City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, the Bend City Council will now meet in executive session pursuant to ORS 1926602E to conduct deliberations with persons designated to negotiate real property transactions. Representatives of the news media and designated staff shall be allowed to attend the executive session. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during the executive session except to state the general subject of the session as previously announced. No decision may be made in executive session. At the end of the executive session, we will return to open session.

All right.

Let's get started.

All right. So we are going to call the meeting to order for tonight's Council Business Meeting, and we will start with our roll call. Why don't you start, Council Franzosa? Sure.

Gina Franzosa, she, her.

Mario Mendez, he, him. Mike Riley, he, him.

Melanie Keebler, she, her.

Megan Perkins, she, her. Megan Norris, she, her.

Steve Platt, he, him.

all right so we are moving into good of the order and we don't have any proclamations tonight but we do have a statement recognizing juneteenth which is this week which is on friday juneteenth also known as freedom day marks the moment in u.s history on june 19 1865 when the remaining 250 000 enslaved african americans and confederate states were legally declared free two years after the emancipation proclamation was signed In the 160 years since, the Juneteenth holiday represents a time to gather with family and community, honor the present, and reflect on shared history and tradition. Juneteenth is about more than recognizing a date. It is a critical reminder that the work towards freedom and justice must continue. After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Black people confronted a series of discriminatory practices that placed limitations on their ability to own land, earn wages, and participate in the political process. Racial disparities and discrimination persist across our society. To offer one example, according to the US Department of the Treasury, the black, white gap in home ownership rates was the same in 2020 as it was in 1970, just two years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which sought to end racial discrimination in the housing market. At this moment, voter suppression activities such as pursuing restrictive voter ID requirements are happening at our highest political office. Juneteenth serves as a call to action to stay informed and to stand up for justice. There are many ways you can learn more about Juneteenth. Locally, you can join the celebration happening at Open Space Event Studios on June 20th this weekend from 2 to 8 p.m. Plan for an evening of delicious food, dancing, and opportunities to support local artisans and organizers. You can also visit the new Deschutes Public Library to access a staff-curated list of recommended reading materials. And if you're traveling to Portland this weekend, you can attend Portland's Juneteenth 54th Annual Festival Parade on Saturday from 11 to 7. The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. is also a great place to visit to learn more on their website. And you can also access many materials there. Today, we want to do more than commemorate because freedom is not a date. It is a duty. And if you didn't see, there's a couple little flyers about the library's program out there for anyone that wants to check that out. So thanks, everybody, for acknowledging Juneteenth and its official holiday.

So our city offices will be closed. Right.

All right, moving into our Council action and reports. There aren't any letters, but we do have a series of appointments. Thanks for everyone who helped with interviewing staff and Council liaisons for Budget Bend Economic Development Advisory Body and one alternate reappointment for ECC.

I move to approve the appointments to the Budget Committee, the Bend Economic Development Advisory Committee, and the Environment and Climate Committee as recommended by Mayor Kuebler.

second oh it's okay second by council reilly uh all those in favor thanks all right we'll move into council reports uh councillor franzosa

Thanks. Just one update. Friday, June 12th, I just want to thank Councilor Mendez and Councilor Platt for attending a meeting with the Community Renewable Energy Association. A really cool ORS 190, not quasi-governmental, it is a governmental entity composed of multiple different counties and cities that focus on local development and local benefits of renewable energy. So yeah, I'm excited about some more opportunities to be involved with that group. It was a nice initial meeting and maybe it would be nice to kind of talk with others about getting some more information from them and benefits of joining and other things like that. And thanks to Austin So, Maggie, for presenting the In-Conduit Hydro Project, that was super interesting to all the folks from around mostly eastern Oregon, but to hear about what the City of Bend is doing. So, thank you.

That's it. All right. Councilor Mendez.

Yeah. So, yes, the Community Renewable Energy Association meeting was really interesting just to remind people of the magnitude of power that is potentially at stake here. Within a couple of years, the site could be developing enough energy to power all of Central Oregon and then some, and several years after that, it could be sufficient to power all of the state as a whole. So there's a lot of power at stake and it's fascinating to see. There's some hurdles to be sure. There's some hurdles to get over, but it's pretty fascinating to learn about the potential there. Um, on June 4th, the transit vision work group met with council O'Reilly and I, and that work is ongoing, but I did want to take the opportunity to remind everyone that Ben Lapine school district children get a free transit path this summer. You can sign up in person at Hawthorne station, or you can do so online using your Ben Lapine school district student email address. My daughter did it earlier this week. It was pretty easy. She's pretty excited. Um, so just wanted to share that, uh, that possibility. And the Oregon Metropolitan Planning Organization consortium met on Friday, June 5th. And one of the biggest things that we heard was the effort to put together a transportation package. The governor is taking a lot of initiative here, convening a series of very focused groups in I think at least six different areas, a half dozen different areas, getting input from all different sides. we need to address this we need to pass that our legislature needs to do something that is going to meet the needs of the state in terms of both capital and especially maintenance and safety um so we'll be keeping a close eye on that and that's uh that's all I have to report all right Councilor Riley

I attended a couple different events over the last couple weeks. One was the kind of grand opening for the Open Arts Center that's down in the Central District. And I know that there's another organization that opened up recently down their way. I think that's how you pronounce it, H-U-E. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and there are some things that are similar, but it just was really exciting to see all the people from the community show up and to see so many artists engaged and to have those kinds of activities going on in the Central District. I really appreciate all the effort folks are putting into that to kind of keeping that art stuff alive in the Central District. Um, I attended pride, uh, probably with the counselor plat and I were there at the same time. I imagine there was other counselors there as well. That event was also really well attended. It was, um, I heard a lot of compliments from people. They liked the shorter timeframe for the event and, um, just lots of interest and enthusiasm and the clear bags. The city gets out went out like, like, in the 1st hour they were gone. The Mayor and I attended the Housing Summit last week. Are you planning to mention that?

You can go ahead.

Yeah. Well, it was very well attended. I think it was sold out. There were people from all over the state, really, and lots of people from Central Oregon. It was just great to see so many people show up. and talk and learn about what we can do to kind of deal with the various housing issues in the community. I did ride the bus during Tri Transit Week. I went from my house on the west side to Hawthorne Station, and then I went to the new library in Southeast, and I actually was talking to somebody at Hawthorne Station and missed the first bus for myself. I would have been there a lot faster. It was fine, but it was super efficient, really quick, took me where I needed to go, and I just had a really positive experience. Um, with the bus, so if you haven't tried it, I encourage everybody in the room to try transit sometime. And then I wanted to call attention to some recent graduates. I know this is graduation season. We have kids from elementary school, middle school, high school, college graduating. And I want kudos to all the folks who graduated from schools recently. But I wanted to highlight some folks that we don't hear about very often is that that is inmates at Deer Creek Correctional Institute in Madras. COCC awarded the first ever associate degrees to nine individuals who are currently incarcerated. And I just think it's really exciting to see folks investing in their future and the hope that that shows about what life is going to hopefully be like for them after they leave the correctional institute. So I really appreciate that. And it also there's quite a bit of research that shows that people who engage in education during their time in incarceration actually have very low recidivism rates and really have success. after that experience. So kudos to all of them for making a difference in their lives.

All right.

Council Perkins.

