Planning Commission

JOINT MEETING Eugene Sustainability Commission Eugene Planning Commission Sloat Room – Atrium Building 99 West 10th Avenue—Eugene, Oregon February 9, 2010 5:30 pm SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION: Shawn Boles, Howard Bonnett, Josh Bruce, Mark Nystrom, Rusty Rexius, Will Shaver, David Funk, Joshua Skov, Lisa Arkin, and Alan Zelenka, members. PLANNING COMMISSION: Heidi Beierle, Randall Hledik, Jeffery Mills, Rick Duncan, Jon Belcher, William Randall, Lisa Warnes, members. ABSENT: Steve Newcomb, Theresa Brand, Sustainability Commission members. STAFF: Kevin Finney, Sustainability Commission staff; Lisa Gardner, Carolyn Weiss, Planning Division staff; Kelli Osborn, Central Services Department staff; Tom Schwetz, Lane Transit District. Ms. Beierle convened the joint meeting of the Sustainability and Planning Commissions. 1. Welcome, Introductions, and Changes to the Agenda Everyone present introduced themselves. It was noted that the EmX item had been moved to an earlier slot on the agenda. 2. Report from Staff on the Status of the Triple Bottom Line Tool Kevin Finney, Sustainability Manager, provided a brief update on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) tool. He said the tool had been “rolled out” at the executive management level and the City Manager was using it in his review of the budget proposals. He also related that the Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services Department (LRCS) had deployed the tool and asked Recreation Services Director, Craig Smith, to provide an overview of the process. Mr. Smith explained that each department had been tasked with coming up with strategies to come up with a little over $1 million either through reductions or increases and they had used the TBL tool for it. He related that the division had come up with $1.2 million, $500,000 from revenue increases and $700,000 from budget cuts. He said the goal was based in economics but the tool had been brought in to evaluate it in the context of the community and the people affected by it. He stated that they had proposed to develop some new programs that had a solid cost recovery and they had strategized to take programs that were designed for low-cost participants and to direct the resources toward programs that could generate higher revenue. In using the TBL tool, these actions would be rated as positive strategies for the economic bottom line. Mr. Smith stated, in regard to the environmental bottom line, there were not a lot of significant changes. He related that one item proposed to close the Amazon Pool for a certain amount of time, which would MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 1 Planning Commission provide a small net gain and would reduce energy consumption. Ms. Warnes ascertained that the shower rooms attached to the pool would also be closed and noted that some homeless people utilized the shower rooms. Mr. Smith acknowledged that this could be a social equity component. Mr. Belcher asked if they had considered the driving that some people would do to get to other pools in the environmental equation. Mr. Smith replied that he had not, adding that this was a good point. Mr. Smith discussed the social equity bottom line. He remarked that this was where “things swung.” He underscored that to cut costs with the operating budget, they were considering raising fees and to raise fees at present would contribute to the hardship some people were already facing. He said when shifting resources from the free or reduced cost programs, it meant that they had eliminated a lot of the programs that were specific to youth. He related that this had caused them to look at the cuts again, because the deficit in social equity was counter to the mission of the Recreation Services division. Mr. Smith said he had returned to the executive management with this information and a readjusted cost- saving strategy that narrowed the scope to about $550,000 instead of $1.2 million. In response to a question from Mr. Belcher, Mr. Smith stated that it had taken three weeks to come up with the budget cuts and 45 minutes to use the tool. Mr. Skov asked if Mr. Smith wanted to suggest any refinements to the TBL tool. Mr. Smith replied that the refinements had come in the conversation he had with City Manager Jon Ruiz and LRCS Director Renée Grube. In response to a follow-up question from Mr. Skov, Mr. Smith affirmed that the tool had been helpful. He remarked that it had helped them summarize what could be a more complex range of options. In response to a question from Mr. Shaver, Mr. Smith indicated that the tool was available on the city intranet. Mr. Zelenka remarked that he appreciated the description of how the three elements of the TBL tool were used. He asked Mr. Smith to elaborate on the social equity aspect of the exercise. Mr. Smith had graphed it. He felt it was a subjective analysis, but it created a visual that indicated that the budget exercise had worked well economically and, to a certain degree, environmentally, but did not work with regard to social equity. Mr. Finney offered to make copies of the TBL tool. Mr. Duncan asked why the TBL tool was not accessible and wondered if it was a secret. Mr. Finney surmised that the executives wanted to work with it more before releasing it. Mr. Zelenka noted that he had suggested that the city copyright the tool. Mr. Duncan remarked that like any project, if it had bias it would not be recognized