Planning Commission

SUMMARY MINUTES Regular Meeting Eugene Planning Commission Sloat Room—Atrium Building—99 West 10th Avenue Eugene, Oregon October 8, 2007 11:30 a.m. PRESENT: Rick Duncan, President; Randy Hledik, Vice President; Jon Belcher, Phillip Carroll, Anne Kneeland, John Lawless, members; Lisa Gardner, Ken Guzowski, Steve Nystrom, Teri Harding, Planning and Development Department; Zachary Vishanoff, Rob Zako, Lauri Segel, guests. ABSENT: Anthony McCown, member; Mike Sullivan, ex officio. PUBLIC COMMENT I. PREPARATION FOR JOINT MEETING WITH CITY COUNCIL: PLANNING DIVISION WORK PROGRAM II. ITEMS FROM COMMISSION AND STAFF SUMMARY MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 1 Regular Meeting  Regular Meeting Eugene Planning Commission Sloat Room—Atrium Building—99 West 10th Avenue Eugene, Oregon October 8, 2007 11:30 a.m. PRESENT: Rick Duncan, President; Randy Hledik, Vice President; Jon Belcher, Phillip Carroll, Anne Kneeland, John Lawless, members; Lisa Gardner, Ken Guzowski, Steve Nystrom, Teri Harding, Planning and Development Department; Zachary Vishanoff, Rob Zako, Lauri Segel, guests. ABSENT: Anthony McCown, member; Mike Sullivan, ex officio. Mr. Lawless called the meeting to order. PUBLIC COMMENT Rob Zako described the West Eugene Collaborative (WEC) as a group of stakeholders convened to explore transportation solutions for West Eugene. He said the effort was initiated when the West Eugene Parkway project was eliminated. He co-chaired a subcommittee on land use and transportation issues that was discussing the West 11th corridor study and bus rapid transit extension study and identifying the connections between land use and transportation issues. He noted that the Planning and Development Department was not yet involved because that had not been authorized by the City Council. He hoped that authorization would be forthcoming. He remarked that the tasks on the commission’s work program were not necessarily ones that would move the community forward. Mr. Duncan asked staff to schedule a briefing for the commission on the WEC. Rob Handy agreed with Mr. Zako’s comments on the connection between land use and transportation planning. Regarding the work program items related to River Road and Santa Clara transition, he said there were many associated issues, including annexations in the absence of a boundary commission and outdated Metro Plan policies applying to refinement plans. He said a piecemeal approach to growth was bad. He suggested considering updating the River Road/Santa Clara refinement plans as a first step. He said the plans were adopted in the 1980s. Zachary Vishanoff remarked that he had attended a WEC meeting and those involved were the “usual suspects.” He said the public could not communicate with the WEC and was not represented at the table. He wanted the WEC structure and its interaction with the public to be shaken up. He wanted the City to be a sustainability leader and that should include a discussion of the historic importance of the Joe Romania building and McArthur Court, which should be kept out of the landfill as long as they were still useful. Lauri Segel, Goal 1 Coalition, complained there were no Planning Commission minutes since MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 1 Regular Meeting April on the City’s website. She requested that agenda item summaries be made available online in addition to the agendas. She expressed concern that the work program was focused on many code-related projects and ignoring the Metro Plan, which was being affected by a number of legislative actions. She said updating the Metro Plan was required when the underlying assumptions were no longer valid. She said the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) update established transportation planning projects for which Metro Plan and TransPlan policies were not considered. Ms. Gardner said she would follow-up on the issues of minutes approval and availability of agenda item summaries online. She said staff would address some of the significant changes discussed by Ms. Segel and their implications during the work program discussion. Mr. Belcher asked if the council was expected to authorize the Planning Department to participate in the WEC. Ms. Gardner replied that the council would be considering allocation of funds to continue work on the WEC or other West Eugene studies. She did not characterize that as “authorization” because the department’s role would be discussed at the joint work session between the commission and the council. She said that Public Works was the lead City agency on the WEC and would remain so. Mr. Duncan asked staff to provide a debriefing paper on the development and goals of the WEC, which was a citizen-initiated process. I. PREP FOR JOINT MEETING WITH CITY COUNCIL: PLANNING DIVISION WORK PROGRAM Ms. Gardner said the goal was to revise and prioritize the work program for presentation to the City Council on October 24, 2007. She said there would be one more opportunity for further refinement of the program prior to that joint meeting with the council. She noted the city had added two items: low impact development/green infrastructure and the water quality/protected waterways ordinance. She said the ordinance would primarily address treating water on site. She read an excerpt from minutes of a January 2007 council meeting in which the integration of stormwater management into land use planning was discussed. Mr. Guzowski stated that response to the online Work Program Survey had been excellent and resulted in the identification of infill compatibility standards as the highest priority for promoting livability