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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC Minutes -12/10/08 Work SessionM I N U T E S Eugene City Council Work Session McNutt Room—Eugene City Hall 777 Pearl Street—Eugene, Oregon December 10, 2008 Noon COUNCILORS PRESENT: Chris Pryor, Bonny Bettman, Betty Taylor, Jennifer Solomon, Andrea Ortiz, George Poling, Mike Clark, Alan Zelenka. Her Honor Mayor Kitty Piercy called the meeting of the Eugene City Council to order. Mayor Piercy recognized the work session as Ms. Bettman’s last official City Council meeting and noted the cake and flowers presented to Ms. Bettman to recognize her service to the City of Eugene. She noted some of the civic and community events that had occurred during Ms. Bettman’s tenure. Ms. Bettman thanked the mayor and those present. Councilors offered their thanks to Ms. Bettman. Mayor Piercy recognized Ms. Ortiz. Ms. Ortiz said she had recently been walking in her neighborhood and noticed the extremely long line for food at St. Vincent de Paul. As a member of the Human Services Commission, she was aware that food supplies were down, the need was up, and the quality of food boxes was down. She asked the council to consider donating $25,000 out of its Contingency Fund to Food for Lane County (FFLC) to recognize the increased community need. Ms. Ortiz, seconded by Mr. Zelenka, moved to donate $25,000 from the Contingency Fund to Food for Lane County. Ms. Ortiz suggested the possibility that the council could offer the community a challenge to match the amount. Mr. Poling believed the current economic times argued for the motion. He liked the idea of a challenge match. He was a strong supporter of FFLC and encouraged the City’s other governmental partners in Lane County to make some sort of donation given that the agency served all of Lane County and the need was being felt all over the county. Mr. Pryor agreed with Ms. Ortiz as to the need for the donation. He also liked the idea of a challenge. He believed it was up to the City to provide support for people in the community who needed it. Mayor Piercy emphasized that the City had not received a request for funding from FFLC. Ms. Bettman agreed with the remarks of Mr. Pryor and supported increasing the available food supply for the community’s needy. She asked if St. Vincent de Paul received its food from FFLC. Ms. Ortiz indicated the agency received a percentage of the food that went into its food boxes from FFLC. Ms. Ortiz accepted a friendly amendment from Ms. Bettman to direct that the money was to be used to MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 1 Work Session purchase food. Ms. Bettman said she would support the motion without the challenge but she thought the challenge would motivate people to step forward. Mr. Clark determined that Ms. Ortiz was proposing to donate a dollar to FFLC for every dollar donated by the community, up to $25,000. Ms. Solomon arrived. Mr. Clark said he felt comfortable donating his own money to great organizations such as FFLC, but was somewhat challenged to donate other people’s money. However, he understood the need and for that reason supported the motion. Mr. Clark anticipated that the City would see more challenging times and would be approached for funds by many agencies at a time when it was facing budgetary shortfalls. Mr. Zelenka supported the motion and determined from the manager that the Contingency Fund contained sufficient funding to support the amount in question. Mr. Zelenka thought that it was important that FFLC be able to buy more food during difficult economic times. Mayor Piercy said that she understood from FFLC that it would address the mechanism of the challenge and work with the City to implement the motion. The motion passed unanimously, 8:0. A. WORK SESSION: Police Auditor Recruitment Process Acting Human Resources Director Alana Holmes and Becky Hopkins of Human Resources were present for the item. Consultant Eric Middleton joined the council via speakerphone. He provided an update on the recruitment process for the position of Police Auditor. He reported that 33 applications for the position had been received as of the closing date, which was December 8, 2008. Twenty-five of the applicants had a juris doctorate degree; eight were from Oregon, and three were from the Eugene area; four were currently working in a law enforcement oversight agency; and three of the applicants had judicial experience. Mr. Middleton said based on his review of the resumes, he had sent supplemental information to 17 of the 33 applicants requesting additional written information. He asked them to describe their philosophy of civilian oversight, to respond to the challenges they perceived in the field, and to discuss their interest in the position and any barriers they faced in accepting the position. Mr. Middleton anticipated that between now and the next council check-in he would vet the applicants who applied by reviewing their supplemental information and would conduct screening interviews with the applicants to verify current employment, employment history, discuss the position, and to answer any questions they might have. He noted that article checks through LexisNexis were now in process. Mr. Middleton indicated that he planned to submit a bound progress report identifying the strongest applicant by January 9 to give the council time to review it before he next met with them on January 14. Responding to a question from Mayor Piercy about the size of the applicant pool, Mr. Middleton thought the MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 2 Work Session City had some strong applicants but he was disappointed by the response as compared to the last time the City advertised. However, the requirements had changed since that time. He believed the economy also made some potential applicants hesitate to make a move. Mr. Clark asked Mr. Middleton if thought the applicant pool was large enough for the City’s needs. Mr. Middleton acknowledged that he would prefer a larger pool of applicants. He noted that only two of the four applicants currently in an oversight position had a juris doctorate degree and he would like to see one or two more such applicants. Mr. Clark recalled his discomfort with that requirement