Today, with the Mayor attended the Bend Business Roundtable and had a series of presentations on homelessness and sort of the lay of the land in our region. And with the idea of how can the business community become involved in assisting in this effort, whether it's financially or with other resources. And then I think the other thing I wanted to highlight is that the Human Rights and Equity Commission met last week and we, first of all, we welcome three new commissioners and really happy to have them there. And had a lengthy conversation about the role of the Human Rights and Equity Commission and the impact of it and, you know, continue to have some really challenging conversations about how the how the Human Rights and Equity Commission wants to be a part of our city, wants to be in partnership with the council. And I admire them and look forward to continuing those conversations. I'll leave it at that.

Okay, Council Clark.

Oh, I'll go.

Oh, sorry. It's next on my list.

The Environment and Climate Committee met last Thursday. We discussed our EV readiness plan, which was actually from November 2022. And so there's a lot of interest on the committee to update that and update some of the standards. There's a statewide goal right now to meet 250,000 EVs by 2025. And so there's a lot of discussion about updating that and then also about utilities, of course, and load and if there's increased stations, is there enough? And also something I found really interesting is that it's really helpful when cities can actually, with the partnership of the utility, map out where there are easy connections that are affordable. to site some of these stations. So it'd be great to try to start working with some of our utility companies to figure that out. And then they also discussed more on the theme of reduced reuse and recycle. And what I thought was really interesting is there's three grants for $240,000 that are being offered to some of our local food carts in town. and um you can take basically it's all dishware and there's a centralized station where um you could take all the dishes from these food carts and go wash in a centralized place and help reduce some of the trash from food carts and i think we have about three signed up so far and there's a lot of interest to sign up more that's it thanks

I just want to mention on the Renewable Energy Forum that I went to with Councilor Mendez and Councilor Franzosa, one of the things that I don't think got emphasized was this in-conduit hydro that's going to be doing. Gina talked about the brief, but what that's going to provide for us is really incredible. That's going to allow one of the highest use items in terms of power in our system for the city city facilities off the grid it's gonna it's gonna offset all that power usage right there and provide resilience in any kind of wirefire situation that we have add to that that leaves over about 350 homes available to get power, baseload power from that coming in through the in-conduit hydro. So I'm really impressed with that. I'm really excited what we're going to see coming forward on that. I was also with Pride Day with Councilor Riley, and I also thought the T-shirts, people were really admiring the T-shirts that we had. Those are really well done. um well i just want to provide one look forward here because we're not going to see each other until after the fourth is that correct well we have one more meeting we have a comment right and so um I just want to remind us all that we won't have a chance to comment, and our nation's going to have its 250th birthday. And I want to commit myself with the rest of you on the board to continue to work towards a more perfect union together, because I think that's where it happens here locally. So I'm really honored to be on this dais with all of you. That's it.

Thanks, Steve. I'll just highlight one thing per Mike's comment that it's graduation season. I was invited to give the commencement address for COIC's alternate high school work in their graduates there. That is a program that helps students 16 to 21 who are referred by the local high schools that need to make up credits. to either get back in and get their diploma or end up with a GED. And really inspiring to talk to these students and congratulate them on hard work, well done to get to that point. And heard a couple of speeches from a couple of the students that were really inspiring about what they'd overcome and how they've sort of fallen off track and gotten themselves back on track to finish this really important part of their education. So was really honored to be able to do that. Okay. I think then we are going to move into visitor section. So we have a lot of public hearings on our agenda tonight. So, if you signed up for 1 of those, we will call you during that time. So that's including the budget. There's a land use hearing. If you are here for 1, for a different topic, that's not a public hearing, then I'll have you speak. Now we only have a couple of people and then maybe 1 person online. We're trying something new and moving this over here so you can really see it. And you know that you have two minutes. Two minutes to give your comments. And we'll start with Todd Torsen, who's online, and then go to in person. Please address us as a body, not individuals. And please no language or behavior that disrupts the meeting. All right. So, Todd, you're going to be forced up first up and you can go ahead and unmute.

hello i'm todd tortson a resident in southwestern bend and chairman of southern crossing and an engineer agenda item 8 project b includes the chamberlain crossing of reed market road last july residents of southern crossing asked you to reject this project you postponed it and instructed the city engineers to work with the neighborhood they did not today they present you with what looks like the exact same thing They held an open house with little advance warning and at a park. We were able to figure out which one by calling Ben Parks and Rec and not from emailing or texting the engineer. They also gave us no advance warning of this being an agenda item today, even though they know we are keenly interested in this. This location has speeding vehicles and poor visibility. This ill-conceived project does not adequately address those issues. Your engineers will tell you you have good compliance with the flashing lights, but is that only when drivers can see pedestrians and bikes? What about in poor visibility locations? Pedestrians will have no warnings if vehicles are ignoring the flashing lights and speeding through the crosswalk because they can't see them. We have offered a comprehensive solution to address the safe crossing using the traffic light. Additionally, our solution deals with trouble making lefts out of the neighborhood onto a busy reed market and emergency response access. It's part of our efforts to enhance the last half mile of reed market for US 97 for wildfire evacuation. The Silver Lake Boulevard part also has problems. Does it make sense that the city allowed low income housing to be built without driveway parking and now wants to eliminate the street parking at that location? Please use the taxpayers money wisely and come out to understand what's really needed. Let's work collaboratively to get the best solution. Either reject item eight, project B or postpone it and meet with Southern Crossing. Thank you.

Thank you, Todd.

right our other online folks are for a different item later in the agenda so we'll go to in person um start with john halen and please introduce yourself and whether you live in the city event hi my name is john halen i live in bed i am a local troublemaker um i am here because i felt compelled to talk about the fact that there was a housing report a year ago talking about how 10 of the homes in Ben are empty, vacation homes, second homes. We have 50,000 homes in Ben. That means we have 5,000 homes that are sitting empty in our community. These are homes that are basically a black hole of economic activity on every block. This is a home that could have a family that works here, whose kids go to school here, who buy groceries here, and float the river and rent paddle boards. And I think there needs to be a move to maybe have a fee for empty homes in this town. Because when it snows, you can see what neighborhoods are the most empty. And it is a disservice to us, and it's a disservice to our economy here in Bend that we have such a deficit of housing, as well as 5,000 units that are sitting empty on our streets. So I hope you guys can work with to shoots county, maybe encourage them to. To a certain fee or property tax, or maybe there's something we can do locally, but. It's unconscionable that there are 5,000 empty homes. In our city. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Brian Adams.

But it's all important.

Yeah, we're not, it's not a public hearing because it's just the 2nd, so you can go ahead and give it up now. Thank you.

Yep. Okay. Good evening, Mayor, Council. My name is Brian Adams. I'm a Bend resident. I'm here tonight to express concern about the ambiguity that continues to exist between the city's stated intent and language in the ordinance of 1820. However, before I begin, I do want to thank the stand for what you believe. Our community is stronger when people from all perspectives participate in the public process and make their voices heard. First, Mayor and Council, I'm here tonight not to question the policy preference. It is a question of clarity, precision, and good governance. I respectfully urge you to make the right choice, not simply the easy one. Postpone tonight's vote and direct staff to revise the policy A little more time now to correct the language is preferable to facing confusion, unintended consequences and potential legal challenges later. The city has an opportunity tonight to ensure the ordinance matches the record reflects the intended outcome and provide certainty to the community. I respectfully ask that you take that opportunity. And then in reflection to kind of the council's announcements and recognition earlier, I also want to recognize my daughter who graduated from Bend or from Mountain View High School a couple of weeks ago and is going to be attending Oregon State University. So thank you.