until it was used in other places. Mr. Boles thought it would be useful to know more about the roll-out testing process from this point forward. He felt it would provide a history of it and a basis for analysis by third parties and people who wanted to use the tool. MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 2 Planning Commission Mr. Bonnett wondered what kind of measures the TBL tool envisioned. He said the commission had thought there would be an attempt to quantify the results of its use. He asked what actual sort of quantifications and abilities to weigh one part of the tool against the other had been used. Mr. Smith responded that the tool itself did not offer that; it still came down to the people who were utilizing it. He added that it did provide the process for analyzing something three different ways. Mr. Skov commented that the framework for looking at big complex issues should not be called a tool. He averred that the TBL was better thought of as a process that provided a mechanism for transparency. He thought the EmX corridor or the Infill Compatibility Standards (ICS) could present other opportunities for application of the TBL tool.. Mr. Mills supported letting the TBL tool be available to everyone. Mr. Belcher understood that the TBL tool would be used in the Walnut Station process. Planning Division Director, Lisa Gardner, replied that they were looking into using it for several projects. She remarked that they were certainly using it qualitatively. Mr. Finney stated that the tool came in several formats: an online version, a long-form and a short-form in hard copies. Mr. Funk did not believe the tool would ever be quantifiable and that it would always be based on qualitative judgments. 3. Discussion of the EmX Project and the role of the Commissions in Advising City Council About the Project Ms. Beierle invited Tom Schwetz, of the Lane Transit District (LTD), to the table. She said this item sought to provide an opportunity for the two bodies to discuss the EmX corridor selections and the process involved. Mr. Schwetz highlighted the extensive public process LTD was engaged in regarding the draft West Eugene EmX Corridor alternatives. He asked the commissioners to review the attachments that delineated the proposed EmX System Map. He stated that for budgetary reasons LTD was only able to build five to seven miles at a time. He welcomed input from the two bodies on how to think about what alternative should be selected. He provided a map of the alternatives, entitled Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) Range of Build Alternatives and Design Options. Mr. Schwetz provided a brief overview of the substantial efforts LTD had engaged in to garner public input, noting that the process would move through to a point at which the LTD Board, the Eugene City Council, and the Metropolitan Policy Committee (MPC) would have to agree on a common preferred alternative. He said at that point they would move forward with a final EIS. Mr. Belcher asked if the draft EIS would have a defined preferred alternative. Mr. Schwetz replied that it would likely include a staff recommendation, but not a defined alternative. He said the purpose of the DEIS was to inform the decision-makers. Mr. Bruce was unclear why the section of West 11th Avenue between Jefferson and Chambers Streets had been dropped. Mr. Schwetz responded that the scoping process at the front end had identified the range of alternatives to be considered and through the scoping process the LTD board had made the decision to take MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 3 Planning Commission it off because it was going to be difficult to gain enough right-of-way to carve out two lanes. He said they would be taking the parking and the tree canopy and it would be difficult to place the stations. He noted that they had heard this from the neighborhood association as well. In response to a question from Ms. Warnes, Mr. Schwetz stated that the full map with all streets included was available on the Lane Council of Governments (LCOG) web site and by a link to that site from the LTD site. Ms. Arkin noted that the State Legislature was considering Senate Bill 1059, which had to do with giving metropolitan areas the ability to plan transportation routes with an eye on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She remarked that the new state hospital in Junction City would bring with it a need to transport workers. She wondered if it should not rise in importance in the planning process. Mr. Schwetz responded that these were the types of things that would be considered in the selection of the next corridor. In response to a question from Mr. Funk, Mr. Schwetz said staff would not bring one recommended alternative; it would bring forward recommendations based on all of the feedback provided up to that point. Ms. Beierle asked the commissions to break into small groups to discuss the role of the two commissions in advising the City Council about the project. Commissioners split into five small groups and spent approximately 20 minutes in discussion. Mr. Shaver reported that his group had concluded that the two commissions should work together. He conveyed their suggestion to convene a subcommittee of the two groups. Mr. Bruce related that his group had discussed routes. His group thought the route selection needed to happen but, more importantly; there should be a discussion on how the overall system could