Title
Preliminary 2025-2030 Capital Facilities Plan - Deliberations
Recommended Action
Move to approve the Capital Facilities Plan, 2025-2030 Financial Plan and forward a comment letter to the City Council.
Report
Issue:
Whether to approve the Capital Facilities Plan, 2025-2030 Financial Plan and forward a comment letter to the City Council.
Staff Contact:
Casey Schaufler, Associate Planner, Community Planning and Development, 360.753.8254
Presenter(s):
Casey Schaufler, Associate Planner, Community Planning and Development
Background and Analysis:
The Capital Facilities Plan (CFP) is a Chapter in the City’s 20-year Comprehensive Plan adopted by Council in 2014. The CFP portion of the Plan is updated annually.
The CFP identifies which capital facilities are necessary to support development and/or growth, as well as infrastructure improvements needed in our community. Most projects listed are directly related to the applicable master plan, such as the Parks, Arts and Recreation Plan, the Storm and Surface Water Plan, the Transportation Master Plan, and other similar plans. The Comprehensive Plan covers a 20-year time horizon; however, the Preliminary CFP, 2025-2030 Financial Plan is a 6-year financial plan. It is required by the Growth Management Act and includes specific projects, cost estimates, funding sources and strategies to implement the plan.
City staff annually reviews and updates the 6-year plan to ensure it can fund and implement the comprehensive plan vision, showing how the city will provide governmental services at adopted levels of service standards for the existing and projected population growth in the City and Urban Growth Area.
The Commission is responsible for reviewing the plan for consistency with the other chapters of the Comprehensive Plan, holding a Public Hearing, and providing comments to the City Council. City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the Preliminary CFP in October, with planned adoption of the in December (as may be amended by the Council).
The Preliminary 2025-2030 CFP was posted on the City of Olympia’s budget and financial webpage by August 5, 2024. The Olympia Planning Commission received an informational brief on August 5, 2024. Following the brief, the Commission selected three Commissioners to serve on the Planning Commission Finance Subcommittee. The Finance Subcommittee met to review the Preliminary 2025-2030 CFP in three separate meetings, one of which included staff chapter contributors to answer questions and receive feedback from Commissioners. A Question and Answer document has been attached to this staff report that includes Subcommittee questions and staff responses.
The full Commission held a public hearing on the CFP on September 16, 2024, to solicit feedback from the public about the plan. The Finance Subcommittee soon thereafter prepared the draft comment letter attached to this report. City Council is scheduled to hold a Public Hearing on October 29, with planned adoption of the updated CFP and Financial Plan in December.
Climate Analysis:
The wide variety of projects included in the CFP, to occur over a number of years, can make it challenging to assess changes to emissions. Overall, the projects proposed help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by addressing energy use in city-owned buildings, transportation projects that also benefit bicyclists and pedestrians, and projects designed to increase capacity and efficiency or our drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems.
By continuing to serve our community members, as well as accommodating new growth, within the existing City limits and urban growth areas, we are working to create a compact and urban community. This helps us reduce emissions from the transportation sector by promoting active forms of transportation and providing for shorter trips required in order to meet our daily needs. It allows for the delivery of drinking water, sanitary sewer, and stormwater treatment facilities in a contained, compact area which is more efficient and costs less to serve than it would otherwise.
The CFP supports the following portions of the Climate Mitigation Plan:
• Reduce energy use in existing buildings.
• Reduce energy use in new construction or redevelopment. The new maintenance facility for Waste ReSources will meet or exceed current energy efficiency requirements.
• Helps implement land use policies that increase urban density and reduce urban sprawl. Compact, walkable communities help increase urban density and reduce sprawl. The CFP includes several transportation projects that support compact environments for bicyclists and pedestrians.
• Increase the efficiency of the transportation system. The variety of multimodal transportation improvements in the CFP aim to provide greater mobility options and consider people trips rather than volume to capacity ratios for automobiles. This considers efficiency of the whole system. It also supports the related strategy of increasing the use of active forms of travel, such as walking and biking.
• Increase the use of public transit. Sidewalks, bicycle lanes, safety improvements and streetlights all support use of public transit.
• Increase the efficiency of water and wastewater infrastructure. The CFP includes replacement of aging and small diameter pipes and projects that address seismic issues.
• Divert more solid waste from landfills. The new Waste ReSources facility will help the city capture more recyclable materials that would otherwise go to the landfill.
While not every project will directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by providing the infrastructure and services necessary to support our existing community and anticipated growth within the growth boundary, we can serve a greater number of people efficiently and compactly, while also providing parks, open spaces, and fire protection.
Equity Analysis:
Equity is considered as the master plans the capital projects generally come from are developed. In addition, equity issues are considered during budgeting decision making. The City strives to balance equity in its capital projects by including projects in various parts of the City, across multiple types of projects (transportation, parks, drinking water, etc.), and by improving accessibility in City facilities (ADA Transition Plan for accessibility). This work is done within the constraints of the funding sources and the limitations associated with many of them.
Some of the high level data that is considered is that in Olympia, roughly 37% of all households are cost burdened, with almost half of those households being severely cost-burdened. BIPOC members of our community are more likely to be cost-burdened than others. Approximately 42% of Olympians have a household income of less than $50,000. Approximately 15% of our population live in poverty. In 2021, 13.5% of people in Olympia have a disability, up from 12.9% in 2016.
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
Specific neighborhood or community interests are unknown. The Preliminary CFP 2025-2030 Financial Plan was released on August 5 and written public comments have not yet been received. One person provided comment during the public comment portion of the finance subcommittee meeting held on August 12, 2024. During the review of last year’s CFP, the majority of comments received were related to sidewalk issues such as maintenance and repair, as well as the desire for more sidewalks in the City. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on September 16th, where no comments were provided from the public. Additionally, the City Council will hold an additional public hearing on October 29th.
City staff works closely with the Bicycle, Pedestrian Advisory Committee, the Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee, and the Utility Advisory Committee to identify and prioritize projects in the CFP. These committees are likely to provide comments to the City Council as well. Last year, the majority of public comments received were related to sidewalk issues.
Options:
1. Finalize a comment letter for the City Council on the Preliminary CFP, 2025-2030 Financial Plan.
2. Finalize a comment letter for the City Council on the Preliminary CFP, 2025-2030 Financial Plan, identifying specific changes suggested for this and future CFPs.
3. Do not provide a comment letter for the City Council on the Preliminary CFP, 2025-2030 Financial Plan.
Financial Impact:
The CFP identifies multiple projects, includes project estimates, and identifies funding sources for capital projects. The plan includes projects totaling millions of dollars. Specific details are included in the Preliminary CFP.
Attachments:
Draft Comment Letter
Budget webpage
Subcommittee Q&A