Planning Commission

AGENDA EUGENE PLANNING COMMISSION Phone: 541‐682‐5481 Atrium Building, Sloat Room, 99 West 10th Avenue www.eugene‐or.gov/pc Eugene, OR 97401 The Eugene Planning Commission welcomes your interest in these agenda items. Feel free to come and go as you please at any of the meetings. This meeting location is wheelchair‐accessible. For the hearing impaired, FM assistive‐listening devices are available or an interpreter can be provided with 48 hours notice prior to the meeting. Spanish‐language interpretation will also be provided with 48 hours notice. To arrange for these services, contact the receptionist at 541‐682‐5481. Telecommunications devices for deaf assistance are available at 541‐682‐5119. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2010 – REGULAR MEETING (11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) 11:30 a.m. I. PUBLIC COMMENT The Planning Commission reserves 10 minutes at the beginning of this meeting for public comment. The public may comment on any matter, except for items scheduled for public hearing or public hearing items for which the record has already closed. Generally, the time limit for public comment is three minutes; however, the Planning Commission reserves the option to reduce the time allowed each speaker based on the number of people requesting to speak. 11:40 a.m. II. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Minutes of September 14 and October 12, 2009 11:45 a.m. III. COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING AND ECLA – Planning for Eugene’s Future Growth Staff: Lisa Gardner, 541‐682‐5208 12:15 a.m. IV. PREP FOR JOINT PLANNING COMMISSION/SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 9, 2010, MEETING Staff: Lisa Gardner, 541‐682‐5208 1:15 p.m. V. ITEMS FROM COMMISSION AND STAFF A. Other Items from Staff B. Other Items from Commission Commissioners: Heidi Beierle, Chair; Jonathan Belcher; Rick Duncan, Randy Hledik, Jeffery Mills, Vice Chair; William Randall; Lisa Warnes PC AIS p 1 PC AIS p 2  AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY February 1, 2010 To: Eugene Planning Commission From: Lisa Gardner, Planning Director Subject: Planning for Eugene’s Future Growth ACTION REQUESTED This work session is an opportunity for the Planning Commission to receive an update and provide input on how to proceed with planning for Eugene’s future growth. No formal action is requested. BRIEFING STATEMENT The Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment (ECLA) will be complete in April, and the number of acres that will be required to address Eugene’s land need over the next 20 years will be forecasted. Meanwhile, there is much work to be done to address how Eugene will meet this need. This work session will introduce concepts and ideas for how to move forward with this work. BACKGROUND INFORMATION House Bill 3337, passed by the state legislature in 2007, requires Eugene and Springfield to split their currently shared urban growth boundary, and to identify our land need for housing over the next 20 years. The Eugene City Council met the first part of this obligation by accepting a draft land need on December 9, 2009. This draft land need will be finalized in April of 2010. The council also passed a motion to take the necessary actions for the City Council to adopt a Eugene‐only Urban Growth Boundary by the end of February 2011. This is a very ambitious timeline to conduct this work within. It will require an “all hands‐on deck” approach to Planning Division resources and an unprecedented collaboration between project partners to successfully meet this goal. The attached Memo was provided to the Planning Commission at a November work session, and is provided here again as a primer for the necessary steps to adopt a Eugene‐only urban growth boundary. NEXT STEPS Following input received from this work session and additional community outreach, staff will finalize a Community Engagement plan for the Planning Commission to review and approve in early March. Frequent check‐ins with the Planning Commission will help staff to refine the scope of work as the project moves forward. ATTACHMENTS A. Next Steps of Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment FOR MORE INFORMATION ‐ Lisa Gardner, Planning Director, lisa.a.gardner@ci.eugene.or.us 1 PC AIS p 3  Planning & Development Planning City of Eugene 99 West 10th Avenue Eugene, Oregon 97401 MEMORANDUM (541) 682-5377 (541) 682-5572 FAX www.eugene-or.gov Date: January 14, 2010 To: ECLA Community Advisory Committee From: Carolyn Weiss, Principal Planner, 682-8816 Subject: Next Steps of Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment This memo is intended to provide you with general information about the next steps related to the Eugene Comprehensive Lands Analysis (ECLA) project. House Bill (HB) 3337 was passed by the state legislature in 2007, and requires that Eugene and Springfield adopt separate Urban Growth Boundaries (UGB’s). The process of adopting a Eugene- specific UGB is a 3-phase process:  Phase I, The Assessment Phase- This phase assesses whether Eugene has a sufficient supply of land within the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to meet the projected demand for residential, commercial, industrial, and public/semi-public land over the next 20 years.  Phase II, The Strategy Phase- This phase addresses how growth will be accommodated if Phase I shows that the 20-year growth demand cannot currently be met.  