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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes - 04/23/03 WS MINUTES Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room-City Hall April 23, 2003 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Gary Pap~, Nancy Nathanson, Scott Meisner, David Kelly, Betty Taylor, Bonny Bettman, George Poling, Jennifer Solomon. Mayor James D. Torrey called the meeting to order. A.WORK SESSION: Hospital Zoning Planning and Development Executive Director Tom Coyle joined the council for the item. Planning Director Jan Childs was also present. Mr. Coyle said that the item before the council was the initiation of a code amendment regarding medical and hospital zones. Should the council initiate the amendment, he requested that it provide direction to staff on the parameters of the amendment. Mr. Coyle recollected council discussion of a possible hospital overlay zone in 2001. He said that it was staff's belief that modifications to the existing code, rather than an overlay zone, were all that was required to accommodate VVillamette-McKenzie Hospital if it chose to come to Eugene, or PeaceHealth if it chose to expand its Hilyard campus. Mr. Coyle distributed a matrix showing the City's 14 zoning districts and how uses such as hospitals, laboratories, dental offices, and clinics were treated in each zone; that is, whether they were permitted, permitted conditionally, not allowed, or restricted. The matrix also indicated where the code could be amended to accommodate those uses. Mr. Coyle characterized hospitals as a fairly benign land use if viewed objectively; he likened them to a commercial office use or high school. He believed that the City's development standards were adequate to address the impacts of hospital development. The staff recommendation could be accomplished using existing resources and within a reasonably short period of time. He believed it would take considerable time to develop an overlay zone in comparison, and it would take additional resources. Mr. Coyle invited questions. Mayor Torrey solicited a first round of council comments. Ms. Taylor confirmed with Mr. Coyle that the City could move quickly to accommodate a hospital if needed. At this point, she believed the staff recommendation was satisfactory. She was concerned about the public anxiety or unwarranted hopes that could arise if the City established a particular zone in a place that a hospital did not intend to use. Mr. Kelly agreed that a hospital use could be relatively benign in terms of other commercial uses, but he was concerned about the scale of such a use. He thought that the potential scale alone created a significant impact. For example, he questioned allowing hospitals as an outright permitted use in C-1 Community Commercial zones. Mr. Kelly believed that some of the zones MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 1 identified by staff for hospital use contained parcels that could appropriately be put to that use, but he thought the council needed to take into account the significance of such a development to the community. He thought that an overlay zone could be fairly simple, given that an outline of the zone design already existed, and then applied quickly anywhere to accommodate either hospital. Ms. Nathanson wanted to ensure that Eugene had a hospital in five years. She agreed with Ms. Taylor that the proposal before the council was satisfactory. She shared Mr. Kelly's concern about scale and asked the extent to which the City could combine use and scale; for example, a use under a certain square footage threshold would be allowed outright in a particular zone. Ms. Nathanson expressed concern about the amount of time an overlay zone would take to create, jeopardizing other council planning priorities and the Planning Division's ability to respond to community requests for assistance because the task would strain the division's resources. She also feared that the rules of such a zone would be onerous because they would be applied everywhere, rather than in a site-specific manner. Ms. Nathanson asked if the City could be more accommodating without changing the code. She asked if, for example, the conditional use permit process could be modified. Speaking to Mr. Kelly's comments, Mr. Coyle said there were other constraints on locating a hospital in a C-1 zone besides scale; for example, there was no parcel of adequate size in a C-1 zone. He said that he had not yet reviewed the individual zones to explain why it would not be a problem. Mr. Coyle believed that the staff recommendation got the council where it wanted to go in a short period of time. He disagreed about the amount of time it would take to develop an overlay zone. He said that the overlay zone added another layer of complexity in terms of regulations and then the zone must be sited. There were also issues of internal consistency. Mr. Coyle did not envision a simple process. Mr. Meisner agreed with Ms. Nathanson's goal of having a hospital in five years. He did not want to make it more difficult for a hospital to site in Eugene. He asked Mr. Coyle