Planning Commission

AGENDA Meeting Location: Sloat Room—Atrium Building Phone: 541-682-5481 99 W. 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 hour notice prior to the meeting. Spanish-language interpretation will also be provided with 48 hour notice. To arrange for these services, contact the Planning Division at 541-682-5675. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2017 – REGULAR MEETING (11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.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. II. WORK SESSION: URBAN RESERVES Staff: Terri Harding, 541-682-5635 III. ASSIGNMENTS FOR COMMITTEES, LIAISONS & PROJECT RESOURCES Staff: Robin Hostick, 541-682-5507 IV. ITEMS FROM COMMISSION AND STAFF A. Other Items from Staff B. Other Items from Commission C. Learning: How are we doing? Commissioners: Steven Baker; John Barofsky (Chair); John Jaworski; Elliot Becker; Brianna Nicolello (Vice-Chair); William Randall; Kristen Taylor  AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY November 27, 2017 To: Eugene Planning Commission From: Terri Harding, City of Eugene Planning Division Subject: Envision Eugene Implementation: Urban Reserves Planning ISSUE STATEMENT This work session is an opportunity to provide an introduction and overview of planning for Urban Reserves to the Planning Commission. No action is requested. BACKGROUND The Eugene City Council and Lane County Board of Commissioners recently adopted a new urban growth boundary (UGB) for the City of Eugene. The new UGB includes enough land for our community’s needs through 2032, and begins to implement the ideas and strategies contained within Envision Eugene. How we grow beyond 2032 is a question of interest to the City and broader community, as we all care about keeping our city a great place to live. The seven pillars of Envision Eugene will serve as a guiding framework for crafting a plan for longer term growth through the urban reserves process. Why Plan for Urban Reserves? Eugene’s future rate of population growth is uncertain, and our best predictions are likely to be wrong. If we do grow faster than anticipated, we want to be prepared with a plan to grow in the best places and in the ways that best align with our community values. Currently, future UGB expansions in Eugene would likely be limited by state law to “exception areas,” or lands that are already developed to some degree. The problem is, studies show that most of these lands fall short of important goals and may not meet our community’s needs. For example, they may be unaffordable due to the high cost of providing utilities such as water and sewer, and offer poor access to neighborhood amenities and public services such as transit. This is an urgent problem because our City Council has directed us to re-examine our UGB three years after our current, proposed UGB is finalized (pending). This direction says we should use the most recent population forecast available at the time, which we anticipate will show a significantly higher 20-year population for Eugene1 than we are currently considering. If it turns out we have a need to expand at that time and Council chooses to do so, we would most likely have no choice but to expand onto the above-described exception lands (shown as Priority 2 on the map in Attachment A). 1 The 2009 Lane County-adopted population forecast used in Eugene’s current UGB adoption process shows about 34,000 new residents in the 20 year period of 2012-2032; the 2015 PSU population forecast shows about 40,000 new residents in the 20-year period of 2015-2035. State law provides a possible solution by allowing cities to designate lands outside the adopted UGB as “urban reserves.” This is a special designation for lands outside the UGB that can be considered a first priority if and when a city needs to expand its UGB for a growing population. State law allows cities to plan for up to 50 years of projected population growth through urban reserves, meaning up to 30 years beyond the adopted (20-year) UGB. Similar to a UGB, urban reserves are supposed to include land needed for housing and jobs, as well as public lands such as parks, schools and other services. Land designated as urban reserves remains rural land, and cannot be urbanized, unless it is brought into a city’s UGB through the formal process for UGB expansion. The most recent Portland State University forecast (2015) says Eugene’s population will grow by about 90,000 people between 2015 and 2065. If and when it is finalized, our current UGB will plan for about 34,000 more people. Under the 2015 forecast, Eugene would be allowed to designate urban reserves needed to serve up to an additional 56,000 people. With urban reserves in place, our community could work within those reserves – according to state law – to identify lands for UGB expansion that better meet our community’s long-term needs and values. For this reason, Council has directed staff to prepare urban reserves for consideration within two (2) years of finalizing our current UGB. This timeline presumes that we will complete the urban reserves adoption process before the City Council re-visits the UGB three (3) years after finalizing our current UGB. The intent is to provide Council with better options for expansion if they choose to do