and asked if the City could benefit from having a larger pool. Mr. Middleton said he did have some applicants with juris doctorate degrees with extensive public law experience, although not in police oversight, and would like to explore the merits of those applicants in more detail. Mr. Clark wanted to move forward with all deliberate speed without rushing. He said he would prefer to open up the pool to more applicants sooner rather than later. Ms. Taylor thought the City had plenty of applicants and that Mr. Middleton could eliminate those without a juris doctorate degree. She would only want to reopen the position if the City could not find anyone to take the job. Ms. Bettman asked at what point the consultant would provide the council with the applications. Mr. Middleton said he intended to provide the council the names in January. Ms. Bettman recalled that when the council last hired the auditor, councilors were provided with the full applications for all applicants. She thought councilors who wanted that should have them well before the January meeting. She thought it was premature to suggest there were too few applicants until the council saw all applications. Mr. Middleton indicated that could be done, and he believed that the supplemental information could be provided to the council as well. Ms. Bettman throught it great that people from oversight agencies had applied but she believed the juris doctorate degree was a more important requirement. Mr. Zelenka also believed the council had received enough applications and he wanted to review them all. He hoped to receive a recommendation from Mr. Middleton in regard to the relative strengths of each applicant. Mr. Middleton indicated that would happen. Mr. Zelenka did not want to change the requirement that candidates have a juris doctorate degree but wanted to see the applications of otherwise well-qualified applicants. Mr. Clark said that he also believed the council had a good pool of applicants and wanted to move forward as quickly as possible. He asked Mr. Middleton if there was a point at which he did complete background checks on all applicants. Mr. Middleton indicated that occurred during the end of the process. One of the goals of the January meeting was to identify applicants and interview dates, and at that time he would seek authorization for the background checks. He emphasized the importance of process confidentiality once the council received that information, and cautioned against informal referencing as well. B. WORK SESSION: Infill Compatibility Standards The council was joined by Planning Director Lisa Gardner and Senior Planner Terri Harding of the Planning and Development Department, who provided a PowerPoint presentation entitled Infill Compatibility MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 3 Work Session Standards. Planner Patricia Thomas and Infill Compatibility Standards Task Team co-chair Sue Prichard were also present. Ms. Harding’s presentation included background on the project, information on the task team process, identification of preliminary issues, and next steps. Mayor Piercy asked if there was general agreement on the task team about what constituted good and bad infill. Ms. Harding said yes, but acknowledged it was difficult to describe. She said the Infill Compatibility Standards (ICS) Task Team began to rely heavily on photographs and she thought such tools would be similarly important when the task team went out to the community. Mayor Piercy suggested a model could be used but she acknowledged that context was very important and hard to model. Ms. Harding said the issue was reflected in the task team’s concerns about design review, as good design could dramatically lessen impact. Mayor Piercy did not see anything in the presentation related to neighborhood preservation. She thought that was a different question from the question of what constituted acceptable infill as it touched on what residents found important to maintain in their neighborhood. She thought it important to keep that in mind. She thought the council had heard examples about how that occurred in the Moving Forward Together conference. Ms. Taylor determined from Ms. Harding that the council would consider code language related to the item in July 2009. Ms. Taylor commended the quality of the task team. At her request, Ms. Harding reviewed the proposed public process, noting it included both outreach to the general public and focus groups. She also anticipated the neighborhood organizations would host workshops. Ms. Taylor asked if the task team was discussing the issue of building heights in the case of a single new building in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Ms. Harding said no, and the item was not on the ICS work plan. Ms. Taylor thought that issue should be addressed as she was seeing much incompatible development in the R-1 zone. She also asked if the ICS Task Team had discussed eliminating flag lots. Ms. Harding said the task team had some interesting discussions on the topic but there was no preferred solution at this point. The task team was recommending that all the related issues, such as setbacks and building heights, be examined in greater detail. Ms. Taylor determined from Ms. Harding that the ICS task team had discussed the placement of windows. Ms. Taylor said window placement made a big difference to residents. Mr. Clark thanked staff and the task team for their hard work. He noted the impact issues identified as a result of multi-unit dwelling infill, which were being evaluated in regard to aesthetics, convenience, and livability. He asked what analysis was being done in regard to impacts on public utilities and the public infrastructure and said he would be interested in hearing more information about that and how increased densities in particular areas affected the existing system and system capacity, and what would be required to bring the system to capacity if it was not. He hoped that those issues were being given adequate study. Ms. Bettman spoke of the long time she perceived it was taking the City to complete work on design standards so that it accomplished infill and density in a way that preserved neighborhoods and decreased vehicle miles traveled. She said that the research about