Okay. So that will do it for the visitor comment that's outside of our public hearings. So we'll move on. Well, how are we? Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm sending it into the center, Jenny.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All right. Moved by Councillor Norris, second by Councillor Platt. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Great. So that brings us into our budget section. So we're going to have a presentation on several items all at once, and then we'll open a couple of different public hearings on the different items as we move through the decisions.

Okay.

Please.

Always sneak up when consent agenda goes so quickly.

Okay. Let me, let me, let me.

Yeah, I think it's very, very, very, very.

Well, I'll kind of.

Thank you for your patience. We will speed through these. Okay. All right. We're back at it. These are the items that we presented to the Budget Committee on June 3rd. So just for reference, most of these items are unchanged from that meeting. I will highlight any changes that have occurred since that point. As the mayor mentioned, we have several items to go through, the first of which are our budget adjustments that are being proposed for the 25-27 biennium. Majority of these are year-end housekeeping, so this is inter-fund loans, inter-fund transfers, investment income, recognizing that and transferring it to the proper place, as well as recognizing some additional debt service obligation. And we also, with the consolidation of the public works administration up at the new campus, we have to take some internal transfers to be able to pay for that new structure out of the proper funds. And then lastly, we have quite a few general fund one time allocations that are going to different parts of the city. These were those that were discussed with Council back in February of 26, including funding for streets projects the extension of our shelter services as well as the temporary safe stay area there are also transfers for North Mirror Pond design contract as well as the health and safety compliance coordinator which Council discussed in November of last year so that is that kind of sums up all the budget adjustments that we plan on that are being proposed this evening Our second item are year-end loans and promissory notes. Year-end loans are essentially an accounting mechanism. We have a lot of grant-funded funds and programs within our city. A lot of those grants are reimbursement-based. And so a lot of times, our spending occurs in one fiscal year, and the money doesn't come in until the next. So these year-end loans function to keep our cash balances positive for that. Those year-end loans will be repaid in July, so in just a couple of weeks. Promise for your notes, that again is another accounting mechanism that allows our vendor of individual agency areas to operate as well as the MPO. And those will be repaid by June 30th. So those will be repaid this fiscal year.

Dan, a way to sort of explain that to folks is that we just can't end in the red, right? Correct. So that's all this is as an accounting.

Yep. So general fund loans the money and then we pay it back July 1.

Yep. Give or take.

Next item is state shared revenues. The state requires us to let them know that we want the city's share of the state shared revenues. We have to hold two public hearings. The first public hearing was held with the budget committee on June 3rd. This is the second public hearing for this purpose. The state shared revenues include liquor taxes, marijuana, cigarette, as well as our state highway apportionment. These funds are used primarily for general city services, police, streets maintenance, long range planning, code enforcement, as well as a contribution to our city's transit. And then the state highway apportionment is used primarily for state and for street preservation and maintenance. And so with public hearing, we'll be able to signal to the state that we want to receive this funding. Our next item, we require formal action to be able to levy the ad valorem taxes for the city. We are taking the city's permanent tax rate, the 2.8035, as well as a local option levy that helps fund our fire operations And then we also have our general obligation bond levies that were passed in 2011 and 2020. Those are specific dollar amounts because the amount that impacts each property owner will depend on what the citywide taxable assessed value is in the given year. So that is the differentiation there. Our next item, the update to the fee resolution. I have a couple of slides here that just kind of show the across the board changes to some of the broader categories. In short, these are all presented to the Budget Committee on June 3. And with minor exception are within what was budgeted or included in the adopted budget. Only exceptions, the building increase is lower than what was budgeted. The licensing fee, we have a 4% increase across the board. We had not budgeted for an increase there, but those departments are seeing about 9% cost increases, and so we're trying to cover part of that increase in those departments. We will also cover water, sewer, and SCC and transportation SCCs on a future slide. The second slide, just wanted to highlight the water services. We have water, sewer, and stormwater. A 4.9, 1.8, and 8% increase are proposed there. The across-the-board impact to the typical customer bill is about 4%. So in aggregate, it's about 4%. And then we, again, will cover solid waste hauling in a subsequent slide. Moving on to the Capital Improvement Program. Each year we're required to hold a public hearing and adopt the next five years of the CIP. So this is the 2027 to 2031 Capital Improvement Program. It's proposed to be about $557 million uh the budget for the next fiscal year is 106 million dollars and engineering presented on these cips in the last month and if there are any questions engineering is here and available to offer insights The next item is the adoption of the staffing schedule. This is 1 of those changes that I wanted to highlight. On June 3rd, we had presented an increase of 9 and a half. Uh, since that point, we are now proposing to also add 1 for a municipal court judge. Currently, the city operates its municipal court with a contracted judge. Due to increased administrative work, increased court sessions due to photo enforcement, and the parking enforcement as well, we are requesting that this position be transitioned from a contract to an FTE position. And that will happen sometime in the next fiscal year, working through some of the details there. And if you have any questions about these specific other positions that we've already discussed, happy to go back when we get to the questions. Next item is an update to our investment policies. Again, this is required by code that we update our investment policies each year. In consultation with our investment advisors, they recommended no changes. So the only change to the investment policies is the date of adoption. So not too much exciting going on there. For solid waste rates, the city has two solid waste haulers that operate within city limits. Code requires that the city council adopt any changes to their fees. They have requested a 4.5% increase to their fees, which is about 97 cents for a 32 gallon can. Then lastly, we have updates to the fee resolution for system development charges. There are a couple of changes going on with SCCs this year. First off, we always have an annual increase that is tied to the engineering news record construction cost inflation index. For May of 2026, which is the month that we typically use, it is 2.4%. Just for reference in the budget, we had budgeted 1.8% increase for this year. So this is slightly higher. We're seeing construction costs slightly higher than what was in the budget. Another change is the third year of implementation for the transportation SCCs, SCC methodology that was adopted a couple of years ago. And then lastly, the Institute for Transportation Engineers has released a new manual which details trip counts for different categories of development. The proposal in front of us today includes the decreases to trip counts. uh the manual included increases and decreases but at this time we're only proposing to take the decreases to trip counts and those are the main changes to the system development charges free to answer any questions on the 11 items all right any questions and then we are going to go through public hearings as well go ahead council plat

Dan, on the business licensing fees back there, several slides, it was 10%. That is in our original adopted budget. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay.

Yep. The business licenses were adopted to increase 10% each fiscal year.

All right. Other questions, Councilor Franciso?

Yeah. A couple questions. On the capital, on the CIP slide, um for facilities management the the 33 million that's a really big increase well that's only one year i see but still it's a big increase annually um does that have you know like an estimate for city hall in it that maybe isn't necessary anymore i'm just curious no there's only in our biennial budget for this fiscal year was a or for this biennium it was a million i think that was set aside for city hall that helped pay for studies etc i don't

For future years, Dan, do you recall what's in there?

Yeah, so this was a placeholder that was roughly $10 million a year. These were put together prior to recent staff presentations and discussions. But the five-year CEP does include some city hall funding.

I think we'll adjust this for the next biennial budget and take that down, given our prolonged. But we just didn't have time between when we presented that last week and this week.

Okay. So that won't be, it won't come back as like, oh, look, we have all this money that we didn't spend that we could spend it on something else. All right. If you, if you promise that I'll, I'll go along with that. On the FTEs, the FTE slide. I guess my question here is, are there vacancies right now that positions that could potentially be eliminated and filled with the regular FTE positions that are being added here?