so at the three-year review. Another important problem we face in planning for our future is land speculation. Without urban reserves in place, rural property owners outside Eugene’s UGB don’t know whether or not their property may become an option for future expansion. Our state planning goals say we should support farm and forest uses, however some owners are unsure if they should continue investing in those uses (for example new farm infrastructure) if the property may be urbanized. Or, the price of land outside the UGB may go up if investors buy the land hoping it will be urbanized someday. Urban reserves can help land owners surrounding our city plan for the future by clarifying which properties will be reserved for possible urban use and which ones will not. Similarly, local government agencies such as Eugene, Lane County, and other service providers like special water and fire districts are faced with uncertainty. Once urban reserves are established, our communities will be better able to plan for the costs, agreements, and coordination needed to serve future neighborhoods with public facilities and services. If we do prepare urban reserves, we can consider the full range of desired outcomes in our future planning, such as building new 20-minute neighborhoods with a mix of housing types affordable to all income levels. Eugene’s future neighborhoods can be located and designed so that transportation facilities and public utilities are provided in a cost efficient manner that aligns with the seven pillars. An important community benefit is assurance that the values that guided Envision Eugene and the establishment of the 2032 UGB will continue to guide development of future neighborhoods, so that all community members can access the housing, jobs, commercial services, schools and parks they need into the future. Any future UGB expansions onto urban reserve lands will still be guided by state law, requiring a rigorous study of 20 year land needs responding to up-to-date population forecasts and growth monitoring reports produced by the City’s new growth monitoring program. We can’t prepare for growth and change without alignment with our County partners, surrounding rural residents, and a myriad of utility and special district service providers. The City is committed to the deep involvement of our community and a collaborative approach to solving challenging public policy issues. Urban reserves planning creates a valuable opportunity to demonstrate this commitment. The project will need to identify lands for the housing, parks, schools, and jobs needed by Eugene’s population in the long term future, while achieving the area’s high expectations for regional open space and preservation of significant farmland, waterways, natural resources and landscapes. Land within an established urban reserve needs to be governed by agreements between the City, County and service providers, specifying which agency is responsible for providing services such as land use and building permit review, and what the requirements are. Effective collaboration with our partners will be critical to reach resolution on the necessary agreements. What is the process? The urban reserves process is enabled by state law. At this meeting, City Attorney’s office staff will outline the critical aspects of statutes and rules related to establishing urban reserves. Locally, the Eugene City Council directed staff to begin urban reserves planning when they discussed how to plan for housing needs in 2015. Council directed staff to bring proposed urban reserve areas back to Council for their consideration, and allocated funding to begin the work. The planning process is anticipated to include four general phases: 1) Community Engagement Work with Lane County to engage service providers, property owners and residents, public agencies and groups, and the community at large in planning for urban reserves that meet the long term vision and needs of Eugene’s future population; 2) Technical Analysis Update the technical analysis done for Eugene’s UGB expansion studies from 2012-2016, using the latest available population forecast from Portland State University, and augment with new digital modeling tools to measure and compare the outcomes from alternative proposals; 3) Proposal Development Develop and refine an urban reserves proposal that achieves the goals of the project, includes necessary inter-agency agreements, and is acceptable to the broader community; 4) Adoption Process Bring a proposal for an urban reserve area to the County and City Planning Commissions for review and revisions, and bring a revised recommendation to decision makers for a public adoption process. NEXT STEPS Planning staff are working to hire a project manager to lead the urban reserves work, with the support of existing team members who have experience with Envision Eugene. Once a team is established, a project charter will be prepared and brought to the Planning Commission for review and comment. A public involvement plan will also be prepared for the Commission’s review, comment, and approval. ATTACHMENTS A. UGB Industrial Expansion Study Area Map; Priority Categories of Candidate Land FOR MORE INFORMATION Contact Terri Harding at 541-682-5635 or at terri.l.harding@ci.eugene.or.us