those issues had been done and was readily available. She encouraged staff to take advantage of the work done “way back when,” such as the 1994 visual preference survey. She said it cost a lot of money to have the discussions “over and over again” and get to the end and “not do what we needed to do.” MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 4 Work Session Ms. Bettman asked if the task team was looking at minimum density requirement. Ms. Harding suggested the solutions would test that question. The task team was still in the stages of issue identification so there had been no discussion of that topic. Ms. Bettman maintained that was an equity issue. She said that the R- 2 zone used to have lower densities, and then the R-2 definition changed and “all of a sudden” residents living in single-family homes in those neighborhoods were facing undesirable infill. Without a minimum density, there was no equity to the City’s density requirement. The City planned to absorb new residents inside the urban growth boundary, but certain neighborhoods were “taking” the density while in other neighborhoods, even those zoned R-4, developers had the choice to build more expensive homes at much lower densities. Without a minimum density, the City would never achieve equity among neighborhoods or the goals of absorbing the housing units it needed. Mr. Poling asked if it was possible to have Metro Television broadcast a community workshop on the subject or make it a topic of the City’s “Working City” program. Mr. Zelenka also thanked staff and the task team for their work on the topic, which he thought was the council’s highest priority for the next year. He suggested a focus group of “regular” residents be convened. He also liked the idea of visual preference surveys and the use of pictures and asked how staff would translate pictures into code language. Ms. Harding said the task team had indicated its preference to focus on clear and objective standards to be applied to all new development. She acknowledged that turning a recommended solution into actual code language was somewhat challenging, but staff would research what other communities had done and test the application of the new code language through actual case scenarios. Mr. Zelenka asked if the task team was considering incentives such as ‘feebates.’ Ms. Harding said that the topic of incentives had come up. The task team had discussed facilitating the type of development preferred by the code, but had not determined how that would occur. Speaking to Ms. Bettman’s remarks, Mr. Zelenka suggested the council continued to have the conversation because neighborhood associations and residents objected to infill developments. They did not like them for one reason or another. He asked how that could be addressed through the process. He hoped the committee could consider a process that “headed off that kind of negative input” into the process. Ms. Harding said the issue had come up, and the Single Dwelling Committee was considering the issue of notification and ways of fostering earlier collaboration or cooperation between the developer and neighbors, particularly in regard to development proposals that otherwise required no notice. She reiterated her comments about the task team’s preference for clear and objective standards, suggesting that such standards would give developers certainty while protecting those things that neighbors like. Responding to a question from Mayor Piercy, Ms. Harding said that the task team had no representative from the Bethel neighborhood. She said not all areas of the community were represented on the task team, which was why the task teak was planning its exhaustive public input phase commencing in early January 2009. She added that those areas not represented on the task team could have similar issues to those who were represented. Mayor Piercy noted many examples of flag lots in the Bethel area. She also noted an attractive example of the use of the panhandle lot approach near Washburn Park. Ms. Ortiz encouraged more direct outreach to the Bethel and Trainsong neighborhoods. Ms. Bettman said an issue related to flag lots, particularly larger lots farther out from the core, was that they MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 5 Work Session required many curb cuts, with an impact on pedestrians and bicyclists. Ms. Bettman expressed concern that the City was moving forward with infill compatibility standards and opportunity siting in different processes. She questioned what happened when the Lane County Homebuild- ers Association appealed the compatibility standards to the State, leaving the City with only opportunity siting. Ms. Harding said the goal was to adopt a process for opportunity siting that incorporated infill compatibility standards into the approval process for a particular project. Ms. Bettman asked if remand or delay of the design standards meant that opportunity siting would not go forward. Ms. Harding anticipated that the infill compatibility standards would be included in the code and would apply to development throughout the City where applicable, dependent on the standard. In regard to the opportunity sites, she anticipated a process that included compatibility criteria as part of the approval process. Ms. Bettman expressed concern about the proposed approach. She feared that the City would end up with density without design standards. She had opposed the bifurcation of the two processes because she feared the design standards would be challenged and “fall behind.” She saw that as a recipe for destroying neighborhoods. Responding to a question from Mr. Clark about how she would proceed, Ms. Bettman recommended that the City explore model codes from other communities, such as Portland. Otherwise, she feared the outcome would be unregulated density. Mayor Piercy concurred with Ms. Ortiz’s remarks about outreach to the Bethel and Trainsong neighbor- hoods and suggested that the residents might want to have something to say about how the areas near their neighborhood developed and grew. Mayor Piercy adjourned the meeting at 1:20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Jon Ruiz City Manager (Recorded by Kimberly Young) MINUTES—Eugene City Council December 10, 2008 Page 6 Work Session