Phase III, The Adoption Phase- This phase involves local, regional, and state approval of a strategy to accommodate 20-years of growth. HB 3337 identifies a completion date of December 31, 2009 for Phase I work. While there is no statutory deadline for completion of Phases II or III, HB 3337 does require the City to complete them and a substantial delay between the completion of Phase I and Phase III could result in significant legal and procedural issues. Phase I - The Assessment Phase The tasks associated with Phase I include: a. Arrive at a reasonable estimate of the current supply or inventory of buildable land within the current UGB, based on the City’s current regulations. b. Arrive at a reasonable estimate of the demand for various types of land over the next 20 years, based on the City’s current regulations. PC AIS p 4 If the Phase I Assessment shows that Eugene currently has a 20-year supply of land within its Urban Growth Boundary, it could skip Phase II and work towards adopting a Eugene-only UGB that separates Eugene from Springfield along the I-5 corridor, but makes no other changes. If the Phase I Assessment shows that there is a greater demand for land over the next 20-years than can be accommodated within the existing UGB, additional analysis is required as described in Phase II below. (It should be noted that at this time, the data suggests that there will be a greater demand for land than can currently be accommodated, necessitating completion of Phase II.) Timing: Phase I will address HB 3337 compliance by Council considering the acceptance of draft data by December 31, 2009. Phase I data will be finalized by April 2010, including additional community engagement and vetting of data and methodology. Phase II - The Strategy Phase If the results from Phase I show that the 20-year demand will exceed the current supply, the City must take actions to close the gap. The Phase II work will identify how to close the gap. The tasks associated with Phase II include: a. Consideration of measures that promote additional density (including examining results of current projects such as Infill Compatibility Standards, Opportunity Siting, and the Climate and Energy Action Plan) b. Analysis of UGB expansion areas (if it is determined that the gap cannot be closed through measures considered in Item a). c. Identify a preferred growth scenario (which could consist of new measures that promote density, an expanded UGB, or both). As the council adopts new land use measures, the extent to which they are likely to increase the development capacity of Eugene land will adjust the land supply assumptions made in Phase I. The City will also need to account for any new measures that decrease the likelihood of development. Any Phase II work that reveals that any assumptions made in Phase I are inaccurate will also need to be accounted for. Timing: Phase II will begin in early 2010 and proceed through October 2010. Its length and duration will depend on the community engagement process and council direction regarding the strategies for closing the gap. There are multiple reasons for completing the Phase II process as quickly as possible; including a desire to ensure continuity between the phases, holding the focus and motivation of the community, and ensuring that data from Phase I does not become outdated and irrelevant. Phase III – The Adoption Phase The final phase in this project will be the adoption of a Eugene-only UGB. The level of complexity, steps to be taken, and jurisdictional involvement of this formal adoption process will depend on Phase II results. The City may not adopt the Eugene-only UGB until it can show that the boundaries of that UGB will include sufficient land, considering any new measures, to accommodate the 20-year demand. PC AIS p 5 Timing: Timing of Phase III, final adoption, is anticipated to be complete by the end of February, 2011. Timing will depend on the completion of Phase II as well as State and County action. If you have questions or need additional information, please contact: Carolyn Weiss, 682-8816, Carolyn.j.weiss@ci.eugene.or.us PC AIS p 6 Global Vision and Local Action for Energy Security, Climate Change, Land Use and Transportation Draft date – November 24, 2009 by the Land Use and Transportation Sub-Committee (LUTSCO) of Eugene’s Sustainability Commission Overview: The twin challenges of global climate change and long-term energy security come together in land use and transportation. Our policies and investments in the next few years have great potential to start reshaping these essential systems by which we meet our needs. This short memo lays out a vision rethinking our priorities and guiding our decisions. Integrated Challenges of Energy and Climate… Scientific consensus on global climate change has generated action among policy makers at all scales in virtually every nation. City governments are at the forefront of climate action planning – and rightfully so, as a carbon-constrained economy and increasingly costly climate events will come home to roost at the municipal level. At the same time, energy experts see global energy supply and demand on a collision course, with some predicting a repeat of 2008’s price spikes coming to world oil markets as soon as the economy recovers. Indeed, many observers believe we are entering a new and volatile time in energy markets, suggesting an urgent need to revisit business models and consumption patterns. Our economy’s greenhouse gas emissions result overwhelmingly from our dependence on fossil fuels, so these challenges are inextricably intertwined. Specifically, it is buildings and transportation – our roads, homes and commercial buildings, and our patterns of land