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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 09/27/06 Work Session M I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall September 27, 2006 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Jennifer Solomon, Bonny Bettman, David Kelly, Andrea Ortiz, Gary Papé, George Poling, Chris Pryor, Betty Taylor. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Mitzi Colbath, John Lawless, Randy Hledik, Rick Duncan, Phillip Carroll, Jon Belcher. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order and welcomed members of the Planning Commission. A. WORK SESSION: Annual Joint Meeting with Eugene Planning Commission City Manager Dennis Taylor introduced Planning and Development Director Susan Muir to make an announcement. Ms. Muir thanked Steve Nystrom for being the Acting-In-Capacity Planning Director for the past year and a half and introduced Lisa Gardner, who would be the Acting-In-Capacity Planning Director while the department conducted another national recruitment to find a permanent director. Mayor Piercy indicated that the joint meeting would focus on the Planning Commission’s current high priority projects, new priorities, and effective relationships. Planning Commission President Mitzi Colbath said that copies of the commission’s PowerPoint presentation had been provided to councilors. She thanked the council for meeting with the commission to discuss its work plan. Planning Commissioners introduced themselves. Mayor Piercy thanked the commission for its work on behalf of the City. Ms. Colbath remarked that joint meetings were important to the commission as they provided an opportunity to develop a relationship with the council and better understand its priorities. She said the meetings also provided the commission with immediate feedback on its proposed work plan. She said during the past year, with the council’s direction, the commission had prioritized its work, reduced the number of meetings while maintaining a high level of output and either completed or made progress on many of the council’s priorities. Ms. Colbath reviewed the commission’s high priority accomplishments, including Goal 5 protection measures, the Chambers Revisited project, Phase 1 of minor code amendments, work on the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Plan, and stormwater standards. She said the commission also assumed the role MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 1 Work Session of a citizen involvement committee for the downtown zoning district project, Walnut Station mixed use project, and South Ridgeline habitat study. She described the commission’s efforts to date with respect to opportunity siting and infill standards. She said the Historic Review Board, one of the commission’s standing committees, had completed the first historic survey of the River Road area. Mr. Hledik discussed the commission’s current high priority projects, beginning with opportunity siting and infill standards. He said direction from the council at a joint meeting in July 2006 had been very helpful. He indicated that the purpose of the project was to concentrate higher density housing on specific parcels that could best accommodate density in terms of compatibility with existing neighborhoods and to create a tool kit of strategies to make infill development more compatible with its surroundings. He said tasks to be completed during the next 12 to 18 months were incorporated into the 2007 work plan. He reported an initial public forum had been held to discuss community concerns as the commission began its work and a staff person had been hired to lead the project. Mr. Hledik emphasized that opportunity siting and infill standards would proceed on separate but equal tracks because while they were complementary, one was not necessarily dependent on the other; the commission was keeping the distinction in mind as it proceeded. He said possible opportunity sites would be identified and that process would involve a wide representation of interests and broad community outreach in collaboration with the Neighborhood Leadership Council (NLC). He said the process would also provide an opportunity to explore a prototype of the alternate path process in which the council had expressed an interest. Mr. Hledik anticipated that the end results of the project would include broad public awareness and participation, a full study of one or two opportunity sites, a feasibility analysis of high-density housing generally and specifically for the demonstration sites, criteria for identifying future opportunity sites, a tool kit of compatibility strategies, a report of neighborhood concerns about infill and a strategy for addressing those concerns, and an analysis of the net effect on housing yield, which would be the metrics portion of the project. Mr. Lawless addressed mixed-use centers. He said that Walnut Station was an effort to implement mixed- use development and significantly increase the amount of housing in the study area. He said a major issue was continuing refinement of the selection of a preferred design concept. He said the Rasor Park project on lower River Road would provide an implementation strategy to guide redevelopment of the area into a pedestrian- and transit-oriented, higher density mixed-use center. He identified the next steps as involving the neighborhood in the planning process, development of a common vision for the area, a realistic assessment of the study area’s mixed-use center potential, developing strategies for improved connectivity, design standards and guidelines, plan amendments, and implementation strategies. He said a primary issue in mixed-use centers was effectively managing citizen involvement in the projects. Mr. Hledik related that the South Ridgeline Habitat Study was a field inventory and analysis project that would address nearly 2,000 acres of potential habitat area in the south Hills as well as across the south ridgeline. Mr. Lawless stated that the code amendments project would enter Phase 2, which would focus on a limited number of changes to the code as suggested by the community. He said the initial steps of the process would include community outreach forums, opportunities to identify the areas of desired change and prioritization of potential amendments. He said several opportunities for the public and the Planning Commission to discuss the direction and focus of amendments would be organized and conducted prior to any public hearings on the proposed amendments. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 2 Work Session Ms. Colbath concluded the presentation by noting that a major part of the commission’s work was processing land use applications and the volume and complexity of those applications had been increasing. —— She said that 446 land use applicationsa 20 percent increase over the previous yearwere received during the past year. She said there had been a decrease in large-scale development proposals and an increase in requests to change underlying zoning. She anticipated land use applications to remain a large portion of the commission’s workload. She invited questions and comments from the council before proceeding to a presentation on new priorities. Mr. Kelly thanked the commission and Planning staff for their difficult and thorough work. He particularly thanked Ms. Colbath for her service and regretted that she was not requesting reappointment to the commission. He was somewhat puzzled about Phase 2 of code amendments as he understood that suggestions for amendments would be solicited from the public but the presentation suggested that a list of amendments already existed and the public would be asked to help refine and narrow that list. Mr. Nystrom said that Phase 2 would be community-based and no official list of amendments existed; that list would be developed in the first steps of the process, which he hoped would begin in October 2006. Mr. Kelly asked that the council see the entire list of potential amendments in addition to the refined list. Ms. Bettman stated that she was panicked by the statement that opportunity siting and infill standards were complementary but not necessarily dependent on one another. She pointed out that the original council motion initiating opportunity siting as a strategy had referenced her email about protecting the existing neighborhoods. She said that finding ways to downzone existing residential neighborhoods with an identified fabric and character was inexorably linked to opportunity siting; it was a tradeoff and the two issues went forward hand-in-hand. She felt like a scientist who had advanced an idea for the good of mankind only to see it get turned into a weapon. She said that moving forward at all with opportunity siting without inexorably linking it to protecting the existing neighborhoods would wreak destruction in those neighborhoods. Mr. Hledik replied that the Planning Commission fully appreciated that the intent of the first motion was to identify opportunity sites for increasing residential density with the objective of addressing concerns about increasing density within existing neighborhoods and therefore the potential for conflict with the existing characteristics. He said the commission understood in that respect opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards were hand-in-hand. Mr. Hledik said that a second motion directed the commission to further explore infill compatibility standards and through those efforts the commission had identified certain circumstances which did not relate directly to opportunity siting, but where infill compatibility standards would still need to be addressed. He gave River Road and the Jefferson neighborhood as examples. He said the emphasis was that the comple- mentary nature of the two issues needed to be addressed but in some cases the infill compatibility standards issue went deeper than being coupled with opportunity siting. He stressed that the two would not be completely disengaged but the commission had found that infill compatibility in some cases had a separate arena. Ms. Colbath said the commission heard repeatedly in the public forum that fixing infill problems should not be delayed because of opportunity siting, which could be a lengthier process. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 3 Work Session Ms. Bettman asked how the commission envisioned an opportunity siting strategy on a particular site addressing the issue of protecting the neighborhood. Mr. Hledik said a good example was the Chambers Area Families for Healthy Neighborhoods (CAFHN) process that resulted in identification of compatibility issues but did not identify opportunity sites for a trade-off. He said that was part of the metrics that the commission would be addressing. Mr. Yeiter noted that Ms. Bettman had used downzoning or reducing the level of density in some neighbor- hoods as an example in her remarks about opportunity siting; however, the Planning Commission was looking at a broader pallet of tools such as building height, building form and lot sizes that could be brought to bear on the issue. He said the public was requesting those types of tools quickly. He thought the issue of shifting density from an area to opportunity sites was inextricably linked with infill compatibility and perhaps would be neighborhood-based. Ms. Bettman stated her understanding that in situations where opportunity siting was being considered, the density would be shifted from blanket density on existing residential development to opportunity sites and would be inexorably linked to opportunity siting. Mr. Poling thanked the commission for their efforts. He said the City was fortunate to have a Planning Commission with the caliber of people that it had and pointed out that the commissioners were volunteers. He asked if there was a particular reason for the increase in land use applications and decrease in major development. Mr. Nystrom said there had been an upward trend in the volume of requests in the past year but not in the way that had occurred in previous years. He said flat land, large-scale subdivisions were not as prevalent as they used to be and there was an increase in requests for development on