in Eugene. He noted that respondents also suggested other priority issues and those were listed in the agenda materials. He said that written comments from respondents were also included in the materials. Mr. Hledik suggested a scoring mechanism for identifying priority items for the work program that would establish 18 points as the threshold. Mr. Duncan suggested providing the council with a list of all of the priority items and identifying what the commission felt could be reasonably accomplished. Ms. Gardner said staff had also discussed the importance of conveying to the council the complexity and level of resources required for a particular project. MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 2 Regular Meeting In response to a comment from commissioners regarding the citizen prioritized items, Ms. Gardner said that refinement plan updates would be an appropriate work program item for the neighborhood services section. She explained that while neighborhood initiatives resulting from earlier goal-setting processes were interdepartmental and she had participated at that level, the neighborhood services program was part of the Planning and Development Department. She said the program was not on the list of priorities because it was a discrete, separately funded activity. Mr. Carroll said Natural Resources Conservation Planning under the Community Character section seemed to be closely related and could be an appropriate place for the council’s priority item. He pointed out that some of the items in the idea lounge such as refinement plans, green planning and sustainability could be folded into other ongoing work program tasks. He hoped to see sustainability more integrated into planning activities. Ms. Kneeland agreed with Mr. Carroll that planning should have a more active role in shaping sustainability issues. Ms. Gardner said it would be important to coordinate with the City’s Sustainability Office to assure efforts were not duplicated and identify a more visible role for planning. Mr. Guzowski said the connection between sustainability and planning could be more clearly reflected in work program tasks. Mr. Lawless expressed concern with the apparent disconnect between regional and local transportation planning and other planning activities. He encouraged revisiting TransPlan and the interrelationships among transportation planning, sustainability and other planning and wanted the commission to have greater visibility and involvement in transportation planning. He felt that should be a high priority under each category in the work program. Mr. Belcher emphasized the importance of having a proactive, rather than reactive attitude toward transportation planning in the region and promoting the integration of land use and transportation planning. Mr. Duncan pointed out that items designated as highest priority in survey responses did not correspond with the commission’s priorities, particularly opportunity siting. Ms. Gardner replied that opportunity siting was a key strategy, but it did not appear to the community to have as broad an impact as infill compatibility standards, which was ranked the highest priority in the survey. Mr. Belcher commented that opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards were seen as linked by the commission and the council and that dichotomy in the public’s mind was a challenge the commission would have to face Ms. Gardner reviewed the draft work program and noted changes recommended by staff. She said the description of the first item under land use code implementation would be revised to include annexations and the separate item related to annexations would be eliminated. She said the item related to public information would be clarified to reference staff support for the Permit and Information Center (PIC). She said the items related to Jefferson Westside plan amendment and LUCU LUBA remand would be eliminated. Mr. Duncan asked if the Jefferson Westside plan amendment could be removed as it was still a task assigned to the committee. Ms. Gardner agreed that it was still the commission’s MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 3 Regular Meeting responsibility, but beyond the framework of the FY08 work program. She said it could be moved to the out years. Ms. Gardner said the item regarding code revisions pertaining to solar access should be captured either under ongoing code amendments or sustainability, but should not be a discreet item. Mr. Carroll observed that the issue was complex and asked how that could be addressed as part of another issues. Ms. Gardner said that solar access could be specifically identified as a task under either code amendments or sustainability, although she was willing for it to be a stand alone project if the commission or council preferred. Ms. Kneeland felt the issue of solar access was too large to be part of the minor code amendments process and saw it in the larger context of a policy direction discussion. Mr. Belcher said he would support a task to scope sustainability issues, including solar access. Ms. Gardner said the item related to Big Box construction would be placed under minor code amendments instead of being a separate item. She said that the description of the alternate path review item would be revised to include a reference to opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards to show that linkage. Mr. Belcher indicated he was not certain that infill and opportunity siting were closely tied to alternate path. Mr. Duncan agreed and said the intent was for an alternative path for most of the code process, instead of limiting it to infill and opportunity