We've mostly, so vacant positions, we always look to see if we can repurpose, so that's always a constant part of our process. These positions, like the overhires, a majority of these are overhires within FHIR, is to give us the authority to really reduce overtime, probably talked about a few weeks ago. The others are really dependent upon sort of workload kind of issues that are occurring in each of these areas. So repurposing a vacant position, we kind of already go through that vetting process and this is determined to be needed based on workload activity.

Is one of the last position listed there related to implementation of the Duncan recommendations too?

Yes, and then the recommendation of the report, yeah.

And then the limited term positions, I mean, the way those had kind of been presented, it sounded like the intention was for those to actually be full term. So I'm curious kind of like why they are LTE and not FTE here.

The Health and Safety Compliance Coordinator is really connected to the TSSA, the Temporary Safe Stay Area, which right now is time limited. have that be an LTE. And then the warehouse technician position. So we've just established that new public works campus. The warehouse is a new function. It used to be a scatter process. Now we've centralized it. We want to make sure that that workload is solid. Right now there's a justification, but we want to make sure before we convert that to an FTE that we have experience with the additional staffing. Then we'll determine at the next manual budget if we want to convert that to an FTE.

Okay.

And then the police wellness, the other LTE. So that was, uh, that's a contracted position right now that we're converting to an FTE. So again, we, we kind of tend to, before we just move right to a full-time equivalent position, we want to make sure that. the sort of workload need is sustainable. And before we would, because we're in the middle of our biennial budget, we felt it was prudent to have that be an LTE. And then we'll look at the next biennial budget if we want to convert that to an FTE.

Okay. And then the transportation SDCs, we got a letter today. I don't know if everyone's had a chance to read it.

We can address that during the public hearing. I think that would be best. That item does have a public hearing and Joe Bessman is here to speak. So I think if we want to address that during that public hearing, we can talk about those comments.

So then Dan will respond to those comments or someone?

We'll have a whole public hearing on that so we can have a response from staff as well.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Two questions for you, Dan. If we wanted to exempt the mural fee for, say, three years citywide. That's supposed to be $676.60 each. Do we have an idea of how much that would cost, like how much revenue we would need to cover from the general fund to accomplish that?

Sure, so in the last couple of years, last year we received two, sorry, current year we've received two applications, last year was three, previous year was seven. So the dollar amount is between one and $3,000 each year. So if you wanted to put a three-year moratorium on it or something to that effect, it'd probably be somewhere between three and $6,000.

Okay, thank you. And then similarly, I know Councillor Platt I asked about the 10% increase on business registrations. My understanding is from your comments last time that we're planning to revisit that methodology in January. How much would it cost? In other words, how much would we have to cover from the general fund if we just wanted to pause that 10% increase until January?

Sure. So the 10% increase brings in about it's projected to bring in about $45,000 a year. So I guess if we were to pause that, we'd be out $22,500. The restructuring was projected to bring in about $135,000. So the restructuring, it would make up for, if we were to pass the restructuring, it would account for taking a six-month pause on a 10% increase.

Thank you, Dan.

If that makes sense. Sorry, public math. You're right.

That's right. Can you go to the assisting development charges slide? And I don't know if this is necessarily a question for you, Dan, or maybe for Ryan, but the third bullet on there, can you walk through practical implications of that not increasing? I mean, the comment that you made is that some went up, but we chose to waive that and sort of what that means practically and the why behind what that choice was made.

can I ask also that we address that during the public hearing but just wanted to let you finish your question so Ryan could hear it and be ready but we'll get into that I'm not sure I've seen the letter actually the people are going to yeah all right any other questions okay great so we will move into a public hearing for some of these items um opening a public hearing on items 5 a c f and I now

And I think counselors should you have a potential on 5 1, F, this items could have a financial impact, but since the impact is unknown at this time, I'm permitted to deliberate and vote on this item.

Okay, so we're opening the public hearing on these items, and Dan was there additional presentation that was incorporating what you've already presented? Okay, I did not have anyone that signed up for public comment on these items. They are the resolution approving the supplemental budget, the receiving state shared revenues, the CIP, and the solid waste collection rates that's what we're doing in this public hearing so unless there's anyone that's going to bring public comment on those items i'm going to close the public hearing and we can have a motion i move to approve items 5a c f and i second all right moved by councillor flatt second by council mendez all those in favor aye aye okay unanimous Great. That moves us to 5.2, which are the items that don't require a public hearing. That is 5V, B, G, and H. So we don't need to open a public hearing for those. Just to go through that, it's the year-end loans that we talked about is item number V. D is the levying of our property taxes. G is the staffing schedule. And H is the investment policies. So we'll take a motion on those.

I move. Go ahead.

I move to approve items 5B, like Bravo, D, like Delta, G, and H. Second.

All right. Moved by Councilor Mendez, seconded by Councilor Norris. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Great. Unanimous. All right. Then I'm going to open the next public hearing, which is to adopt a resolution establishing fees and charges for fiscal year 2025-2026. This is item 5E, so I'm going to open that hearing.

Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, that's worse, and I am declaring an actual conflict for items by the three and four my employers in homes and this doesn't have a financial impact, and therefore I will not be going on this item i'm just gonna.

Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, And also item 5.4 same thing right. Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, Yes, I said five three and five four yeah.

Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, Great so step. Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, away.

Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, Well, we have a public comment on these next two so you might as well take a seat. Alison Tucher , The Capacity Collective, might be a little bit okay. so um this is our fee resolution and we did have vic i'm sorry veronica who i think is here veronica ramos yeah if you're is this for the business yes this is this is your time so you can go ahead the same rules as before a two minute timer on your comment and feel free to tell us whatever you'd like on this this particular comment yes thank you it sounds like the stepped

The schedule was taken off the table. Is that correct? Okay. So that was my biggest concern today. I'm a new business owner, Redemption Coffee Company, and I seek to bring love and joy to Bend through coffee. community and connection. So I wanted to take people out of loneliness, get them together and help them create community. But it has been near impossible here in the city of Bend with the SDC fees related to the transportation tax, getting a brick and mortar. So we started out in a coffee cart. I got a notice last week on Tuesday at 5 p.m. right before the Wednesday meeting. No way I can make that kind of turnaround for a meeting. to come and hear about that. But these fees are telling me that I shouldn't do business here in the city of Bend because I'm going to be penalized for bringing jobs here to Bend so that people can come and work at my coffee shop. Because the more employees I have, the more I'm going to have to pay to do a business here. And again, I'm already struggling to do a business here because of the change of views. And those SDC transportation fees, $130,000 to change the use on this storefront that I thought would be beautiful to bring people to come and get together over a cup of coffee. So I just wanted to share kind of the impact that these decisions are having on new business owners. I'm actually thinking of taking my business to Redmond because they're easier to work with. And that's sad to me because my community is here in Bend and I love Bend. So I don't want to do that. So I just want to leave you with those words of help me bring my business here to Bend and keep it here.

Thank you. Thanks for being here. Okay. So we did not have other commenters on this item unless there's anyone else here to comment on the fee schedule. I will close the public hearing. There wasn't anyone online right there for the master plan. That's right. Okay, so I'm closing the public hearing and we can move to deliberation and emotions.

So, I do have 2 small proposals. I think I don't know. I think they're small anyway. 1 is, I want to know if others would be supportive of a mural fee exemption. I feel like. We have some phenomenal murals in our town and it's always exciting to see them. There's more of them coming up, but it is a cost. And I know this cost is designed to cover the cost of staff time associated with it, but in the effort to beautify Bend, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in joining me in supporting a three-year exemption on mural fees.