what the council needed to fear or anticipate, noting his agreement that there was no C-1 site of sufficient size to accommodate a hospital, so he questioned amending the code to allow hospitals in that zone. Mr. Meisner asked if lands in different zones would need to be combined to accommodate a new hospital, and if the City could accommodate that. He asked what the zoning was on the potential hospital sites the council had previously reviewed. Ms. Childs said the City had not spent much time looking at specific sites because there were no hospital siting experts on staff. Mr. Meisner asked if the City had single-zone sites adequate for a hospital. Ms. Childs did not think so. She said the staff recommendation was intended to suggest the quickest, easiest way to enable a hospital to site in Eugene. Staff had discussed that the City could, within permitted uses, establish standards to address issues of scale. She believed that Ms. Nathanson's suggestion that the City combine use and scale could be examined through the Planning Commission and City Council public process. Mr. Meisner thought the City' role was to enable rather than to prevent, and hoped the City was acting collaboratively with McKenzie-Willamette Hospital on the siting issue. Mr. Coyle said that some of the sites that might be used for a hospital included both residential and industrial zones. Staff was proposing to allow the use to be considered in the residential zones, and as an outright use in industrial zones. MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 2 Ms. Bettman said her first objective was to create a competitive environment for health care in the metropolitan area. Her second objective was to facilitate the location of a hospital in Eugene in a way that met multiple local objectives without costing the taxpayers money in the form of infrastructure. She thought the council's motion regarding hospital zones made it clear that it wanted to facilitate the location of a hospital in the central core. Ms. Bettman recollected that when the motion had passed, she had asked if a hospital zone was something the City should initiate immediately. She asserted that at that time, Mr. Coyle had assured the council that such a zone change could be made easily and quickly. Now she was hearing the opposite. Staff was suggesting that the City open every zone, save a few, to a hospital use. Speaking to the issue of conditional uses, Ms. Bettman believed that the City granted most conditional use permit applications and suggested that approach was "one more hoop to permit it." She said that a new hospital would be at least 750,000 square feet. That size facility was not appropriate in every residential zone in the city. She believed that adopting the staff recommendation would remove the City's ability to influence the location of the hospital to a place where it served the City's interests. Mr. Pap~ concurred with Ms. Nathanson and Mr. Meisner that Eugene needed its own hospital. He asked if McKenzie-Willamette Hospital requested an overlay zone. Mr. Coyle believed that both hospitals preferred what the staff was recommending. He believed the hospital would have made its siting decision by the time the City was able to complete an overlay zone. Mr. Pap~ asked if the City could do something in the shod term in the form of an overlay zone to help resolve the future of the area around the new hospital. Mr. Coyle said that he understood the concerns about the overlay discussion as it related to ancillary uses, but the size that the hospital was discussing was one that would embrace those uses. The size of the parcel the hospital purchased would likely make the hospital the land broker for those uses. Issues of compatibility would be resolved through ownership rather than zoning. He said that staff would pay particular attention to the residential zones in its examination, and he expected to be challenged on that by the council. Mr. Pap~ determined from Mr. Coyle that the City would be able to help guide the hospital's development. Mr. Coyle said the City would work with both providers in any siting decision. He pointed out that such large-scale uses were often more able to address issues of mitigation, buffers, setback, joint use, and joint parking than smaller scale uses. He said that often, smaller projects, such as infill projects, create the large problem. He noted, for example, that the council would soon hear an appeal of the process for reviewing a four-lot subdivision. Ms. Solomon suggested that if the council wanted a hospital, it should ensure it was a permitted use. She believed an overlay zone was costly and burdensome, and that it bolstered arguments made in the business climate survey about the City's burdensome and onerous processes. She wanted to enable the hospital to move forward, and to enable staff to help that process. She said she trusted staff, and suggested that the staff professionals be allowed to do their work. Mr. Poling agreed with the remarks of Mr. Meisner, Ms. Nathanson, and Ms. Solomon. He deemed the approach suggested by staff simple, workable, and one that did