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HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 3 - TransPlan Horizon Year Memorandum Date: September 11, 2009 To: City of Springfield City Council, City of Eugene City Council, and Lane County Board of Commissioners From: Greg Mott, Springfield Planning Manager Kent Howe, Lane County Planning Director Lisa Gardner, Eugene Planning Director Subject: TransPlan Horizon Year Requested Action: Allow new evidence at the governing bodies’ upcoming joint public hearing on proposed amendments to TransPlan and the Metro Plan. Background: In October 2008 the Land Conservation and Development Commission approved a work plan for updating the Eugene-Springfield Transportation System Plan (TransPlan). The approved work plan requires the cities of Eugene and Springfield and Lane County to adjust TransPlan’s planning horizon to be more consistent with the year that the TransPlan Study Area will actually reach the population for which TransPlan is modeled and designed to serve. (The region covered by TransPlan is the “TransPlan Study Area”, which is an area extending beyond the Urban Growth Boundary and the Metro Plan boundary that is used for transportation modeling purposes.) On April 7, 2009, the three Metro Area Planning Commissions held a joint hearing on proposed amendments to TransPlan and the Metro Plan, including an amendment to TransPlan that extended its planning horizon from 2015 to 2024 to reflect actual growth rates since the plan’s adoption. Following the public hearing, the three Planning Commissions unanimously recommended that the governing bodies adopt the proposed TransPlan and Metro Plan amendments, including the TransPlan planning horizon amendment. At the time that the Planning Commissions acted, the Cities of Eugene and Springfield were pursuing population forecasts based on the Safe Harbor methodology. Accordingly, the Safe Harbor methodology was utilized to project the year that the Transportation Study Area would reach the population that TransPlan was designed to serve. Based on the Safe Harbor methodology that year was approximately 2024. On September 1, 2009, the three Planning Commissions considered and recommended approval of a Metro Plan amendment to incorporate population projections for each city and the Metro urban areas east and west of I-5 based on a coordinated population forecast recently adopted by the Lane County Board of Commissioners. The County’s forecast was developed separately from, and using a more rigorous methodology than, the cities’ safe harbor process. The Planning Commissions agreed that their previous recommendation regarding the TransPlan planning horizon amendment should be adjusted to reflect the newer County coordinated population forecast. To that end, the Planning Commissions unanimously moved to “recommend that, based on the Planning Commission’s recommended population forecasts, the amendments to TransPlan and the Metro Plan recommended to the [elected officials] on April 7, 2009, be adjusted to reflect the new population numbers.” The rules governing typical TransPlan and Metro Plan amendments state that “the governing bodies of Eugene, Springfield and Lane County shall hold a joint public hearing on the plan amendment. The governing bodies' decision shall be based solely on the evidentiary record created before the planning commissions. No new evidence shall be allowed at the governing body joint hearing.” However, the rules also authorize the three governing bodies to establish a “different process, time line, or both, than the processes and time lines specified [in the local ordinances].” To ensure that the amendments to TransPlan’s planning horizon are consistent with the recently recommended coordinated population forecast, staff from the three jurisdictions recommend that the governing bodies pass a motion allowing additional evidence (e.g., the coordinated County forecast and projected changes to TransPlan based on those forecasts) at their public hearing regarding the TransPlan planning horizon. The hearing will occur at a later date yet to be set. Related Policies: None. Recommended Motion: Move to establish a process for the pending proposed transportation planning horizon amendments that allows new evidence at the governing body joint hearing and allows the governing bodies’ decision to be based on the new evidence as well as the evidentiary record created before the planning commissions.