Can I ask a technical question? We're just doing this next year's fees, so I'm not sure we can bind a future council or give it notes, maybe?

Well, you can give that direction and sort of detail your preference, and we can talk about it and then develop an explanation.

Yeah. Yeah. Just curious why. Have you done some research on it? I'm just curious, is the fee the reason why we're not seeing applications? Or are there other things that may constrain

This process, I mean, I think that we've heard some of the challenges around. installing murals and each mural is different i'm sure but. It strikes me that a $676 fee could be a significant barrier for some. And if we want to incentivize beautifying bend, this strikes me as a relatively low cost way to do that. And that's really the main motivation. So I thought, you know, two, three years exemption, let's just see what happens. If we get twice as many people applying for murals, then we know maybe that this was a bigger barrier than we thought. If nobody applies or there's no change, then I think that informs us and gives us another indicator.

That sounds good to me. Are we supportive of that change? Is that easy enough to do, Dan? Yep, seeing head nod from Councilman Mendoza. I was with the Downtown Bend Business Association this morning and brought this up and they were very supportive. They are working on murals and I think anything that just lowers that cost is helpful because they have to raise money to be able to get the murals going. Okay, and then you had another thing?

I did. So the 10% increase on the business registration struck me because it is a significant increase percentage-wise. And considering that we are going to be revisiting this with a new methodology in January, I, I think that a 22,000 dollar cost to pause this increase. I feel like, you know, we know that small businesses, especially are struggling right now and this would be a 1 way to show support and say, okay, let's hold off on the fee. And for now, it's going to cost the city some money, but. Temporary maybe that's something we can do.

That's for anybody.

Dan, is it a whole year? Because it's July to July before that one hits.

Fiscal year.

Yeah, so it's a whole fiscal year, right? So it's really the 46.

So $45,000 would be a full year of revenue. So if we paused it for six months, that's $22,500 in that first six months. In theory, the second six months, there might be some change that occurs.

but the first six months the only difference would be that 22 days well but we will pause it starting one July am I getting that wrong or well the idea is to kind of revisit the restructuring right and have a base in January in January as Dan said there might be some recovery of okay yeah okay just wanted to check the math okay yeah I'm I'm supported any other thoughts other comments

Janet Callahan- With it, I can I ask Cyrus is that a can I yeah I'd love to hear it inside us that's okay yeah yeah from.

Good evening, Council. Cyrus Mooney, Business Development Manager. I think the intent is that we would take this topic to BDAB and talk about the restructuring and other methodology options that we could pursue. I don't know if that would lead to BDAB necessarily recommending that it would be at the same rate of what was originally proposed. So I just caveat that a bit that The recovery of pausing for 6 months, I don't know if that would be recommended by, but it would definitely be something that would we would explore with them to determine what they feel like would be the most effective approach for both the city and also mitigating impacts to businesses.

So, can you remind us and it's either for you service and maybe you, Eric. It seems like there was some cost cost recovery and or these funds were going to be directed to the business to the economic development department, right? Because we currently that's all coming out of the general fund. So the point of this was to try to the business activity is in some ways helping support the work that you know, including a mural grant program, at least for certain parts of town. So can you just speak more to that?

Yeah, I think generally speaking, economic development and the business advocacy budget is intended to be more of an enterprise fund that is self-sustained through business registrations. And right now that isn't happening and we're needing a pretty significant subsidy from the general fund. So this is a way to right that ship a bit. But I think the small business assistance grant program is another example of if we're able to generate more funds through business registrations, we can then reinvest more resources into that program, for example, and maybe other future ones that have similar intended outcomes.

I mean, the six months thing seems fine to me, as long as it's clear that we're wanting to get that resolved in January, that it's not going to, you know, not really going to extend it out the full year, because I think there are some financial issues for the city that this is a small piece of trying to help solve.

Yeah, that's correct. And I think the intent is that our July meeting for BDAP to dedicate some time to talking about this topic and laying out the milestones that we need to achieve to be ready to have a recommendation at council for January.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, go ahead, Councillor Franzosa.

Thank you. I didn't want to interrupt. I appreciate Councilor Mendes bringing this up, because I think it's related to something that I've been asking for, which is a little bit more thoughtfulness in the budgeting process and a little bit more involvement with Council. So last two years or a year and a half ago, we decided that we wanted to do more economic development, but we didn't really allocate budget to it. We didn't take a hard look at the budget. And so I think January is an appropriate time for us to start doing that. And I think there's other Issues that we should kind of consider and make sure that the budget is aligned with the council's priorities. So I, I appreciate that. This was brought up and I support that 6 month moratorium and a deeper discussion in January.

Thanks so it sounds like we have agreement on that change as well to the schedule. Anything else any other comments or deliberation before we do a motion and I think. And can maybe, Ariel, if you want to do the motion and just append your two changes to that, would that work? Okay, that would be great.

Yes, I need, I don't know if I can figure out the language.

Just a quick point of clarification. Sure. So we have business license initial registration as well as renewal. Are those the only two fees that we're looking to? Those are the only two fees that were impacted by 10%.

Yeah.

So those are the only two fees that we are looking to impact.

And so should the amendment be for John Potter, Three years or, for one.

John Potter, For. John Potter, murals my recommendation for Council would be to consider. John Potter, An amendment on the mural fee that. Waves exempt exempts doesn't apply that fee for the next fiscal year. And then as part of budget development for the next biennium, maybe when staff is doing that and coming to council, we can have some more information on how many gotten in and that way council can sort of apply it for a year and then consider.

Okay. I moved to adopt the resolution, establishing fees and charges for fiscal year 2026 and 2027. Mike Noce, Mgmt. With the following amendments on 2.14 point 11 F mural signs I moved to exempt the fee for the next year and for 4.1 point 09 business registrations I moved to pause the 10% increase until January 2027. Second.

All right. Moved by Council Mendez, seconded by Councilor Flatt. Any other discussion? All those in favor?

Aye.

Okay, great. All right, so that will bring us to our next public hearing, 5.4, on the system development charges. Yeah, sorry, no, we're not done. Opening the public hearing on that item. And we had one person, Joe Bessman, signed up for public comments. Joe, if you want to come on up.

All right. Good evening, Mayor, counselors, staff. My comments are limited to the transportation SDC fees and specifically to the recreation category. So overall, there's a lot of different recreational uses in the trip manuals and everything else. And these range from low intensity uses like your court sports, tennis courts, pickleball, to higher intensity athletic clubs and whatnot. When the city did their 2024 update, they took all these 28 categories and said, we're going to assess every recreational use with just these two uses. They picked the two most intense uses. And now that applies across the board to all these uses to kind of simplify the assessment of fees. But when they did that, they said every single trip to an athletic facility during the PM peak hour, so when you're driving home from school or work, is brand new on the system. If that recreational facility wasn't there, that car would never be on the road. But we know that's not true. So in coordination with BPRD, I conducted a number of surveys at Larkspur and Juniper Fitness Center over a course of a couple of weeks, surveying over 370 patrons and found that 50% of all people are just, as we expected, driving home from school or work and stopping at that facility to work out or whatnot. We submitted that data to ITE. It's now published in the 12th edition of the manual. It's now part of the manual. It's recent, it's local, it's specific to Ben's transportation system. It's frankly the best data you're ever going to see for our own local information. In discussions with staff, while we have these two different uses that are calculating the fee, staff said, okay, well, that's good data, but we're only going to apply that to public uses. And for private athletic facilities, we're going to assume that rate is still zero. And what I'm asking is that the city instead apply this 50% reduction to public and private recreation facilities across the board. which is the same thing they've done for gas stations, for drive-in restaurants, for banks, for strip malls. This is the only way to have an equitable solution across these categories as required by the ORS. So that's my request.