not favor any particular hospital or hospital group. Mayor Torrey was pleased to hear the council's comments about wanting the hospital to be able to move into the community and identify the site it thought most appropriate without the council micro-managing the process. There was fear in the community that would occur. He asked Mr. MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 3 Coyle what risks he saw to the quality of the community if the staff recommendation was adopted. Mr. Coyle said that in terms of the residential districts, those needed to be examined on a parcel-by-parcel basis to ensure that there was no situation where there would be an overwhelming impact to any particular neighborhood. He noted that all the sites that had been identified previously included all the City's residential, commercial, and industrial zones. Mayor Torrey did not see McKenzie-Willamette Hospital's options as being broader than a decent site in Eugene or Glenwood. He wanted the hospital to locate in Eugene, and hoped the City could help make that happen. Mayor Torrey solicited a second round of council comments. Mr. Kelly said that it was his contention an overlay zone made everything more simple, regardless of the base zoning. He said the overlay process was designed to save time. It allowed the provider to identify a site and then the City could overlay the site with the zone. He did not understand the claim that the overlay zone made the process more complex and lengthy. Mr. Kelly asked Mr. Coyle if he thought it mattered where Eugene's only hospital was located, suggesting that from a planning standpoint, there were better places and less good places. Mr. Coyle agreed that there were areas that were better than others for a hospital. He said that to locate a hospital in any of the commercial or industrial was not an impact. Mr. Kelly pointed out that he had not asked about impact. Speaking to Ms. Bettman's comments about conditional use permit, Ms. Nathanson said that while the City might readily grant the majority of such permits, she believed that through the process, changes were made to development proposals to accommodate neighborhood concerns. Ms. Nathanson did not think that the City could develop a simple overlay zone. She believed that such a zone would be very detailed. The council would likely make many amendments to any recommendation forwarded to it by the Planning Commission. Ms. Nathanson envisioned the resulting process would be burdensome. Ms. Taylor determined from Mr. Coyle that the City needed to adopt some code amendments to accommodate a new hospital. She was not ready to allow a new hospital to be permitted in all zones without knowing where it would be. Mr. Coyle pointed out that rezoning may also require amendments to the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Area General Plan, and that was a lengthy process. The council could be processing a Metro Plan amendment while the hospital was breaking ground. Ms. Taylor suggested that the council should adopt Mr. Kelly's proposal if it wanted to move quickly. She was not ready to say that the hospital should be permitted anyplace. Responding to a question from Ms. Taylor, Mr. Coyle anticipated that the community would have a dialogue on where the public's interest was best served through the public process. He added that staff had considerable homework to do before any changes were made, particularly in regard to the protections needed for the residential zones. Ms. Bettman favored the establishment of a hospital medical overlay zone. She thought it gave the hospitals more predictability and flexibility and the citizens more predictability. She said the MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 4 staff recommendation meant that the details were worked out after the hospital decided where it wanted to locate, forcing the City to reconcile the standards and underlying zoning to fit the needs of the hospital after the fact. If the council established an overlay zone, those details were already built into the zone. The hospital decided where it wanted to be, and the City would then apply the overlay zone. That addressed issues such as height allowances and building standards. She said the overlay zone gave the City Council the ability to "weigh in." She maintained that what the council wanted was a hospital in the central city. The staff recommendation would allow the hospital to be placed anywhere. Ms. Bettman pointed out that a hospital overlay zone was meant to be an incentive to facilitate hospital development. Mr. PapS, seconded by Ms. Nathanson, moved to direct staff to initiate a zone code change to reconsider the permitted uses for hospitals. Mr. Kelly, seconded by Ms. Bettman, moved to amend the motion by adding the phrase "via a proposal for a simple large hospital overlay zone to facilitate placement or expansion of large hospitals and allied uses." Mr. Meisner opposed the amendment, saying that he doubted a hospital overlay zone could be simple. Ms. Bettman asked Mr. Coyle what representatives of McKenzie-Willamette Hospital said, and when. Mr. Coyle indicated