more constrained lands, leading to more complicated reviews. He said there was also an upward trend on reviews of underlying land use designations and zoning to reposition property for other uses. Mr. Papé also thanked the commission, particularly Ms. Colbath. He noted that neighborhood refinement plans had not been updated or amended in many years and asked if they were so antiquated as to be dysfunctional with little future value. Ms. Colbath said that the older plans became, the more difficult it was to coordinate with the Metro Plan. She said the commission held many discussions and would continue to discuss as part of its work plan the idea of a second generation of refinement plans. She said the commis- sion was aware of the cost involved in developing refinement plans and the fact that many areas of the City did not have a plan and was seeking ways to address some of the issues related to the refinement and Metro Plan process. Mr. Papé asked if it would be possible to have a citywide threshold for infill standards and then customize them for specific neighborhoods as an alternative to new refinement plans. Ms. Colbath replied that the commission was in uncharted territory and wished to find ways to optimize all of the neighborhoods in Eugene while ensuring character and compatibility. Regarding infill, Mr. Belcher said the commission recognized that some fixes would work across the city and there were some parts of the community that had unique issues and unique solutions would be required. Mr. Kelly said he did believe either blanket upzoning or downzoning were appropriate steps; the City should use a more surgical approach and infill standards had broader and deeper applicability than just opportunity siting. He liked the concept of growth metrics as essential to increasing net density in a way that was MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 4 Work Session compatible with the surrounding development. He pointed out that the word “downzoning” had been explicitly dropped in an amendment to the motion. Mr. Kelly expressed disappointment that the alternate path had been relegated to a subpart of opportunity siting and infill standards. He said that would completely eliminate commercial, industrial, and mixed-use developments where the alternate path could make a big difference in the types of projects proposed. He asked how the alternate path could be elevated to a more prominent place on the work program. Ms. Muir replied that fewer items had been removed from the list of priorities than hoped for. She said that many items the Planning Division would like to see move higher on the list remained at the bottom when higher priority items were assigned. She said that the alternate path could be moved to the first priority on the list but that would mean that resources would be redirected from other high priority projects such as opportunity siting and the South Ridgeline Habitat Study. Mr. Kelly said he was extremely disappointed as he felt that the alternate path had the greatest potential of all of the tools to help the City grow distinctively and compactly. Mr. Hledik said that many commissioners shared Mr. Kelly’s frustration, but the alternate path was a major paradigm shift that would be a challeng- ing piece of work and there was a consensus to at least move forward with some initiatives such as opportunity siting and infill compatibility as a starting point. He said the full intention was to broaden the applicability of the alternate path once some success in residential development was realized. Ms. Bettman pointed out that Ballot Measure 37 was not addressed at all in the work plan. She said it would be necessary to look at the impact on density within the urban growth boundary if huge subdivisions were built outside of it because of waivers. She said she was hearing different points of view from staff and the commission about whether opportunity siting and infill compatibility standards were inexorably linked or separate tracks. She understood there was a separate track for infill compatibility standards that would have a broader application than just opportunity siting but she could not support the work program if opportunity siting did not include that piece. Mr. Hledik highlighted the commission’s new priorities. He said the commission by consensus was suggesting the addition to the work plan of a scope of work for a buildable lands analysis that would include residential lands. He emphasized the addition was only for a scope of work, not the analysis itself. He said the commission felt it was important to have current data upon which to evaluate the broader land use issues that came before it. Mr. Lawless stated that the commission was also recommending the addition of a scope of work for an issues assessment related to neighborhood plans. He referred to earlier remarks by Mr. Papé about the status and value of refinement plans. He said another issue was inconsistency when attempting to interpret and apply the original intent of a plan decades after it had been written. He said the idea there was community support for the idea of developing a strategy for the next generation of refinement plans. Ms. Colbath remarked that the council had added a City-initiated Jefferson-Westside neighborhood Metro Plan amendment as a high priority item on September 11, 2006. She said the commission was requesting clarification of the council’s expectations with respect to the other priorities. She hoped that the council, in the next part of its discussion, would talk about any changes it might wish to make to the work plan or prioritization of tasks. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 5 Work Session Ms. Taylor suggested that the commission begin it work on neighborhood refinement plans by asking the neighborhood associations to review their plans and identify things that should be added or problems with enforcement of existing plans. She asked what would happen if the study determined valuable plant and animal habitat existed in that area and there was an application to use the land for another purpose. Mr. Nystrom said that a full menu of options would be presented to the council, including education, incentives and regulations and the council would have the opportunity to discuss to what degree regulation played a role in that type of situation. Ms. Taylor asked if there were ways to achieve greater flexibility in enforcing the current code when something seemed unreasonable or impractical. Mr. Nystrom replied that there were tools in the current code that attempted to provide a certain level of flexibility to consider alternative approaches or relief. He said that type of question would be raised during the next round of code amendments. Ms. Taylor said her biggest concern was the low priority given to the Land Use Board of Appeals remand concerning Goal 9, Goal 10, and Chapter 6 tree provisions. She observed that at one point it was the top priority but had slipped down the list to Item 38. City Attorney Emily Jerome replied that a number of those provisions were back in place through various measures, but not all of them. She said there were compli- cated tree issues related to the inventories and the item represented a major undertaking; although it could be moved to a higher priority at the direction of the council. Ms. Taylor said she would propose moving the remand to a higher priority. She asked what authority the Planning Division had to spend time, effort and resources on plans for a hospital when the council had been informed it could not express an opinion because of future action it might take. Mr. Nystrom replied that the Planning Division was only responding to land use applications that were submitted to it, including Metro Plan and refinement plan amendments. Mr. Kelly cautioned that refinement plans were critically important to the neighborhoods that had them and the current ones should remain in effect until the next generation of plans was well in place. He urged establishing a goal to have second generation refinement plans for every neighborhood over the next five to six years. He agreed with the need for a scope of work on a buildable lands analysis and advised the commission to take commercial and industrial land first because of the availability of raw data from the joint jurisdictional study and lack of data on residential land. Ms. Ortiz thanked commissioners for their efforts and remarked that the commission itself had been helping the City plan for its future since it was established in 1925. She indicated infill was an issue for her and she challenged the commission to create a win-win situation where infill occurred but people were able to accept it because it was compatible with their neighborhood. She hoped to see the community accommodate growth without expanding the urban growth boundary. Mr. Kelly concurred with Ms. Ortiz’s comments. He said that win-win could be achieved with design review and design standards, possibly mixed with alternate path, and also by bringing a broad spectrum of people to the table to address the problem. He said a point had recently been made about housing and rental affordability in the community. He said that rental housing did not have to mean poor quality and design standards and appropriate siting could help. Regarding the remand and tree issue, he conveyed a suggestion from the Eugene Tree Foundation to look for solutions as part of the minor Land Use Code amendment process. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 6 Work Session Mayor Piercy said she had been hearing at almost every meeting in the community a growing concern that one day Eugene would be a city for wealthy people and poor people and nothing in between. She said the challenge was to ensure in an intentional way that there was a place for young families to move into the community. She said a city without children was not a community and just letting the market prevail would not ensure that working families and young families had an entry; those families were critical to the well- being of the community and the school system. Ms. Bettman stated that just because something was heard everywhere did not mean it was substantiated by research and data; it just meant it was the prevailing opinion. She thought that a responsible representative government made sure that they substantiated the policies they made with research and data. She said that Eugene had a higher rental rate than most communities of a comparable size and the issue was not rental or nonrental; it had to do with stable, healthy neighborhoods. She said the distribution of rentals in the City was another issue. She thought that people would grab whatever piece of information or opinion suited their purpose and she preferred a much more informed discussion about where the City needed to go. She said that poorly designed and unregulated infill and density would have a counterproductive effect and people would flee to the outlying areas in order to protect their investments. Ms. Bettman stated that there were items on the work plan she did not think should be priorities and if they were removed there would be resources available for issues such as the tree ordinance or the alternate path. She noted that one of the tasks under opportunity siting was to develop criteria for identifying additional opportunity sites. She thought it was the general sense of the council to work on demonstration sites for opportunity siting and not necessarily look beyond that to the next steps. She said the task might be more appropriate for the next year. Ms. Bettman stated that the buildable lands analysis was a Planning Commission initiative and not a high priority for the council; it could be replaced with another task. She asked the commission to take Ballot Measure 37 into account on all of its work plan initiatives. She was not certain what sort of clarification the commission wanted on Item 11, the Jefferson-Westside neighborhood City-initiated Metro Plan amendment. Mr. Nystrom said the council’s motion on September 11 made the Jefferson-Westside issue a high priority and the question was how that fit in with the other high priorities currently on the list. Ms. Bettman