All right. Thank you, Joe. And we got your letters that was submitted as well. Okay. So we had a question about staff responding to this. So Ryan, or I don't know who would be appropriate, if there's anyone that wanted to talk about it. Okay. And then Ryan, Mike's question to you as well. I want to make sure we cover that. Okay.

I think we might be the right people to answer. Okay, great. Yeah, as well. But Elizabeth, I was still with the city attorney's office.

Sarah Hudson with the city manager's office. Um, so in general, with, um, we kind of reviewed comments, I think they came in late last week. So we need time to go through kind of the technical details of it, but in general kind of staff recommendation that it wouldn't be enough to hold up kind of the full adoption of the 12. It rates, because a lot of rates would be decreasing for a number of categories. So, kind of the benefits out. outweigh kind of kind of stopping the whole process and that could look more into the technical details of what we've designed and possibly align it with when we come back before council for the supplemental uh transportation stc if that's of interest when would that be um this fall so that would be either september maybe early october so you're saying because of the notice that we've given about these this methodology we can't make a change tonight or what is

What does that mean?

So our recommendation is just we haven't dug into the details of what was presented tonight to make that change tonight to support it one way or the other. We don't know that we agree with the assertions about the pass-by rates in the other categories that were mentioned. So just to give staff time to dig in and see if there are additional updates related to that implementation of the 12th ITE data, we recommend that the rest of the, as presented tonight, is adopted. Staff can continue to dig in and if there are additional updates to bring back that are highlighted by the comment, that relate to implementation of the 12th edition rates, we can bring that back in the fall. But there are a number of other trip rate adjustments relating to moving to the 12th edition that are reducing SDCs into the transportation categories for a number of different uses. So we do recommend that council go ahead and adopt as presented and staff can continue to dig in. And if there's additional modifications to be made, based on the information submitted and what we find when we dig in with our consultants, we can come back with that.

You do that on the timeframe when we're going to talk about the Supplemental Transportation SDC for Southwest.

Yes. Okay. Okay. Another friend, Zoza?

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I've been involved in conversations like this long enough to know. I feel actually pretty... impressed that Joe went and did this analysis. And I am going from memory here. I don't have his memo pulled up, but I think he's been in conversation with the city for over a year on this. So I would personally support just moving ahead with a 50% reduction because I'm not hearing that it's something that needed to be noticed. It sounds like it's just something staff would like to dig into more. I mean, why not do the 50% reduction now and then come back in September and say, we didn't have to do it. Let's make it what it was.

So staff did incorporate, as Joe said in the comments, and I think in the memo, staff did incorporate that local study into one of the recreation categories. So that is included in what's presented tonight for one of those categories. For the second category, that's not what's presented tonight. And so it's those additional pieces that were raised in this memo and the comments that we'd like more time to dig into those pass by rates for that second recreation category. I'd also like to know if there's a specific project that comes in in the interim, there is a project specific appeal process if the SDC's charge aren't right for that project, there's an administrative appeal process for any specific project.

Yeah, but how much does that cost and how much time does that take?

I revised it with the last code update, so it is what would feel like a streamlined process. I think there's 10 days or there's a city manager meeting, which stretches it out a little bit farther, but it is designed to not take too much time.

And is there a fee for it? I don't think so. Probably.

500? It sounds like $500.

that's 500 feet of the city and then like untold dollars to your consultants to do all the paperwork to submit to the city I mean it's another it's a barrier on this subject I think the the general principle is we take these trip generation tables that are based on National data and whenever possible we use local data to inform them and here we have an opportunity to implement really good local data, that seems like it would be kind of the gold standard that would certainly be in the spirit of them. Personally, I'm not a fan of using trip generation to charge these fees. And I think that most cities are actually not most some cities significantly are moving away to either account for mode split or recognizing that not everybody is using a car to get to places. So I look forward to reviewing them, I would be supportive of adopting um the exemption the exception rate for 50 percent um in the additional category does it sound like it's it's based on really good local data i i mean what i'm hearing from staff is that the the date of this memo is not uh once a week ago okay

Yeah, it's last Friday, right? So what you're basically saying is you haven't had a chance to really, you've done it in the one category, but you haven't had a chance to do it across the whole.

That's correct.

The whole piece. And how often are we getting applications that include, that are for projects like this that would fall into one of these SDC categories? I mean, is this, we're getting five a month or we get two a year?

I believe it's even less than that.

That was genius here. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I figured, just to confirm that.

Okay, so can you hear me? Yeah, go ahead. Good evening. I'm Gina Dahl. I do administer the SDC program. And so can you ask the question?

Well, how often are we getting applications for these kinds of recreation facilities that fall into the second category that we're currently not planning to adjust? Is it once a year or ten?

I mean, it really depends. There is a there are so many different types of projects that are coming in um we don't get actual recreation facilities that often it's more like small gyms and that sort of thing which is where some of this would show up would this supply into small these categories we're talking about supply to those gyms it would yes And it's not that we don't disagree necessarily, it's just more that we wanted to dig in so that it's consistent. Because some of the items in the memo, I'm not sure, we need to dig into that a little bit further to see how accurate some of it is. But we don't disagree necessarily, we just want to be able to dig in.

And should the digging process identify? We should have done that and there's been a few applications since then. Could they be adjusted in some way for those applications? Is that available as a choice to Council in the future?

We have to look into that. I'm not sure.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Council President, do you have a different question?

Yeah, no, same topic. So, I mean, so Elizabeth, you mentioned it's that you did apply a reduction for one category but not another. What is the difference between those categories?

I'll look to Gina for this answer as well.

So the two categories involved, one now is a 50% reduction. The other one is still 100%. So it's really just the two categories. And so, yeah, we're not. What's the difference between the categories? What do you mean? Sorry.

Where do they apply? What's the one?

Well, one is the recreation and one is the indoor fitness. So private, public concept.

So like Planet Fitness versus Juniper Rec Center? Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty concerned about it. Like even based on the coffee shop owner whose name I forget right now, I'm so sorry. I mean, it's real, the change of use, you know, and the subtle differences in use. And then, you know, that result in these astronomical SDCs that really do kill businesses. It's why the city put a, has waived SDCs for childcare centers. So, and we, you know, we're really, I think, looking at some economic hardship coming up and the city's adopted this economic development plan and all of this stuff. So I think it's really critical to act on it very quickly. And so I would actually feel much more comfortable about moving ahead with the 50% now and then having you guys dig into it and come back to us and say, justifying why it should be 100% in September before you come back with the supplemental STCs.

Okay, thank you.

Other thoughts? Here's why I'm comfortable with that, because basically what we're doing is you say, you know, we heard about Larkspur. We're all familiar with Larkspur. We're trying, we would be going back in time, we're trying to guess how many people are going to drive to Larkspur and what is the impact on our transportation system that that has. And we can't do that because there's no other, we don't have a crystal ball and we don't have any other way of saying, well, what are the other Larkspur centers in other cities look like? So we do some adjacent kind of estimating. We say, well, there's other recreational facilities. And then we take that information and we apply it locally. I feel like I would be supportive of saying, okay, I think there's some good data here that sounds like there's a good reason to say this 50% exemption makes sense. It's ultimately kind of this effort to prognosticate on what people's future transportation behavior will be like that's very imprecise. I don't think that it's a crystal ball, so I don't feel like it's, we need to say, oh, there's some gold standard of, you know, crystal ball that exists. It doesn't exist. We're doing the best we can and we can adjust in the future. So I'm comfortable with it, but, um, that's my perspective.