he would have to consult his calendar for the dates. He said that he had asked hospital representatives if the staff recommendation would meet the hospitals' different interests, and their response was yes in both cases. The amendment to the motion failed, 5:3; Ms. Taylor, Mr. Kelly, Ms. Bettman voting yes. The main motion passed, 5:3; Ms. Taylor, Mr. Kelly, Ms. Bettman voting no. B.WORK SESSION: Amendments to Riverfront Research Park Urban Renewal Plan The council was joined by Richie Weinman and Mike Sullivan of the Planning and Development Department for the item. Mr. Weinman recalled the council's February 12, 2003, adoption of a motion directing staff to initiate the processes necessary to amend and update the Riverfront Urban Renewal Plan. He called attention to the meeting packet, which included a proposed time line for citizen involvement that had been approved by the Citizen Involvement Committee and an outline of proposals to put before the public. He briefly reviewed those proposals. Mayor Torrey called for council questions and comments. Ms. Bettman suggested that making a case to extend the district's boundaries should be predicated on district success, and requested information on the district's success and accomplishments to this point. Responding to a question from Ms. Bettman, Mr. Weinman explained the impact of tax increment funding on the General Fund. MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 5 Ms. Bettman asked if the proposal was consistent with the University of Oregon Senate resolution related to development north of the railroad tracks and what she believed was University President David Frohnmeyer's commitment to uphold the resolution. Mr. Weinman indicated he would follow up. Ms. Bettman said the issue for her was a budgetary one, specifically the diversion of money from the General Fund. Diverted funds could be used for roads and other amenities as opposed to essential public services. She needed more information before she could support the proposal. Mr. Kelly agreed that the issue was budgetary one, but suggested that budgeting was a matter of prioritization. He thought that targeting funding at certain areas was not inappropriate. He supported the tool and plan extension, but was concerned about the recommendation to deal with projects later. He suggested that a knowledgeable public discussion required graphic descriptions of the possible projects. He asked where in the time line staff would include City Council brainstorming for possible projects to be offered to the public. Mr. Weinman said that could occur in July-August. Mr. Kelly asked that staff do some brainstorming before that time. Mr. Kelly suggested there might be value in including both sides of Franklin Boulevard and Broadway in the district to facilitate streetscaping. Mr. Sullivan thought it made sense, but pointed out the expansion potential was capped at 20 percent of the total land base of the original district. Responding to a question from Mr. Pap~, Mr. Sullivan indicated that the district could be closed and another district formed, but the increment would be lost and the new district base frozen at the rate in place when the district was formed. Responding to a question from Mr. Pap~ regarding the design of the intersection at Mill Street and Broadway, Mr. Sullivan said that planning for the intersection was still underway. He said that it was envisioned to be an urban intersection to the degree possible. He noted the complications created by the fact the roadway was a State highway. Mr. Pap~ wanted to expand the district and wanted to know why staff did not recommend that. Mr. Weinman said that staff had discussed the option, as well as the option of a new ring district, which could address some of the land in question. Staff was trying to keep the suggested changes as simple as possible. He said that staff would incorporate district expansion into the proposals carried forward to the citizens if that was the council's desire. Mr. Pap~ asked what kind of infrastructure could be provided to the courthouse area using urban renewal funds. Mr. Weinman cited sidewalk improvements and undergrounded utilities as an example. Mr. Meisner supported directing the manager to proceed with the amendments process. Speaking to the project list, he expressed concern that the list not be so specific that it hemmed the council in. In terms of evaluating the district's success; Mr. Meisner said that the council had not looked backward when it amended the Downtown Urban Renewal Plan or used that as an opportunity to evaluate the plan. It amended it by adopting a new project and eliminating the former projects. He thought the council was looking now at a new plan with a new focus. Mr. Meisner found the idea of expansion was intriguing. He did not think the federal funding sought by the City for the courthouse improvements would be sufficient to realize all the MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 6 community's goals for the area. Other funds were needed for that, and extending the district across Broadway could be useful. Mr. Meisner asked if