siting. Mr. Hledik said that alternate path was a way to implement the land use code in a less prescriptive manner and infill and opportunity siting was a mechanism to experiment with that concept in the FY08 work program. Ms. Gardner proposed eliminating the item related to wellhead protection and combining items related to tracking legislation and responding to new bills. She asked what the commission preferred to do with respect to the River Road/Santa Clara transition as an ongoing work program item. Mr. Nystrom said from the division’s perspective, its role in the transition was over. Mr. Duncan said he wanted to obtain feedback from the council on its interest in any next steps related to River Road/Santa Clara. Ms. Gardner said it would be placed in the Idea Lounge pending further direction from the council on a specific work task. Ms. Gardner said that a memorandum addressing HB 3337 was being prepared for the council and the commission would also receive a copy. She said the focus would be on the requirements of the bill instead of the broader buildable lands issues, specifically that the City would need to conduct a supply and demand study on residential land; the commission could recommend to the council including commercial and industrial land. She said the study must be completed by 2010. Ms. Kneeland asked about the status of items on the draft work program list that were not assigned a high or even any priority. Ms. Gardner agreed that the list could be edited to eliminate MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 4 Regular Meeting some of those items, but asked that the commission first prioritize the high priority and new items. Mr. Belcher recommended conducting the buildable land study as quickly as possible to allow adequate time for the City to respond to the results. Mr. Duncan supported that recommendation and urged that the City go beyond just the minimum required by HB 3337 and conduct an inventory of all lands, developed and undeveloped, to determine what currently existed and identify any potential for redevelopment. With respect to HB 3337, Mr. Hledik said he hoped the city attorney did not advise the council that the legislation required a study, but did not mandate further action, as conducting the study under those circumstances would be a waste of resources. He supported conducting the study and phasing the City’s response over subsequent years. Ms. Gardner noted that the law only required a study; it would be the council’s decision whether to pursue further action. Mr. Lawless agreed with Mr. Hledik and thought the commission should forward the recommendation for further action to the council. Mr. Belcher said the public should be apprised of the study results and the City’s options for growth and asked for feedback. Ms. Gardner confirmed that the commission was in agreement that the work program should contain a high priority item related to a buildable lands inventory. She asked for direction on the scope and scale of ongoing code amendment work. Mr. Duncan commented that the code amendments did not seem to be a high priority for the council and perhaps the commission should emphasize the importance of the work from the community’s perspective. He hoped there could be a discussion of how code amendments could occur on an ongoing basis without the need for such a complex process. Mr. Belcher observed that it was difficult to change the code without a vision of what Eugene should be like in the future. He noted that a proposal to allow citizens to initiate code amendments had been submitted and that might be a topic for future discussion. Mr. Duncan pointed out that the item related to a City vision and review of growth management policies had received a top priority score on the list. He hoped that would not be lost amid other high priority items. Mr. Carroll asked staff how the code amendment process could be improved to make it more efficient and sustainable and what resources would be required. Mr. Nystrom replied that code amendments should be an ongoing process that was less cumbersome, provided a quicker response and could be embedded within current resources. He said that would require a process that was less resource-intensive and more nimble. Mr. Hledik said the code amendment process had identified many issues, both major and minor. He suggested that staff could identify those that were primarily housekeeping in nature and present to the council the major policy issues that arose during the process. He hoped an ongoing MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 5 Regular Meeting process to address minor amendments annually could be developed, but there would always be major policy issues that would require more extensive effort and could become part of the work program at the council’s direction. Ms. Kneeland was not certain whether minor code amendments should be a work program item as it suggested the commission’s commitment was to an ongoing process to address minor issues and left the library of more significant policy issues unaddressed. She believed that most of the housekeeping amendments had been taken care of in the process to date and preferred using a term other than “minor” to identify tasks in the proposed work program. Ms. Gardner said she would revise the draft work program consistent with the commission’s direction for discussion at the next meeting. II. ITEMS FROM COMMISSION AND STAFF There were no items from the commission or staff. The meeting was adjourned at 1:40 p.m. (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—Eugene Planning Commission October 8, 2007 Page 6 Regular Meeting