thought that Item 11 should replace some of the Planning Commission initiatives. Mr. Belcher said that the Census Bureau website indicated that Eugene’s percentage of rentals was 63 percent and the national average was about 50 percent. Mr. Kelly indicated he shared Mayor Piercy’s concern about the potential bifurcation of the City’s population, as did 4J School District Superintendent George Russell. He suggested that the City might want to lobby for elimination or modification of the statewide ban on inclusionary zoning as a tool that could help with equity. He had no concerns with the placement of Item 11 in the work plan. Mr. Papé asked for a work session on a residential buildable lands inventory. Mr. Pryor expressed his appreciation for the Planning Commission’s work. He recognized that the council was referring some very difficult issues to the commission and felt confident that those issues would be thoroughly and thoughtfully studied. He felt the work plan attempted to create a balance between a variety of interests, the order of work was fair and he would support it. MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 7 Work Session Ms. Solomon thanked the commissioners and said she was amazed at the amount and depth of their work and the thoughtful conclusions they presented to the council. She was very supportive of the proposed work plan, which accurately captured the council’s priorities. Ms. Solomon, seconded by Ms. Ortiz, moved to approve the FY07 Planning Com- mission Work Program contained in the attached Annual Report, including the His- toric Review Board FY07 Work Program. Ms. Taylor, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to replace Item 9 with Item 38 in the FY07 Work Program. The motion failed, 6:2; Ms. Taylor and Ms. Bettman voting in favor. Ms. Bettman, seconded by Ms. Taylor, moved to remove the word “residential” from Item 9. Mr. Kelly asked for clarification on the work item as he understood the task was only to conduct a scope of work, not begin a residential land inventory. Ms. Colbath indicated the item was only scoping, not an inventory. Mr. Kelly said he would vote against the amendment on that basis. Ms. Ortiz requested permission to change her vote on the Ms. Taylor’s motion. There were no objections. The motion still failed, 5:3; Ms. Taylor, Ms. Bettman and Ms. Ortiz voting in favor. Ms. Bettman said it was out of order for the commission to put work on a residential buildable land analysis, even just the scoping, in the work plan before the council had held a work session. She said it was a planning issue regulated by State statute as opposed to being preempted by the Planning Commission; it did not belong in the work program as it was addressed within other regulatory procedures. She would not endorse the item as it would set the wheels in motion to make it happen. Mr. Pryor said he saw no problem with gathering information about what resources would be required to conduct the analysis; the knowledge would be helpful. Mr. Kelly said he would support the amendment as a work session on the issue could return the item to the work plan. The vote on the motion to amend was tied, 4:4; Ms. Bettman, Ms. Ortiz, Ms. Tay- lor, and Mr. Kelly voting in favor; Ms. Solomon, Mr. Poling, Mr. Pryor, and Mr. Papé voting in opposition. Mayor Piercy voted in opposition, and the motion failed on a final vote of 5:4. The main motion passed, 6:2; Ms. Taylor and Ms. Bettman voting in opposition. Ms. Colbath commented that the commission hoped to use effective communications to bring information to the council and receive feedback. She said that joint meetings were extremely useful for strategic discus- MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 8 Work Session sions of issues such as opportunity siting and infill standards and helped the commission better meet council expectations and forecast major policy issues and trends. She said the commission was committed to creative public involvement like the open forums with citizens, which enhanced collaboration with stakeholders. She indicated that the commission would also continue with informal communications such as the “council buddy” system. She thanked the council again for the opportunity to have a joint meeting. Ms. Taylor added her thanks to the Planning Commission for its work. Mr. Belcher drew the council’s attention to Item 12.i, which referenced assessing the extent to which the City had a clear and widely supported vision and strategy for achieving it. He said without a vision and strategy it would be difficult to move beyond arguing disparate opinions about growth management policies. Mr. Papé expressed his appreciation for the “buddy system” as it had helped him better understand some of the complex issues facing the community. Mr. Kelly echoed Mr. Papé’s comments. He said the “buddy system” and joint meetings made a positive difference and were very useful. He said the City’s growth management policies might no longer be shared by all and had been struck by the disconnect with those concepts throughout the political spectrum. He observed that many people were not even aware of the City’s growth management policies but felt that a solution that had wide appeal could be found. Ms. Colbath related that of the 60 to 70 people who attended the commission’s public forum, only two were familiar with the City’s growth management policies. Ms. Bettman said a win-win solution would be hard because the power differential in the community made compromise difficult. She thought the growth management policies were pragmatic and if the City wanted them to be part of the vision for Eugene they would be adopted into the Land Use Code. Mayor Piercy recalled earlier disconnection between the commission and the council. She saw a significant amount of progress and the commission’s work was helpful to the council in its decision-making. She thanked the commission on behalf of the council. The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis M. Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Lynn Taylor) MINUTES—City Council September 27, 2006 Page 9 Work Session