additional expansion to West Broadway and Mill Street could be accommodated by reducing the district in another place. Mr. Weinman said no. Mr. Meisner thought there was merit to including the west end and surrounding streets in the district. Mr. Meisner said that the City did not partner nor communicate well with the University of Oregon. He had learned that morning that the University was unaware the City had requested funding for the extension of the southbank bicycle path, and urged more communication. Ms. Taylor recalled extreme opposition from some to the entire plan because of environmental concerns. People had worked to prevent the plan's adoption. She thought their fears had turned out to be true. One of the results of the plan was a road to nowhere, and a large underpass under the railroad. Businesses had moved away from other places in the community to the park. She said that the money was easy to spend and the public had no control over how the money was spent. The money could be used for desired amenities in other places. Ms. Taylor called for public involvement in the any major spending decisions. Ms. Taylor suggested that rather that stimulate activity in the courthouse area, the City should work to stimulate activity in downtown. Ms. Nathanson agreed with Ms. Taylor that the public should be involved, and noted the time line, which provided for public involvement. Ms. Nathanson suggested a River Walk modeled on the Art Walk be organized between downtown and the area in question. Regarding expansion of the district, Ms. Nathanson said that there was not a lot of money involved and there were many ideas generated out of the Greater Downtown Vision that would require funding. She said that the money in question was needed to redevelop a part of the city in decline, and a location where the city turned its back on the river rather than embracing it. She suggested environmental mitigation be added to the list of projects. Mayor Torrey called for a second round of council comments. Mr. Kelly wanted language about environmental protections in the goals. Referring to page 43 in the draft plan, Mr. Kelly said that it discussed some amendments being adopted by the Urban Renewal Agency and some being adopted by the City Council, and asked staff to clarify that. He also requested more detail on who authorized the expenditure of significant dollars. Referring to page 37 of the draft plan, Mr. Kelly asked that the language on the upper Millrace include the desired day lighting throughout the courthouse area. Referring to the text in C(2)(a) on page 37 of the plan that referred to excessive dwelling unit density, Mr. Kelly suggested it was left over text and at odds with the council's goals. Page 36 included text that spoke to ensuring emergency vehicle access, and Mr. Kelly questioned why it needed to be mentioned explicitly as he assumed it would be a condition of any development. Mr. Kelly requested explanation of why it was relevant to mention the Riverfront Park Study in the draft plan. MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 7 Ms. Taylor pointed out that even though public involvement was called for, the plan also called for the considerable expenditure of staff time. She thought it foolish to waste staff time on something the council had not yet decided to do. Ms. Bettman asked for information about the administrative costs of processing the amendments. She agreed that redevelopment was needed in the downtown area, but the City had already prioritized public investment in the area in a variety of ways. Ms. Bettman did not think the City needed to create another dedicated revenue stream that should instead be used for a higher priority, such as public safety and human services. She feared the money involved would be used for transportation projects, for which there were other funding sources. Mr. Meisner requested information on where the revenues of the district come from geographically; did most come from the research park, and what were the consequences to that increment from the City's acquisition of the two businesses formerly located in the park? Responding to a question from Mr. Pap8 regarding who controlled the University's land in the Riverfront Research Park, University of Oregon representative Diane Wiley said that the State Board of Higher Education controlled the property through the University administration and President Dave Frohnmeyer. Mr. PapS, seconded by Ms. Nathanson, moved to direct the City Manager to proceed with the process of amending the Riverfront Research Park Urban Renewal District Plan, with the draft language and including a recommendation for expansion of the district not to exceed 20 percent of the land area, in accordance with the proposed time line, which would include a council and staff brainstorming session in July orAugust. The motion passed, 6:2; Ms. Taylor and Ms. Bettman voting in opposition. Mayor Torrey adjourned the meeting at 1:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Dennis Taylor City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES--Eugene City Council April 23, 2003 Page 8