sustain itself over the long-term. He observed that it seemed odd that LTD was talking about adding a new corridor, while other routes were being cut to reduce costs. Mr. Boles remarked that the 6th/7th Avenue option would provide a basis for the infrastructure for a River Road corridor. He added that a proposal for a route along the Amazon would need to include how such a route could be developed while enhancing the waterway. Mr. Nystrom said his group also mainly talked about the route options and the advantages and disadvan- tages. His group felt that the two commissions should play a role in the conversation. Ms. Arkin added that housing in the Highway 99 area merited consideration. She averred that in living in South Eugene, it seemed they often forgot that the people who lived in that area were there. She considered this to be a social equity issue. Mr. Mills stated that his group had tended to focus on how to merge the land use and transportation planning processes and how the one could help the other. He said they had not just talked about the West Eugene corridor; they had talked about the next route that would be planned after that. He thought the land use inventory would benefit the process because it would lay out what the policies would be to minimize the growth of the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), which would inform the transportation plan. Mr. Bruce commented that he envisioned the EmX as a network of rapid transit lines. He hoped that, as a community, they would not make a choice that would shortchange them in the end by precluding development of routes. MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 4 Planning Commission Mr. Schwetz said it would be useful to come back to both commissions to further discuss what was involved in the routes and choosing among them. He agreed that the 6th/7th Avenue corridor would have to be constructed for routes out Highway 99 and River Road. It was not clear at this point whether a 6th/7th route would fully serve the same market that a line on 13th Avenue would. He also noted that putting three EmX routes on the 6th/7th corridor could mean a bus traveling on it every minute and a half. Mr. Belcher thought they should gauge the interest of the two bodies in getting together to deliberate. He did not want to discuss routes at this point. Mr. Skov averred that they should not weigh in on routes at this point at all because it would betray the future process. Ms. Warnes commented that the West 11th Avenue route would provide the “biggest bang for the buck” and it would take the pressure off the West Eugene Collaborative and the West Eugene Parkway. Mr. Schwetz stated that the attachment entitled LPA Selection Process delineated what groups were brought in to provide input and when. He thought the council could request that the two commissions provide input. Mr. Belcher, seconded by Mr. Duncan, moved to form a subcommittee of the two com- missions to begin looking at the EmX route selection and ways they might move forward. Mr. Duncan offered a friendly amendment to ask the chair and vice chair of the Planning Commission to meet with the chair and vice chair of the Sustainability Commission to see if they could put together a subcommittee to study the issue. Mr. Belcher accepted the friendly amendment. The Planning Commission approved the motion, as amended, by a unanimous vote, 7:0. Mr. Shaver, seconded by Ms. Arkin, moved to ask the chair and vice chair of the Sustai- nability Commission to meet with the chair and vice chair of the Planning Commission re- garding a potential subcommittee between the two bodies for the purpose of reviewing the data regarding the West Eugene EmX corridor selection. The motion passed unanimously, 10:0. 4. Discussion of the Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment Project and the Draft Memo Prepared by the Land Use and Transportation Subcommittee of the Sustainability Commission Ms. Beierle reviewed the talking points regarding the Eugene Comprehensive Lands Assessment (ECLA) project prepared by the Land Use and Transportation Subcommittee (LUTSCO) of the Sustainability Commission. Metro Community Planning Section Manager, Carolyn Weiss, said they had an ambitious timeline as they were going to determine the new UGB within a 12-month timeframe. She stated that the projects would give them a springboard to have the discussions. Ms. Gardner understood that there was some interest on the part of the chairs and co-chairs in trying to integrate the conversation regarding the ECLA with the LUTSCO “piece.” MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 5 Planning Commission Mr. Skov said it was most important to the Sustainability Commission that the Planning Commission have an opportunity to ask questions about the LUTSO memorandum. Ms. Gardner stated that there would be a “springboard process” arising from the ECLA process, which was a comprehensive process that would provide an opportunity to meet the council’s direction and the state requirement to establish a Eugene-only UGB. She considered the true exercise to find a way to extract certain values around what the community really wanted to be. She felt the process aligned with where the two bodies overlapped. Mr. Bruce remarked that the Planning Commission would have a lot more “touch points” with the ECLA process than the Sustainability Commission. He asked staff if they could map that out for them. Ms. Gardner responded