use, land development and construction – that together make up more than half of our energy demand, determining much of our “carbon footprint”. …Demand Integrated Decision Making – and New Thinking These challenges are too big and too connected to address separately. In order to frame our policy discussions and make informed decisions for our community’s future, we must acknowledge, understand and address the connections between land use and transportation. Our processes of planning and analysis for transportation and the built environment are sophisticated and deep, but they neither integrate well nor fully address the concerns of energy security and climate change. We have robust discussions of livability, affordability and economic development – but rarely by explicitly considering land use and transportation together, even less often with a forward-looking sense of energy markets, and almost never with an eye to our carbon footprint. We can no longer afford to make decisions so separately. We need new language to describe these concerns and their integrated nature. Most important at the municipal scale, we need new decision making processes to ensure that we examine land-use/transportation concerns through a twin energy/climate lens. To be sure, some benefits of new policies and investments will be spread unevenly among various groups – property owners, businesses, residents. Even so, if we are to succeed as a community, we must take a holistic and long-term view. Our social, economic and environmental fabric will be better for our efforts. PC AIS p 7 Existing Efforts Address Many Related Issues… The City of Eugene and many local entities are taking on many crucially important issues in land use, transportation and the nexus of the two. Many of these efforts – individually or in consort – will lower greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and vehicles, leave more energy dollars in our pockets, and create a more livable community. (We provide a list of these efforts and decisions at the end of the document.) …But Lack Points of Contact and a Shared Language But these current efforts to address individual facets of land use or transportation are surprisingly separate from each other. Some are led by advocacy organizations, others are organized by city staff. Some are grassroots and focused on behavior change, others are focused on improving formal institutions and codes. In too many cases, they have overlapping aspirations, but lack any way to reinforce each other. Even more striking, these efforts too rarely perceive that they hold common goals with so many others. We have an opportunity to articulate those shared goals that sit above the efforts, and thereby increase everyone’s understanding of the common direction in which so many of us would like the City to go. We need diverse efforts in these arenas, but without shared language and understanding, our work is vulnerable. Narrow short-term concerns can often pull us off the long path to realizing a different vision. To stay on that path, we have to see the many puzzle pieces and speak in common terms. Implications for Local Action: Seek Out the Win-Win Options… There are many ways to improve livability, achieve energy savings and lower carbon emissions, and serve the ends of public health and well being. However, we will see those strategies clearly only when we keep larger objectives in mind, and we have at times failed because we focused on narrow views, overly favoring particular perspectives, short- term concerns or single issues. Success comes when we can identify what we can agree on as a community. We’re more likely to reach that common vision when we engage each other with terms and examples that everyone understands. Currently, we do not have – as a part of regular, official discourse – a clear discussion about the coming volatility in energy prices, especially related to transportation. We do not yet have a clear understanding of – much less the language to describe – how local decisions impact our individual and collective carbon footprints. Fortunately, the evidence suggests that we can solve these and many other problems in tandem, if we acquire the tools. We will still have to make some short-term sacrifices and endure some change, not all of which will be entirely comfortable. But as a community, we know how to make strategic investments in our future. These emerging challenges that we identify will often mean new kinds of investments. The good news is that we will come out ahead. …and Stick to Our Principles in all Decisions In reviewing a number of recent decisions and current or emerging policies, the memo authors found a distinct challenge. In individual instances, there are often strong stakeholder pressures to diverge from plans and policies. We believe that Council and staff would be well served by being better versed in articulating reasons for decisions in spite of their apparent inequity in the short-term. Occasionally, this will mean delivering tough news to individuals and interest groups who perceive harm from certain decisions. Over time, Council and staff must go even farther by enhancing these plans and policies to integrate energy and climate concerns. Indeed, the current challenge is that many ad hoc decisions move us in the wrong direction – toward sprawl, auto-dependence, decreased long-term livability and less economic security. We have the opportunity to create instead a web of self-reinforcing investments to move in the other direction. DRAFT – November 24, 2009 PC AIS p 8 Next Stop: A Detailed Vision, with Overarching