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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda and attachments - 01/12/09 JEO JOINT ELECTED OFFICIALS MEETING City of Eugene City of Springfield Lane County ?? January 13, 2009 Noon to 1:30 pm Springfield City Hall Library Conference Room 225 5 Street, Springfield th 12:00 -1:30 pm I. Metro Plan Revisions Kent Howe, Lane County Action Requested: Review Lane County Board of Commissioners’ identified issues with the Eugene- Springfield Metro Plan and discuss possible Metro Plan amendments to remedy those issues. SPRINGFIELD LIBRARY MEETING ROOM The Library Meeting Room is located adjacent to the Library inside City Hall on the second floor. If you enter City Hall at 5 and A, you will enter by the Library. Continue past the Library entrance. Turn right th just past the Library and you will be looking at the Library Meeting Room. If you enter from the East Entrance, go through the lobby. The Library Meeting Room is off to the left before you reach the Library. PARKING AROUND SPRINGFIELD CITY HALL There is free two hour parking beneath City Hall, next to the Museum at 6th and Main. There is also free two hour parking along Main St. and most streets surrounding City Hall. Location is wheelchair accessible (WCA). American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation is available with 48 hours notice. LCOG Main Office: 859 Willamette, Suite 500, Eugene, Oregon 97401 Phone: (541) 682-4283 • Fax: (541) 682-4099 • TTY: (541) 682-4567 Memo Date: December 19, 2008 JEO Meeting Date: January 13, 2009 TO:JOINT ELECTED OFFICIALS OF THE EUGENE/ SPRINGFIELD METRO PLAN PRESENTED BY: Kent Howe, Planning Director Lane County Land Management Division AGENDA ITEM TITLE: Joint Elected Officials Discussion on Metro Plan Revisions to Address Issues Identified by the Lane County Board of Commissioners I. PROPOSED MOTIONS: No motion is necessary. This is a discussion item only. II. ISSUE OR PROBLEM This memorandum is a follow-up to the discussions of the Mayors and Chair of st the Board on December 1 regarding possible Metro Plan amendments that could be considered and implemented to address concerns with the Metro Plan and the Urban Transition Agreements that have been identified by the Board of County Commissioners. These amendment concepts have been developed by County staff as an alternative to the termination of the metro-area Urban Transition Agreements. Staff is seeking general direction and input from the Joint Elected Officials (“JEO”) as we begin development of specific Metro Plan Amendment revisions and materials to address the first two of five Lane County issues, as discussed at st the December 1 Mayors and Chair meeting. Staff will continue to coordinate with the cities the development and inclusion of specific text revision proposals into the Metro Plan amendment efforts currently underway, as appropriate. III. DISCUSSION A. BACKGROUND The Eugene/Springfield Metro Area General Plan (the Metro Plan) serves as a joint management agreement between Lane County and the cities of Eugene and Springfield in matters of long-range planning and policy guidance. For several years, the Board of County Commissioners have recognized and attempted to address identified issues within the Metro Plan relating to: 1. Annexation policies; 2. The ambiguous and conflicting plan language related to urban services; 3. Perceived citizen disenfranchisement (stemming from the delegation of building and land use code administration to the cities within the UGB); 1 4. Jurisdictional autonomy, and 5. Dispute resolution policies. These five issues have been under discussion by the Board for some time and at the December 1, 2008, meeting of the Mayors and Board Chair they were discussed in more detail. Attachment “A” to this memo is a copy of a background st memo that was provided for the December 1 meeting. At that meeting it was determined that simultaneously addressing all of these issues could be too complex of an endeavor. The Mayors and Board Chair suggested staff start by bringing issues #2 and #4 to the January 2009, meeting of the JEO for consideration and direction. As envisioned by the Mayors and Board Chair, the remaining issues could be considered at a later time, once issues #2 and #4 had been resolved. This memo provides an overview of issues #2 and #4 and describes possible Metro Plan amendment approaches to address each. Issue #2: Metro Plan Description of Urban Services Problem Statement: Within the Metro Plan a number of different and inconsistent terms are used when referring to various services provided by the local governments and other agencies. More important and problematic for Lane County is that the terms used in the plan do not specifically refer to, define or recognize those key functions and services that the county provides which are used extensively by urban residents. These key county-provided urban services include: Sheriff and corrections services, criminal prosecution (DA) services, parole and probation services, elections, regional transportation facilities and services, mental health services, public health services, workforce assistance services, animal services and regional park facilities and services. Failure to recognize the county as a provider of these key urban services within the metropolitan area and the Metro Plan is fundamentally unfair and potentially detrimental to the county’s long term ability to maintain them. This is because funding one or more of these services may, at some point, require the establishment of a special taxing district or some other innovative approach to keep those services viable. Under current policies and operational practices of the Metro Plan, the creation of special taxing districts for these services or including them within existing districts would likely not be feasible or could be precluded because public services are not defined and the scope of defined key urban services includes some services cities do not