that she was not certain of the timeline at this point. She acknowledged that the Planning Commission would play a role in what would ultimately be a quasi-judicial process. She said there were other opportunities for both bodies to be involved both as members of the community and as advisory bodies to the council. Ms. Weiss said they would take the existing policies as a foundation and, from that, they would build scenarios that the community could weigh in on. She stated that they would select a preferred alternative out of that process. Ms. Gardner underscored that there should not be a polarized debate over a UGB expansion. She averred that this was about more than that. Mr. Boles felt that the growth management policies had already picked a scenario. He assumed that any scenarios would “honor that.” He thought it possible that the area would see a “wave of immigration” because of people being displaced from other areas because of the effects of global warming. He recommended that they create a scenario that reflected that, as well as the volatile nature of fossil fuels. In response to comments by Mr. Skov, Ms. Gardner said she did not want to focus on the quasi-judicial process and the planning aspect. She wanted to focus on the outcome and what tool they should have in place that would help the community grow in the way they wanted it to grow. Mr. Bonnett thought there were shortcomings in the ECLA process as compared to the LUTSCO memorandum. He asked what they thought about the memorandum and about what they should be doing. He noted that the ECLA process had been referred to as a backward-looking vision statement. He felt that the best thing to do with the ECLA process would be to conclude it and move on as soon as possible. Mr. Belcher averred that part of the task of community involvement was to determine the worst fear. He said his worst fear had to do with the constrained timeline. He thought they would be “almost driven” to take the easiest solution. Mr. Duncan said one thing he could see the Sustainability Commission doing would be to forget about the rules and regulations that the Planning Commission had to address and to ask what more could be done through the process. He stated that Eugene already had an existing UGB and an existing stock of homes and businesses. He wondered if it would be possible to be more sustainable if they created pockets where people who lived out on the edge could shop in their own communities, which would reduce driving. He wanted to know what more they could do to benefit the outlying areas. Ms. Gardner underscored that this would not be an empirical process. MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 6 Planning Commission Mr. Zelenka left the meeting. Mr. Bruce thought the earlier they started framing the discussion, the better. He agreed that what they ought to engage in would be the “where do we want to be” conversation. Ms. Beierle thought the LUTSCO memorandum asked them to look at decision making processes through the climate and energy lens and to educate elected officials and the public in this regard. She commented that the message of the memorandum was embedded and it might be helpful to pull it out and put it at the front of it. Mr. Mills said a person with a background in rhetoric could divine this from the memorandum, but a person with a background in engineering could not. He opined that the document was a “long winding road” and it took a certain amount of certitude to find the kernels that were there that could be acted upon. He remarked that, as an engineer, he was always looking for what the deliverable would be. He com- mented that the TBL tool was great and the Sustainability Commission should “run with it.” He found the LUTSCO memorandum, however, to be muddled. Mr. Bonnett stated that the Sustainability Commission had tried to keep hold of the TBL, but they had not made it. He clarified that it had been made by the city staff. Mr. Bruce had served on the LUTSCO subcommittee. He related that they had spent a lot of hours trying to figure out what they should produce from all that they heard from the various groups they had talked to. He found the feedback that the memorandum needed a little more clarity to be helpful. He said the implementation of policy and decisions to be made based on a policy depended, in large part, on how one would interpret the policy. He thought the intent was to try and provide a framework so that they would have a shared understanding as they were making the decisions. Mr. Rexius thought the memorandum was suggesting that there were factors that were currently not being explicitly weighed. He said volatile oil prices and constrained use of fossil fuels were at an inarguable point. He felt this was an example of something that should be taken into consideration when the Planning and Sustainability Commissions were making decisions. He averred that whether we liked it or not they were probably going to have to consider how greenhouse gases could be reduced when making decisions. Ms. Warnes left the meeting. Mr. Duncan felt that the Planning Commission was slowly working toward that end. He remarked that a lot of the planning the commission did was “silo planning.” He said a lot of the processes they went through were either constrained by legislative function or they just did not have the time to fully consider it. He commented that they tended to make decisions based on one aspect of planning, such