comp-plan webpage. No formal code changes were adopted at the meeting; staff signaled the regulations work will continue into the next phase and that impact-fee updates are planned as part of later work.