Planning Commission

SUMMARY MINUTES Regular Meeting Eugene Planning Commission Sloat Room—The Atrium—99 West 10th Avenue November 27, 2006 11:30 a.m. PRESENT: Rick Duncan, Vice President; Jon Belcher, Phillip Carroll, Randy Hledik, Ann Kneeland, John Lawless, Anthony McCown, members; Neil Björklund, Jason Dedrick, Terri Harding, Susan Muir, Steve Nystrom, Planning and Development Department; Gary McNeel, Public Works Department; Emily Jerome, City Attorney; Bruce Newhouse, project consultant; Steve Griswold, Paul Conte, Kevin Matthews, Charles Biggs, guests. ABSENT: Mike Sullivan, ex officio. PUBLIC COMMENT ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS I. APPROVAL OF MINUTES—October 23 and 30, 2006 II. PLANNING COMMISSION DISCUSSINO/BRAINSTORM: OPPORTUNITY SITING Staff: Terri Harding, 682-5635 III. STATUS REPORT: SOUTH RIDGELINE HABITAT STUDY Staff: Neil Björklund, 682-5507 IV. ITEMS FROM COMMISSION AND STAFF A. Other Items from Staff B. Other Items from Commission MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission November 27, 2006 Page 1  MINUTES Regular Meeting Eugene Planning Commission Sloat Room—The Atrium—99 West 10th Avenue November 27, 2006 11:30 a.m. PRESENT: Rick Duncan, Vice President; Jon Belcher, Phillip Carroll, Randy Hledik, Ann Kneeland, John Lawless, Anthony McCown, members; Neil Björklund, Jason Dedrick, Terri Harding, Susan Muir, Steve Nystrom, Planning and Development Department; Gary McNeel, Public Works Department; Emily Jerome, City Attorney; Bruce Newhouse, project consultant; Steve Griswold, Paul Conte, Kevin Matthews, Charles Biggs, guests. ABSENT: Mike Sullivan, ex officio. Mr. Duncan convened the meeting of the Planning Commission. He noted consensus to reverse agenda items II. Status Report: South Ridgeline Habitat Study and III. Planning Commission Discussion /Brainstorm: Opportunity Siting. PUBLIC COMMENT ON NON-AGENDA ITEMS Charles Biggs, 540 Antelope Way, expressed concern that access to the subject area of the South Ridgeline Habitat Study had been limited to only seven percent of the sites. Additionally, he was concerned that the current data used to supplement the data was six years old and that the process had not been transparent. Paul Conte, 1461 West Tenth Avenue, identified himself as co-chair of the Jefferson Westside Neighbors (JWN). He distributed a handout entitled “JWN Resolution Adopted by the JWN General Membership At the October 10, 2006 Meeting”. He thanked Ms. Harding for her working with the neighborhood. He suggested the Commission consider publish a description of Opportunity Siting. He hoped the Planning Commission and staff would plan to succeed in protecting neighborhoods through compact growth and stopping deterioration through infill degradation. He suggested the Commission look at the Chambers Revisited Project as background. Mr. Belcher arrived at 11:35 a.m. Kevin Matthews, P.O. Box 1588, stated he represented the Friends of Eugene, the Southeast Neighbors, and the Citizen Nature Project. He said citizen groups had little access to the South Ridgeline Habitat Study and the public outreach had been inadequate. The report had been developed by an excellent team of professional biologists, but professional and amateur naturalists had not been included in the process. He asked the Planning Commission to work with staff to identify an orderly process to incorporate public comments in the report. I. APPROVAL OF MINUTES—October 23 and 30, 2006 MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission November 27, 2006 Page 1 Deferred to a future meeting. II. PLANNING COMMISSION DISCUSSION/BRAINSTORM: OPPORTUNITY SITING Ms. Harding provided the staff report and distributed a document entitled, “Draft Outline for Opportunity Siting and Infill Compatibility Standards Work Program.” Ms. Harding explained Tasks 1, 2 and 3 had been completed. She said Task 4—Develop Citizen Involvement Plan and Task 5—Develop work program were underway and needed to evolve together in identifying the program goals and how public participation would be included in the process. Ms. Harding said the immediate tasks included identification of the general purpose of the program, broad agreement and a common understanding on the process to be used to achieve the end goal, including definition of the problem to be solved and program goals. Ms. Harding facilitated a brainstorm session of Opportunity Siting. • How to identify and distinguish between Opportunity Siting and infill compatibility standards. • Concern with Task 7 that one or two opportunity sites may not be the way to go—more the look constrained, the less likely to succeed; need to bring together people who were willing to develop a site; City need to find a way to make the site work; neighbors who find the site compatible. • Need to involve neighbors in the process, but they are not the only players. • High priority to adopt definitions in “non-planner” language to get grass roots understanding and agreement based on example, narrative, and diagrams. • Infill and opportunity siting definitions intertwined. • Infill standards application across the board; cannot be isolated from opportunity site; need to address compatibility issues. • Go back to original motions for both opportunity siting and infill standards to prevent project creep. • To some City Councilors and the general public opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards were inextricably linked. Although they could be pursued independently, they complimented each other. • Schedule for public outreach should be developed as soon as possible. • Visual approach: very important to have visual examples of good versus bad infill. • Chambers Revisited project method may or may not be the best way to approach. • Need maps to illustrate where opportunity siting and infill may best be accommodated. • Need to address 19 Growth Management policies as they applied to this topic. • Keep alternate path approach available to use when creating opportunity site in prescriptive manner. • Define problem before solving. • Define opportunity siting and infill compatibility. • Need for education push; relatively small proportion of population understand the process; important to get input from a broad spectrum of people. • Infill standards and opportunity siting different. MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission November 27, 2006 Page 2  o If no opportunity siting, still need to develop infill standards. • Opportunity siting creates need for compatibility standards. • Need to come back with qualitative idea of what impacts would be. • Very important to outreach to developers on both opportunity