as land use or transportation and, less often, the environment, and they needed to recognize that one decision affected other areas. Ms. Gardner considered this to be the nexus of the ECLA process and the LUTSCO memorandum. She said they were making land use decisions based on criteria that were based in code and they had not figured out how to bring these other aspects into those land use decisions legally. She related that planning staff was making a plan to use the filters they were talking about in the work ahead when they revisited the Metro Plan and zoning. She felt this provided the chance to bring the TBL tool and other aspects into consideration. MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 7 Planning Commission Mr. Bruce agreed, but he also thought they should acknowledge all of the policy or code that was before them in any decision. He said what the memorandum was saying was that when they evaluated the 19 goals, they should make sure the lens they were looking through to evaluate them took these other things into consideration. He added that though the staff reports and findings arose from a relatively objective process, there was still a lot of subjectivity in terms of what they focused on. He did not doubt that the code, within the city, could be interpreted a number of different ways. Ms. Weiss noted that Mr. Bruce had talked about the intent of the white paper to help interpret growth management policies. She stated that this was also one of the goals of the ECLA process. She felt they could do this in a more visual fashion in order to illustrate the shared vision. She thought the white paper could help support this work. Mr. Belcher observed that land use code was built with “shoulds and shalls.” He said the LUTSCO work went “way above” that. He felt their points were valid, but how they would incorporate them into the Planning Commission process would be challenging. Mr. Boles averred that there was a school of thought with some architects that people could recognize beauty. He felt that offering ideas visually so that people could respond to them was a good idea. Mr. Nystrom left the meeting. Mr. Shaver wanted to find a way to avoid the “density schizophrenia,” whereby the goal was to build more densely but the goal was rarely met. He felt that this created some urgency, in that the ECLA process was moving forward toward the goal of a possible new UGB. He wanted to promote the idea that maybe having walkable neighborhoods would be for the betterment of everybody. Mr. Randall agreed that visuals would be helpful. He said when they tried to promote denser neighbor- hoods, some people would see big, tall, ugly apartment buildings, but it did not have to be that way. He thought that being able to show them good examples of what they wanted to achieve, then this could allay some of the fears that people might have. Ms. Gardner concurred with the sentiment that the code was somewhat open to interpretation. She supported the idea of putting more visual elements into the code. She wanted to see a code that would be easier and more predictable to use. 5. Wrap-up and Next Steps Mr. Skov thanked the Planning Commission for the level at which they had engaged the work. He remarked that building a new shared language sounded difficult, but “throwing out the code,” revising TransPlan, changing state law, and working peak oil and climate change into all the modeling that would happen did not sound easy either. He called it a battle that they had to fight on several fronts. He agreed that it did sound like a 500,000 foot view to ask people to consider peak oil when discussing parking in the West University neighborhood, but he felt that since it was a discussion about parking, it was about the car, which was about the dependence on the car, and this was about a what generated about 40 percent of the energy that this society used. He declared that because of this, it was about whether or not there would be oil available. He felt that it could sound “goofy,” but it was genuine and they were asking the Planning Commission to help make those connections. He added that, at some level, this was the same discussion as the one about the TBL tool. MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 8 Planning Commission Mr. Duncan said that many of them dealt with these types of things in their “volunteer lives.” He averred that it was most important that they continually get other people to understand that they had to do this, including the policy makers. He felt they could not talk about this type of work enough. Ms. Beierle said one next step would be the formation of a subcommittee. Mr. Skov noted that the Sustainability Commission planned to work on the TBL tool further. He thought that, in addition to the motion made to form the subcommittee to consider the EmX corridor alternatives. Mr. Bruce asked how TransPlan fit into the ECLA process. Ms. Gardner replied that they were being handled somewhat concurrently, but the TransPlan was not on the same timeline and went beyond the ECLA timeline. Mr. Bruce called this the other elephant in the room. In response to a concern expressed by Mr. Skov, Ms. Gardner offered to have planning staff come to the Sustainability Commission to discuss the TransPlan process further. 6. Adjourn Ms. Beierle adjourned the meeting at 8:02 p.m. (Recorded by Ruth Atcherson) MINUTES— Joint Meeting: Sustainability Commission & February 9, 2010 Page 9 Planning Commission