Goals Fortunately, our review of local efforts, national reports and regional analyses brought to the surface a fairly small number of common themes that together constitute a high-level vision for Eugene and other communities taking on these challenges. They aren’t always easy to implement, but the ideas represent the long-term win-win-win opportunities that we must move toward in all of our decisions. Elements of vision that must inform our strategies and tactics, and of which we need far greater understanding among elected officials and the public: • Decreased reliance on energy from outside the community, energy sources with increasing and volatile prices, and carbon-intensive energy sources • Lower greenhouse gas emissions from businesses, households and therefore from all economic activity • Patterns of land use and modes of transportation must further these energy and climate goals • Policies, plans and Council-level decision making must explicitly incorporate this general sense of direction Specific strategies that together advance this vision: • Facilitate compact residential development that fits with and even enhances neighborhood character • Increase the mix of integrated community uses — housing, shops, workplaces, schools, parks, civic facilities — within walking or bicycling distance • Better integrate non-auto transportation corridors with commercial activity • Foster a vibrant downtown that includes housing options • Ensure access to open space by transit and non-motorized modes • Increase bicycle and pedestrian connectivity, especially linking residential and commercial centers (remove physical and psychological barriers) • For motorized passenger transportation, position the community to adopt forms that lower economic dependence on outside energy sources and reduce carbon emissions Specific policy realignments to pursue to facilitate the preceding strategies: • Reprioritize local transportation spending to serve these goals, and leverage state and federal transportation funding to the fullest extent possible • Codes, incentives and zoning to smooth the integration of new and on-going development with transit and other alternative modes • Promote and give priority to green building, including building-level design and technology, site selection that reinforces other tactics listed here, and more efficient use of existing urban land • Ensure that policy revisions – for example, to TransPlan and the Urban Growth Boundary – take the maximum allowable action inside the constraints of state law; where state law fails to incorporate energy and climate concerns, seek to incorporate those concerns to avoid biased outcomes focused on the short run • Use inter-jurisdictional and inter-agency collaboration to further this vision, especially with Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development and neighboring communities Finally, we must be nimble and humble. An ambitious journey into the distant future requires openness and learning. The strategies mentioned here – and the current efforts listed on the next page – are only our current attempt to make sense of tumultuous times. We must be prepared to shift our tactics and even our strategies as we go. We may even want to take risks, or what seem like risks – indeed, doing too little is the risk of our current path. DRAFT – November 24, 2009 PC AIS p 9 List of Existing Efforts The Land Use and Transportation Subcommittee (LUTSCO) spoke with representatives of the following efforts, either before the Subcommittee or in other forums: • Opportunity Siting and Infill Compatibility Standards • Bicycle and Pedestrian Action Committee (B-PAC) • West Eugene Collaborative (WEC) • EmX (Lane Transit District’s Emerald Express) • Local efforts to prepare for the deployment of electric vehicles • Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment (ECLA) • Green building strategies currently being advanced by City of Eugene staff • Energy and climate action planning by City of Eugene staff Resources Pathways to a low-carbon economy, McKinsey & Company (2009). Available at www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pathways_low_carbon_economy.asp. Averting the next energy crisis, McKinsey & Company (2009). Available at www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/next_energy_crisis. Descending the Oil Peak: Navigating the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas, Portland Peak Oil Task Force (2007). Available at www.portlandonline.com/osd/index.cfm?c=42894. Moving Cooler: An Analysis of Transportation Strategies for Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Cambridge Systematics, Inc. (2009). The Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C. Available at http://www.movingcooler.info/. Driving and the Built Environment: The Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions -- Special Report 298 (2009). Available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12747. Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Materials and Land Management Practices, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (2009). Available at http://www.epa.gov/oswer/publication.htm. Authorship and Contact Information This memo was prepared for the Sustainability Commission by the Land Use and Transportation Sub-Committee. If you have questions, please contact the City of Eugene City Manager’s Office and ask for staff support to the Sustainability Commission. For more information, please visit the Commission’s web site: www.eugene-or.gov/sustainabilitycommission DRAFT – November 24, 2009 PC AIS p 10