I'm comfortable with it as well. And a lot of this is deja vu from when we were talking about SDCs with independent practices. And it's the same thing. It was like, if you go to the hospital, are you just going to the hospital and going home? Are you stopping at various places? And so I think if there's something we can do about this now, I'm OK with it. Steve?

I mean, I appreciate the data. I would be interested in further data in September. So I guess I would be interested in a pause right now with that 50% being implemented with the understanding that we're going to take a more holistic look in September.

Okay. Just to name a couple of things we have, and Joe, I very much respect you. We have one memo from one transportation engineer who does private consulting that's given us this information, and I'm sure it's all going to vet out, and we're going to be able to see that it's all accurate. But I do respect the staff for saying, hey, can we have a little more time to make sure that this all makes sense um so i respect that very much um i also want to indicate every time we are not collecting secs that's money that goes to capital projects like the roads that people drive on to get to the fitness center so just something to think about that you know when we don't collect those then we don't aren't less able to build those type of things but i'm hearing consensus at least from a majority well mike where are you at

I'm inclined to go with the staff recommendation. I mean, I think with all the time and effort that we've put into the SDC methodology and just being respectful of not to dismiss what we've heard, it may be very informative and it's already been informative. In 1 particular place, so, and then I'd encourage the council to look at, like, if we really, we conclude that that's what we should have done, and we can go back and look at those that we've collected for and see if there is a mechanism where we can correct that fee.

This is this is just with the top edition. So there isn't anything prior to this where this is affected.

Yeah, but this is what would be adapting tonight, right?

But if we charge something in August, and then we decide in October to do something differently, that's adjusted in some way to compensate for that. It just, I think it's being respectful of all the time and effort and complexity of this season. That's I think what the staff are asking for.

Could I offer a compromise of this is one particular category in our fee schedule on an actual user who's pretty rare that we just heard Gina comment to. How about if in the next three to six months we do get one of these particular applications, we waive the fee for somebody to challenge that and we can have that more in-depth discussion in that one particular instance.

that allows us as staff time to come back in the fall um further reviewing joe's data but it gives somebody the possibility to maybe offer a compromise in the meantime during this time frame yeah okay so that would mean um the decision tonight would be to go ahead and adopt the sdc resolution and then also give staff direction to come back to us in september after looking at mr whenever that next checkpoint is um after looking at this data a little more and tell us either yes or no we agree with the request and then we can make a decision what we want to do. In the meantime, anyone who comes in with this type of project under this category would not be charged if they wanted to get an individual appeal.

Am I allowed to say that, Elizabeth?

That's what I'm saying, it may be on the table for us if we wanted to direct that.

To be clear, just the proposal is, I don't believe a 50 percent reduction in the SDC charge. It's a 50% reduction of the trade count that goes into setting that. Thank you. It wouldn't necessarily be a 50% reduction in March. Thank you. Good clarification.

I guess I want to just dig in just a little bit, I apologize, but this would be no fee for the appeal. Is that what I'm hearing? But recognizing Councillor Fanzosa's comment, there is a preparation fee for that fee, for that appeal from the user, right? But there's a time, but a consultant who, and so we are essentially putting that cost for the appeal on the person, even if we don't charge them the city fee for that.

so the appeal fee is for the city staff time that goes into reviewing the appeal and then the appellant does have the opportunity to provide additional information they will have already provided information for their sdc application so the staff can make that initial determination of what category they're in they have the opportunity to provide additional materials how much um and who they hire to do that is up to them okay that's the case today

HAB-Juliette Boone, Okay, what I might suggest is if see if we have a majority to establish to adopt the resolution that staff has presented and then take a moment if there's an additional motion on additional things that anyone wants to do and see if we have a majority for that. HAB-Juliette Boone, That makes sense if someone's willing to make that first motion and then we'll i'll give space for a second motion.

HAB-Juliette Boone, I moved to adopt a resolution updating the system development charge fee schedule second.

Okay, so moved in by Council Perkins, seconded by Councilor Riley to update the fee schedule as staff has presented. All those in favor? Aye. Okay, any opposed?

Nay.

Okay, one opposed. And then now if anyone wanted to make a motion on anything additional regarding direction to staff or changes that you can make.

I move that we ask staff to research the rest of the categories and based on the local data provided and other research that you come back to a recommendation on adjustment or not to the fee. And in the interim, between now and when the Council makes a final decision about that, we waive the appeal fees, both of the two appeal fees, for any particular applicant that falls into the category.

Sorry, can I ask a clarifying question? Yes. Into both recreation categories or just the one? Just the one that did not get reduced.

Okay, does everyone understand that motion?

Yes, and I think I second it.

Okay. Moved by Council Perkins. Moved and seconded by Council Perkins. So this would say, staff, please take a look at what Joe has provided. Please look at that category. Tell us, yes, we agree with him. Let's take the trip counts down or not at that next touch point. And in the meantime, if someone does come in and say, hey, I'm building a gym, I'm in this private category, I don't think you've got it right. They would not need to pay any appeal fees.

Okay. All right, any further discussion on this motion?

Okay, all in favor of this motion? Aye. And any opposed to this motion? Okay, Councilor Prince is opposed. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joe, for being here and providing your information. Okay. I'm not sure I closed the public hearing. I'm closing it now. It's closed. All right, that will move us into items. Oh, yeah, she should be talking back out here. Item 6 and 7 actually. I'm sorry, let's start with item 6.

Just item 6, this is a positive additional public hearing and 1st rating of the ordinance to amend the development code, half the 2.7 special plan districts, refinement plans, area plans and master plans. To create the cavity master plan development and approximately 43 acre major community master plan.

All right, so I'm going to open the public hearing on item number six, and we're going to start with the quasi-judicial questions from Ian.

Thanks, Mayor Keebler. I'm going to ask Council a couple questions. I'm going to go down the line. I'll start with Councilor Fransosa after asking if anyone has any ex parte contacts or site visits they wish to declare. Councilor Fransosa?

No.

Councilor Mendez?

No, it's part of context, and no specific sites as it's. But I mean, I'm pretty familiar with the site.

I think I think general familiarity with the site call that okay doesn't need to be declared. Thank you, Councillor Riley. No, Mayor Keebler. No, you're pro Tim Perkins. Councilor Norris? No. Councilor Platt? No. Okay, next question. I'm going to go down the line in the same way. The question is, does anyone have any actual or potential conflicts of interest or other personal interests that would interfere with the ability to serve as an impartial decision maker in this application? Councilor Francosa? Brett KenCairn, Heard no counselor Mendez. Brett KenCairn, Counselor Riley know. Brett KenCairn, Mayor Kuebler. Brett KenCairn, Mayor Pro Tem Perkins. Brett KenCairn, Counselor Norris. Brett KenCairn, Counselor Platt. Brett KenCairn, Know there anybody here in the room tonight or online that wants to present any challenges on the basis of bias personal interest or any of these declarations. Brett KenCairn, Looking around the room seeing none assuming no hands raised online hey. Tonight, all testimony, argument, and evidence must be directed to the applicable criteria in the Venn Development Code and the Comprehensive Plan that the authority believes are applicable. The failure to raise an issue with sufficient specificity for the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude the appeal for the land use for appeals on that issue. The failure of the applicant to raise a constitutional issue or other issue regarding a condition of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude a claim for damages in circuit court related to that issue or condition. And if prior to the end of the public hearing tonight, a party requests additional time to present testimony, argument, or evidence, the decision maker may allow either a continuance or additional time in its discretion for parties to submit that additional testimony, argument, or evidence to the record. That's it.