provide. The definitions and Metro Plan policies also may affect or exclude consideration of other services not provided by cities in ways unrelated to land use planning. Proposed Solution: Address deficiencies of the Metro Plan dealing with public and urban services. Revisions may include modifications/clarifications to the text of the fundamental principles; clarifying modifications to goal language and findings and/or modification or clarification of the definition of key urban services and public services within the Metro Plan Glossary. These revisions would clarify 2 the cities’ and county’s roles as providers of various key urban services within the Metro Plan area. Currently, the Metro Plan refers to general services, public services, urban services and key urban services at both the minimal and full range level, but only the latter term is defined with descriptions of various services. : The minimum level of key urban services are defined as wastewater service, stormwater service, transportation, solid waste management, water service, fire and emergency medical services, police protection, citywide parks and recreation programs, electric service, land use controls, communication facilities, and public schools on a district-wide basis (in other words, not necessarily within walking distance of all students served). The full range of key urban services adds urban public transit, natural gas, street lighting, libraries, local parks, local recreation facilities and services, and health services. A logical interpretation of these definitions might assume that county provided services, such as Sheriff and correctional services, would fall within the scope of “police protection” or, that county mental health and public health services would be included within “health services“. Unfortunately, these distinctions are not clearly specified within the Metro Plan and, as discussed above, this lack of clarity can be problematic when faced with exploring options for financing those and other services. Modifying existing fundamental principle or goal and policy language within the Metro Plan to provide this needed clarity may cause far reaching and unintended problems with the cities’ land use and annexation review criteria and processes. th This potential issue was discussed at the December 15 meeting of the Metro Planning Directors. During that meeting staff from the three jurisdictions discussed the possibility of simply adding a definition within the Metro Plan Glossary to articulate the key county-provided urban services. While this option would provide some recognition of the county’s role as an urban service provider and would not run the risk of impacting existing city land use and annexation review criteria, it is unlikely that this approach would go far enough to fully recognize and incorporate the county’s urban service provider role within the Metro Plan and maintain financing flexibility to support those services similar to what exists in all other parts of Lane County. Lane County staff is recommending that a more comprehensive analysis continue to be conducted to determine which specific components of the Metro Plan would require revision to acknowledge the county’s role as a key urban service provider and to determine what possible externalities those revisions would have on existing city processes. Additionally, staff is recommending that any future Metro Plan revisions to address this issue be coordinated with city staff as they develop the bundle of proposed amendments associated with HB3337. These amendments could be brought before the Board and the City 3 Councils in the near future to keep you apprised of the proposals as they work through the amendment process. Issue# 4: Jurisdictional Autonomy/Metro Plan Boundary Adjustment Problem Statement: Over the years there have been infrequent but highly publicized instances when the cities have held a deciding vote in land use proceedings involving private property within another governing body’s primary jurisdiction. This continues to be possible because Ch. IV, Policy 7 of the Metro Plan requires that any proposed amendments to the Metro Plan for property outside of a city must be jointly approved by the County and the partner city (or cities) or otherwise, the amendment shall be referred to the MPC for conflict resolution. The current bylaws and operation of the MPC has made resolution unlikely if one of the jurisdictions does not desire resolution. This has meant that each of the cities possess and have exercised an ability to override the authority and will of the County Commissioners and the adjoining City Council on proceedings which involve property located entirely outside of their own city limits or the UGB. Proposed Solution: There are two possible remedies to this problem. The first entails modifying the current consensus-driven conflict resolution bylaws of the MPC. The second, involves limiting the applicability of the Metro Plan by modifying the plan boundary so that it is coterminous with the Eugene Springfield Urban Growth Boundary and modifying key policy language within the Metro Plan that speak to the applicability of the plan beyond the UGB. These revisions could be implemented and concurrently adopted along with other upcoming HB3337 related amendments. Attachment “B” to this memo is a possible conceptual illustration of the proposed adjusted Metro Plan Boundary. IV. ACTION The information presented in this memo was provided at the direction of the Mayor’s and Chair of the Board for discussion purposes only. Therefore, no action is requested at this time. V. FOLLOW-UP Staff will provide additional information or clarifications at the request of the Joint Elected Officials and continue to work on all five issues with progress reports at subsequent JEO meetings. VI. ATTACHMENTS: th A. November 12 BCC work Session Agenda Cover Memo regarding alternative options to UTA termination B. Concept illustration of the proposed adjusted Metro Plan Boundary 4