siting and infill standards. • Questioned “limited public input” identified in Task 5. • Questioned value of incurring cost for high density residential development need study as identified in Task 6. • Need to address other imbedded housing costs including extension of urban services, and other costs. • ECONorthwest conducted very enlightening market study for City of Portland that analyzed why certain things do not get built. • Was there an overall timeline that staff was working under. • Opportunity Siting and Infill Compatibility Standards have funding available through several budget cycles, but no specific ending date. • Differences between opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards: o Opportunity siting creates an approach or process more than it creates a concrete product. o Opportunity siting goal is to result in the creation of good things. o Infill compatibility standards create list of standards. o Infill compatibility standards prevent bad things from happening. • Public involvement process for infill compatibility standards should take more from neighborhood side related to perceptions and fears; opportunity siting involves more technical information. • Test sites—we do not know what we would do with a test site if we had one; need brainstorming session on test sites. • Need to keep neighborhood associations and leaders, as well as real estate and development community involved. • Need to collect data to determine net gain/loss in potential housing density through implementation of compatibility standards. • Need to streamline processes that have fiscal impact. • Use IAP2 definitions of how citizen involvement should take place; used by neighborhoods. • Collect examples of what the process could look like, including form, process, and outcomes. • Simply going to the neighborhood association for input leaves out many people; need to brainstorm way to get information out to everyone. • Large group of people would like to live in the downtown core, but there is not adequate housing to offer that. Infill could hopefully increase density in the downtown core with attractive and creative housing. • Charnelton site project may consist totally of housing that would provide information on cost of developing housing in downtown. Consultants are okay, but local information is helpful. Eugene is not Portland and has its unique challenges. • Good idea to get local developers to offer input through work sessions, etc. • Some differences with opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards the Planning Commission was concerned with were administrative; important to remember opportunity siting was an infill compatibility standards issue itself. • Form subcommittee of Planning Commission to work with staff to define opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards. o Opportunity Siting—Mr. Hledik, Mr. Carroll, Mr. Belcher, Mr. McCown o Infill compatibility standards—Mr. Lawless, Ms. Kneeland, Mr. Duncan MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission November 27, 2006 Page 3 III. STATUS REPORT: SOUTH RIDGELINE HABITAT STUDY (SRHS) Mr. Hledik stated he attended the November 14, 2006 workshop on the SRHS. Mr. Björklund introduced the SRHS staff team and consultant. He offered the staff report and provided a PowerPoint presentation on the SRHS. Mr. Björklund said the City Council had directed staff to undertake the SRHS in a study area identified by the Council. The first part of the project was to produce maps of habitats and an evaluation of their relative value, with the longer term purpose of assisting the community in addressing important natural resource areas in the south ridgeline area. The following display panels were available for Planning Commission viewing: • Willamette Valley Ponderosa Pine • Habitat for Wildlife • Upland Prairies and Rock Outcrops • Oak Woodlands and Oak Savanna • Habitat for Rare Plants The following maps were available for Planning Commission viewing: • SRHS Present Habitat Cover Types • SRHS Ecological Value: Area-Weighted Score • SRHS 1850 GLO Survey Vegetation Types He reported that staff held a workshop on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 to present the draft findings of several months of field work and analysis in the first phase of the SRHS. A joint presentation by City staff and the project consultant outlined the project and the study results to an interested and engaged audience of more than 80 people, including affected property owners, community and neighborhood groups, University of Oregon (UO) students, environmental professionals, attorneys, and other interested citizens. The walls of the multipurpose room at the Hilyard Center were papered with a series of colorful GIS-generated maps that depicted information about the habitats in the SRHS study area and their relative values, and showed the change in habitats since 1850. Also on display was a series of educational panels depicting the habitats of the study area and the wildlife found in them. A high level of interest was expressed in the scientific methodologies used for the study, which will be the subject of a discussion meeting to be held later in 2006. All of the materials presented at the workshop would be on the project website at www.EugeneNR.org by November 30, 2006. Mr. Hledik left at 12:40 p.m. IV. ITEMS FROM COMMISSION AND STAFF A. Other Items from Staff B. Other Items from Commission Mr. Belcher said he testified at the Ballot Measure 37 hearing last week. As a result of the testimony, Councilor David Kelly said he may ask the City Council to consider sending CAFHN’s project to the Planning Commission for review. MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission November 27, 2006 Page 4 Mr. Carroll reported that he attended the Lower River Road Technical Advisory Committee meeting and reviewed the draft Opportunities and Constraints Analysis. There had been good input and discussion. Comments made at the meeting would be included in the final document. Mr. Carroll reported the Historic Review Board would meet in December to consider the discussion at the joint meeting with the Planning Commission. Mr. Duncan reported that Eugene Redevelopment Advisory Committee (ERAC) met November 21, 2006 to review the options the City had recently obtained for downtown projects. He noted he had not been able to attend the meeting. Mr. Duncan adjourned the Planning Commission meeting at 1:35 p.m. (Recorded by Linda Henry) m:\2006\planning and development department\planning division\planning commission\pc061127.doc MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission November 27, 2006 Page 5