Planning Commission

MINUTES Planning Commission Sloat Room – Atrium Building – 99 West 10th Avenue April 24, 2006 11:30 a.m. PRESENT: John Belcher, Rick Duncan, John Lawless, Randy Hledik, Phillip Hudspeth, Members; Planning Director Susan Muir, Denny Braud, City of Eugene Planning and Development Department; ABSENT: Mitzi Colbath, Chair; Mike Sullivan, Ex Officio Member I. PUBLIC COMMENT a. Approval of January 17, and March 14, 2006 Minutes Commission Co-Chair Rick Duncan convened the meeting and called for public input. Charles Biggs, 540 Antelope Way, announced that Friends of Eugene would have a ‘Reclaim Downtown Eugene’ planning session on April 27. He said the goal was to facilitate ideas for a vision for downtown Eugene. Regarding the Sears Site, Mr. Biggs said some of the wording in the staff recommendation was too extreme. He urged the commission to look for a ‘middle ground.’ He suggested a recommendation to the City Council to defer action until Councilor David Kelly’s motion on developing a green space plan was adopted. He added that it would be premature to develop too quickly. He stressed the importance of having downtown citizens involved in the process. Paul Conte, 1461 West 10th Avenue, said he was going to recommend action for the next Neighborhood Leaders Council meeting. He listed unresolved issues with opportunity siting. a. Still puzzled about what opportunity siting was. He said there was, currently, no comprehensible high level description of opportunity siting. He said the proposal talked about process but did not talk about how opportunity siting would work. He distributed written material to the commission that provided his description of the term. b. The proposal still lacked a clear description of the steps to carry out implementation of infill standards. Mr. Conte said neighborhood associations were focused on getting effective infill standards to address ongoing problems. He said infill standards had to be the highest priority if the City wished to have community support. Zach Vishonoff, Patterson Street, remarked that 426 East 12th had been torn down and said he had heard that a four story building would be constructed on that lot. He said a building of that height would be out of place and added that constructing ‘towers’ would hurt the chances to implement good infill. He noted that there would be trees cut down and questioned whether there were laws for a possible public hearing to provide input about the loss of the trees. Speaking of the Walnut node, Mr. Vishonoff said the way the City was planning to move forward with mixed use development would hurt the citizens of Eugene and the whole state of Oregon because Nike did not have to pay taxes and gave gifts instead. He said allowing gifts with no strings attached allowed privatization to occur. He said the City require that Nike pay its original taxes and not reengineer the community. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Commission member Phillip Hudspeth noted that he had not been present for the January 17 meeting. Commission member John Belcher, seconded by Commission member John Lawless, moved to approve the minutes of January 17, and March 14, 2006. The motion passed unanimously. III. REVIEW OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR SEARS SITE City Planning & Development Staff Denny Braud noted that the site would now be referred to as the “10th and Charnelton Site” and no longer would be called the “Sears Site.” He said staff had made a recommendation to the City Council to move forward with a request for proposals for the sale and development of the 10th & Charnelton site. He said the Council was inclined to move forward with a request for proposals but wanted to hear from the Planning Commission regarding desired development criteria. He called attention to Attachment A in the meeting packet which showed the development criteria that was established in 1999 for the first RFP for the site. He noted that the criteria were very prescriptive. He said the responses to this first RFP for the site were nominal. He said the anecdotal feedback received at that time was that the prescriptive criteria were perceived to be difficult to meet, and it may have caused some hesitation from interested purchasers. He said a second request for proposals was issued in 2002 and was far less prescriptive. He said staff was asking for feedback from the planning commission regarding how to move forward with the request for proposal process. He said staff was considering a hybrid approach between the very prescriptive and the very general. Mr. Braud said staff had received preliminary feedback from the Eugene Redevelopment Advisory Committee. He said ERAC favored an approach that encouraged flexibility and creativity. He outlined the feedback received from ERAC: • RFP responses should be reviewed based on the elements and objectives in the downtown plan. • Require project specifics in the responses to the RFP. • Should consider projects that encouraged development of adjacent parcels. • Should not assume that green space is required or desired on the site without first looking at green space possibilities throughout downtown. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 2  • Highest price is not the only objective. Should consider a project’s overall public benefit. Mr. Braud asked for comments from the commission. In response to a question from Mr. Lawless regarding the status of the alley east of the property, Mr. Braud said there had been an ally vacation application as part of the ORI project. He said having the vacation apply to any future development of the site was considered, however the action taken by the City Council was specific to the Oregon Research Institute project so the alley vacation did not occur. He said the RFP could not commit to an alley vacation because it required future action from the City Council. In response to a question from Mr. lawless regarding the history of the site and what was paid for the property, Mr. Braud said the site had been purchased in 1993 as part of an assemblage of property for the new library. It included the new library site, and the Sears building site for a cost of $900,000. He said current values were approximately $30 per square foot and added that the half block used by the library was worth more than the original purchase price, so the sale proceeds and future development of this excess property would be an additional benefit to the City. In response to a question from Commission member Randy Hledik regarding the criteria that the City used to differentiate one project proposal from another, Mr. Braud said the 1999 RFP had no complete responses. He said the commission recommendation and Council recommendation at the time had been to defer action because of the limited responses and pending siting discussions regarding a new courthouse and new city hall. He said the 2002 RFP was not reviewed by the City Council or the Planning Commission. He said the reasoning for the selection of the ORI project was generally that it was the most feasible project, it had the ability to bring high paying jobs and activity to the downtown area. He said some of the competing housing proposals were speculative or were asking the City to do too much. In response to a question from Mr. Hledik regarding whether the Downtown Plan was used in the evaluation of proposals, Mr. Braud said it had been based in general on the goals in the Downtown Plan but there was not a line item examination. He noted that the Downtown Plan has been updated and future proposals should be consistent with the updated plan. In response to a question from Mr. Hledik regarding lessons learned from previous proposals, Mr. Braud suggested that bringing in outside expertise during the review process such as people with development experience who could provide advice on the market feasibility and financial feasibility of proposals should be considered. Mr. Belcher commented that there were preferred elements, required elements and discouraged elements and questioned which of the required elements past proposals had found it difficult to achieve. Mr. Braud said it had to do with both ‘specifics and tone.’ He said the City should consider taking a marketing approach rather than a regulatory approach to the sale and development of the site, stressing the broad possibilities for the property. Responding to Mr. Belcher’s question, he said for example that the requirement that two-thirds of the bottom floor be retail was difficult for most potential projects to meet. In response to a question from Mr. Belcher regarding what the ground floor space could be used for if it was not retail or residential, Mr. Braud suggested the space could be used for offices. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 3 Mr. Braud said the structured parking requirement would also be a major difficulty given the added costs to development. In response to a question from Mr. Duncan regarding whether the City would offer parking as part of the RFP, Mr. Braud said the City had a bulk parking program. He said the City had offered ORI 200 spaces. He said spaces were discounted when sold in bulk. In response to a question from Mr. Duncan regarding what would happen if an RFP did not meet the desires of the City, Mr. Braud said the proposals would be taken to the City Council for a final decision. Mr. Hledik commented that the 2002 approach was superior to the 1999 approach. He suggested having those making proposals discuss how their proposals met the needs of the Downtown Plan. In response to a question from Mr. Lawless regarding the level of involvement of downtown citizen groups, Mr. Braud said neighborhood groups had not been consulted prior to establishing previous development criteria. Mr. Lawless said involvement of neighborhood groups at the beginning of the process would be crucial. Mr. Belcher said there was value in the regulatory way the first RFP was worded. He said there was a wide range in how the proposals were responded to. He said the more information gathered at the beginning the more proposals would be able to address the desire criteria for development. He suggested that some or all of the required criteria be moved into a preferred category that the development proposal could respond to. He said the RFP inform an applicant of requirements and preferred criteria and refer to features the community found desirable. Mr. Braud said some of the development details could be negotiated after a proposal was accepted but before sale of the site. Mr. Duncan said Eugene Redevelopment Advisory Committee had discussed the West Broadway Project and raised questions about the specific nature of the 1999 RFP. He said the consensus was that the RFP should not get too specific regarding required features. Mr. Lawless said there was great value in remaining wide open regarding the types of uses that were viable. He said the options and possibilities of west downtown Eugene were viable. He said open decisions should be made about some real criteria founded on the positive dynamic impacts in the downtown area. He added that talking to the neighborhood association could lead into a further discussion on Opportunity Siting Commisisn member Phillip Carroll said he also preferred the 2002 RFP. He said incorporating references to desired features would also be helpful. He added that the Mayor’s Sustainability Initiative could also be mentioned as an example of desired development practices. Mr. Hudspeth said the City should encourage the high technology industry to come into the downtown corridor. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 4 III. PLANNING COMMISSION DISCUSSION : OPPORTUNITY SITING Ms. Muir said there could be a joint meeting with the City Council on May 4 at the Wednesday noon work session. In response to a question from Mr. Duncan regarding how much time would be dedicated to the item, Ms. Muir said the hope was for the full 90 minutes of the meeting. Ms. Muir said referred to the notes from the last commission meeting and written material submitted by Mr. Lawless regarding the presentation and how it should be simplified for the discussion with the City Council. Mr. Lawless said Councilor Bettman had talked about the menu approach he had suggested and had questioned whether there would be a variety of different alternatives and whether it would focus on how to define the council priorities regarding targeted action. He said she had raised concern over an encumbered process that stopped the council from taking specific action to focus on one or two city controlled opportunity sites. He said he had asked about something from the private sector that could contribute to the established goals. He said her reply had been that she did not want to give the appearance of offering a ‘sweetheart deal’ for some private sector developer. He said her preference had been for the use of city owned property and to solicit proposals for higher density housing and not mixed use housing. He said making incentives a possibility in the RFP would work toward creating a successful larger scale project. He said they had briefly talked about infill standards and said she had stressed the importance of stopping the degradation of healthy neighborhoods and the erosion of existing neighborhoods as well as finding a space that the city could control and use it to learn future lessons. In response to a question from Ms. Muir regarding whether the City should purchase a property, Mr. Lawless said Councilor Bettman had suggested a property already owned by the City. Ms. Muir noted that the City did not own very much land outside of the downtown area. Mr. Lawless said a possible site could be on the midtown fringe such as the hospital zone near 12th avenue. In response to a question from Mr. Duncan regarding the idea of more market driven projects, Mr. Lawless said that reflected back on the strong opinion that Councilor Bettman wanted a site that was city controlled. In response to a question from Mr. Belcher regarding how many sites were owned by the City that could accommodate 120 or more units, Mr. Braud cited 10th and Charnelton and an excess parcel in the river front research park. Mr. Lawless said Councilor Bettman has suggested the Willard School Site. He said city staff should be considering what would be more easily controllable as opposed to a private sector development. Mr. Carroll said he had talked with Councilor Solomon who had expressed that a smaller development would be better for beginning the process. He said one of Councilor Solomon’s concerns was that a larger scale development would feel like nodes. He said she had stressed the importance of something that was new and different and smaller scale. He said she also felt that infill standards were critical should move in parallel with opportunity siting. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 5 Mr. Hledik said the process continued to evolve. He did not see that the ideas were contrary to what had been proposed to date. He said Councilor Bettman’s desire just narrowed the list to areas that were city controlled. He said the commission should let the City Council decide whether the city was on the right track. Mr. Belcher agreed and said Councilor Ortiz was concerned over new people were accommodated in the City. She said if the City made it more difficult for people to move into the City then it was essentially segregating people of color in the community. Mr. Lawless said he was in favor of letting the City Council decide if the city was on the right track. He said opportunity siting could be a three tiered category of properties owned by the City, obtained by the City, and to negotiate with and identify private sector ownership and development. He said all three categories should be considered. Mr. Duncan called for discussion on the larger picture of opportunity siting. Mr. Hudspeth said the commission should continue to narrow the focus to neighborhood specific options. He said one approach would not fit for all areas. He added the neighborhoods were very apprehensive about the way the City was going to increase density. Mr. Lawless said there could be a fourth category of funding program that identified sites that were in mixed use centers and ‘beyond.’ Mr. Belcher added that the fourth category criteria should be that the site needed to be appropriate. He stressed that property around arterial and collector streets would be a good place to start. He said the City Council could provide feedback regarding which site to choose. Mr. Duncan also agreed and expressed his preference of the idea that the City Council should provide feedback on the larger picture. He said if there were support to move on then staff could develop a process for that fourth category. Ms. Muir said the commission should identify preferred options for future discussions. Mr. Carroll said he was wondering about opportunity site identification. He said if the Council wanted only look at city owned sites then an identification process would be less complicated but if the options was more general then the commission would have to provide something that corresponded to the wider options. He suggested that the commission should not be too specific about strategy if it was asking for feedback from the City Council Mr. Duncan said there could be general criteria listed with desires of the commission. He cited transit corridors, arterial streets, and potential size of parcels as examples. He said the City Council could fill in those criteria and provide more ideas. Mr. Hledik said the commission had outlined how it would identify how it would begin the identification process by using neighborhood outreach and feasibility analysis. He said that process could also be suggested to the City Council with information on the timing and the funding that would be involved. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 6 Mr. Belcher said the less specificity that the commission provided the less meaningful feedback there would be from the City Council and the less neighborhoods would understand the process. Mr. Hledik agreed and suggested starting with broad parameters that the neighborhoods had helped define. Mr. Belcher stressed the importance of being as concise as possible without constraining the options. Mr. Lawless said the TransPlan identified mixed use centers. He said those identified in the plan were the most broadly pre-qualified to represent the historic base for a mixed use center. Mr. Duncan agreed with Mr. Lawless that the TransPlan defined mixed use centers. Mr. Carroll said the commission should remain cognizant that input solely from neighborhood organizations was insufficient to get city wide feedback. He said some neighborhoods had a fraction of the geographic area as others. He stressed the importance of going beyond outreach efforts to neighborhood organizations and developers. Mr. Hledik said some neighborhoods would be more involved than others. He said some neighborhoods would be reluctant to come forward a provide input but said whatever was offered could be what was started with. Mr. Lawless said including neighborhood associations was only one component of an all inclusive set of stakeholders. He said his intention was that as many as possible should be engaged. Mr. Belcher stressed that there needed to be a discussion of the infill process and the population issue. Mr. Duncan said the commission was looking at a different way of planning for the future in the City. Regarding infill, Mr. Lawless said it was clear to him that urging the City Council to begin a program that implemented some level of control and management of existing neighborhood infill and preventative control of inappropriate infill was important. He said it should be reinforced to the City Council that the management of the issue was of the highest importance. Mr. Hledik said the budgetary issue was also important. He said there needed to be costs associated with infill programs. Mr. Lawless agreed and noted that staff would identify a range of costs associated with various options. Mr. Hledik said some method of public outreach was needed. He said the lessons learned from the Chambers project should be applied to other neighborhoods. Mr. Duncan the size of that project would prohibit a similar project for a few block area. He said there would be different questions and issues for each neighborhood. Mr. Belcher said there were numerous ways to approach the process. He noted that there were some refinement plans that were incompatible with the infill process. He said allowing R-2 development to MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 7 occur in the midst of high value land did not make sense at the current time. He said allowable uses in the code could also cause problems and cited flag lots as an example. He said the commission needed to look at what other communities had used to provide appropriate infill. Mr. Lawless said the first task was to identify the existing neighborhoods that were at the most risk for inappropriate infill. He said the process should identify those areas first. Mr. Duncan said all of the 19 areas on the list were at risk. He said the issue was to decide which of those was most at risk. He said deciding on the funding for the process was a huge undertaking but said if the city worked with the stakeholders to come up with some general protective measures and then work on specifics with separate neighborhoods. Mr. Belcher agreed and said the most egregious issues should be dealt with specifically while a common process was being developed. Mr. Duncan raised concern over how to choose the first neighborhood. He said it would be a tough process to figure out but said this was one of the things that could be solved by City Council input. Mr. Hledik said the concepts learned from the Chambers node could be used in a new neighborhood infill process. Mr. Duncan some area such as River Road/Santa Clara would have specific problems. Ms. Muir said what she had heard from the commission was that form based or contact sensitive component would be the umbrella for three options: 1. Find the most at risk neighborhoods 2. Identify general common denominators 3. Do a ‘Chambers style’ process on each neighborhood without prioritizing neighborhoods. Mr. Belcher said two could be done at the same time with one done very specifically and one done generally to see what lessons could be learned for the future. In response to a question from Mr. Hudspeth regarding how Chambers had been selected for study, Mr. Duncan said it was because the area had been studied two times previously with nothing being implemented. Ms. Muir added that there were other things to consider such as qualifying for grants or development opportunities in the area. Mr. Hudspeth reiterated that he was concerned with a general set of criteria that would fit all neighborhoods. He expressed his preference for a neighborhood specific process. Mr. Duncan said it was important to do that individual focus for each neighborhood but noted that there was not enough staff or funding to do specific work on all of the neighborhoods at the same time. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 8 Mr. Belcher said he had seen neighborhood plans for northeast Portland which had the advantage of being a craftsman neighborhood. He said that neighborhood had made a requirement that anything built in that neighborhood needed to have craftsman standards. He said one way to be neighborhood specific could be a framework in which each neighborhood could identify a specific set of standards that all infill would have to meet. Mr. Lawless said the first level of more generic protections could be a commonly accepted way to ensure that neighborhood degradation was slowed while specific neighborhood refinement plans were developed. He remarked that a few commonly established criteria put in place while specific plans were being worked out would not be hard to accomplish. Mr. Carroll agreed and opined that there were fewer types of neighborhoods than there were neighborhood associations. Mr. Lawless reiterated that a few general community wide protections to hold back undesired development was necessary. Mr. Duncan said there could be a panel of accepted professionals such as private planners could work with a neighborhood group to establish standards and get some professional front end input from neighborhoods. Mr. Belcher said the greatest benefit for the neighborhood of having professional would be getting assistance in identifying options. He said professionals should be focused on support for neighbors in working with developers to build something that fit into a neighborhood. Mr. Lawless noted that Councilor Bettman had also mentioned hiring professionals for neighborhoods to set design standards for developers that would be voluntary. He said voluntary development standards would have less resistance from developers and every application for development would not be a ‘battle.’ In response to a question from Mr. Hudspeth regarding how to incorporate the discussion into a recommendation to the City Council, Mr. Lawless said it would become a suggested item whenever any of the options were discussed that there be a component regarding the level of professional assistance. Ms. Muir said staff had committed to providing a cost estimate with each of the ideas presented. She said there was an earmark in the budget for something similar to what was proposed but noted that this could change before the completion of the budget process. In response to a question from Mr. Belcher regarding development of infill standards for the City and how large of a budget item that would have to be, Ms. Muir said the City would not be able to hire 19 planners simultaneously since it would clog up both commission and council agendas. She said citizen involvement would have to take place before city council adoption of a process. She said she would not predict how much funding would need to be budgeted. She said staff would most likely develop a scenario of five at risk neighborhoods and show a plan as to how those areas could be addressed in the course of a year. She said one thing to consider was that the council liked to see alternative options listed along with recommendations. She said anything presented to the council should include all of the options that were discussed. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 9 In response to a question from Mr. Belcher regarding how a report could be drafted that would facilitate the council working through the documents and the commission walking away with definitive feedback, Ms. Muir said three recommendations should be presented for each program area outlined as well as a clear regarding the choice of the preferred recommendation. She noted that staff would always draft a proposed motion. She expressed a hope that a subcommittee of the commission would work with staff on how to make the presentation to the City Council. Regarding population, Mr. Lawless suggested simple menu item that started a process that identified a process for estimating a target population with a framework for testing results of the estimate of population and the effect of neighborhood control measures. Mr. Duncan said there should be way to measure population as well as projecting how much new population would be accommodated. He said Councilor Kelly was in favor of that approach. Mr. Belcher said the three factors were: 1. What is the estimated population? 2. What is framework around which the population projections would work? 3. How can actual results be measured and applied? Mr. Hledik said part of the process was how to allocate population. Mr. Carroll raised concern over connecting population projects to opportunity siting and infill standards alike. He acknowledged that they were related but the council should not be asked whether to tie population projections to infill standards. Mr. Duncan stressed that the commission needed to have a certain idea of the desires of the City Council. IV. ITEMS FROM COMMITTEE AND STAFF a. Other Items from Staff Ms. Muir said she had been visiting neighborhood associations and learning what was important to them. She said two neighborhoods she had visited had raised concern over ‘ugly commercial development.’ She said neighborhoods were becoming more interested in design standards. Ms. Muir introduced Doug Terra who was the new senior planner. b. Other Items from Commission Mr. Belcher said the second session for land use planning had been completed at the City Club. He encouraged presenting feedback from the neighborhood associations to the club. The meeting adjourned at 1:40 pm. MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 10 (Recorded by Joe Sams) MINUTES—Planning Commission April 24, 2006 Page 11