All right. So that will move us into our staff presentation.

All right.

Yeah. Okay. Yep. Before it didn't. Yeah. All right.

Um,

Good evening, Mayor, Council, everyone. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. My name is Nicholas Nars, associate planner with the City of Bend Planning Division and Community Development Department. And I am here this evening to give a hopefully brief staff presentation regarding the CAVI master plan. It's project LSPD 20250374, an approximately 45 acre major community master plan. And like I said, the purpose of my presentation is to go over exhibit B to the ordinance, which is a staff recommendation to the city council regarding the findings for this master plan and highlight some details and hopefully help in the deliberation process. So just to be clear where we're headed, the recommended motion in the issue summary as outlined is for a motion to amend the Bend development code to establish a special section of code which is going to codify the CABI master plan development with an amendment to a couple figures. And those figures establish the street layout to comply with Title III. And I'll get into, of course, all the details of what that means and why that recommendation says as such. So to orient everyone, this is the subject property. Historically, it has been referenced as the ward property, at least a portion of the ward property. It is bounded by Murphy Road to the south and Southeast 15th Street to the east. The Nottingham neighborhood is to the north. I think that was a, it's about 100 units and it was recorded around 1977. So a well-established neighborhood. Those are private streets to the north as well. And then the BNSF railroad is to the west. So functionally this lot is landlocked. It only has access along those higher order arterial streets to the east and south. Alpenglow Community Park, a relatively new park that is just across Murphy to the south. I think we're all pretty familiar with the site, but This property and the frontage of the property was more or less rules in through with a capital improvement project. I think it was completed in 2021. The Murphy corridor project that included the above grade crossing of the railroad there on the southwest corner, as well as improvements to 15th Street. The roster house and 15th roundabout there was completed around 2020 to the north as well. And we also have the Ferguson roundabout at Southeast 15th and Ferguson just northeast of the frontage of the property that I think is just getting started on construction shortly. So a little bit of background on how we got here. This project initially went before the Planning Commission in November. And the application was placed on hold for some time and then revisited with some minor modifications. I believe we have Scott Winters here from the Planning Commission, who I hope at some point is going to talk about what the Planning Commission deliberated on at that hearing all the way back. We can call that from November. It's been a few months. It's a little atypical. So a little background there. Here is the layout of the master plan. So with the major community master plan, you are allowed to reorient the zone of the property. The zoning designations are as such RS, RM and RH are all residential zones. And then the purple on kind of the corner near the roundabout is mixed employment. That mixed employment zone allows a number of commercial and quasi-industrial type uses, manufacturing and employment uses as well. Like I was saying that with a community master plan, you're allowed to kind of reorient the zones. So these are not exactly what is currently there, but they're permitted to rearrange them provided they retain the original allocation of each zone within 1%, which they have done. So this is just the general layout. And I have a better slide of the open space and trail plan. It'll be a little more illustrative here further. But I wanted to walk through the criteria just for the record. My report and recommendation talks about consistency with statewide planning goals. We're all very familiar with those. Following of a public process and notice requirements, which we have. consistency with the bend comprehensive plan, particularly chapter 11 and growth management this area was actually identified as an opportunity area in chapter 11 so this master plan is in direct response to an area of opportunity that the comprehensive plan found and. Number three, by the way, these numbers are not in the code. This is just for my own discussion. The master plan review process here requires that the applicant demonstrate capacity with full build out of the site for all necessary utilities, sewer water. We have those in the sewer water analysis submitted as well as the traffic impact analysis submitted, confirmed capacity for all necessary infrastructure in order to support the full build out of the use. Talked about the reconfiguration of the zones within 1%. Number five here, this process does review Whether or not subsequent because something back up the this master plan process is not we're not proving any physical development of this time we are proving a layout and a structure that will be followed. And and sort of implemented through future phases of a subdivision or site plan review so while we might be talking about the physical layout of the site. This is really a special code that future development reviews will be subject to so that's what this process is talking about there, you are, you are. able to under a major community master plan propose slight deviations to titles two and three uh title two being the zoning districts and then title three the design standards provided uh demonstrate they could be met with these future reviews um and that's where these deviations and i'll talk about what they are in a second there's a lot more to get into in that but that's what this process is about establishing the special code Number six, ensuring that the master plan has access to commercial goods and services. That's measured by establishing that the entire perimeter of the property be within one half mile of land that is either planned, zoned, or developed with the opportunity for commercial goods and services. That two acre area of mixed employment that I mentioned before is actually within a half mile of the entire site, so complying with that requirement. I'll touch on a little bit of what was talked about the Planning Commission regarding the concerns about, which have been a hot topic of recent memory, about the development of commercial lands and master plans with affordable housing. Number seven, multimodal connections be provided for the TSP, not the visa plan, and then parks and rec recommendation. This project, as detailed in the recommendation, complies with all necessary connections. I'll show the slide, like I said, for the open space plan, but critically there is a Undergrade crossing proposed underneath the Murphy Road adjacent to the railroad to allow a lower stress connection to Alpenslow Park, which I think is most critical to the layout. But we currently have multi-use paths, separated pathways 115. Those are going to be connected to and improved as proposed. Second to last here, housing density mix. The unique standards of master plan require a minimum 70% of each zone density be met. They have demonstrated capacity for that minimum 70% to be met. A total of 362 units is the minimum. And of those 362, I think around 193 are required to be sort of middle housing, multi-unit, townhomes, Cogs Cluster, et cetera. And they've demonstrated capacity in those zones. Lastly, master plans are required to allocate and dedicate 10% of the open space, or I should say, sorry, going back up, gross area of the master plan is required to be open space. This open space can be comprised of, and I cited the definition here in 1.2, the property or area of land or water set aside, designed or reserved for the public or private use, specifically for the purposes of recreation, conservation, or other open space. Currently, the plan proposes a number of active and passive areas. In particular of concern, I understand, is the inclusion of the Central Oregon Canal to the northeast of the site. The canal, which, if I show the slide again real quick, I'm just going to sneak forward a little bit. The canal there separates the northeast portion of the site from the southeast. This area is included in the six acres proposed to be part of the of the total open space. So 45 acres, 10% is 4.5. I dug into some of the specifics about someone master plan. So regarding whether or not other projects have included passive canal spaces before and researching the relatively recent Petrosa master plan in the northeast of town, that property required just about a half an acre of canal easement space to be counted in order to comply with the minimum 10%. Another similar master plan, the wildflower master plan around 2022 required 3.5 I believe it was a little over three acres of open space on a 32-acre master plan. Their open space was complied with rock outcroppings in the form of an area of special interest. And so there is some precedent for more passive open spaces to be counted towards open space. But interestingly enough, even if subtracting the area that the canal contains, if you count the space where there is a trail, planned by Ben Parks and Rec. And that's the blue, kind of darker blue along the northeast portion of the canal. If you count those spaces as usable spaces, they actually just hit the 4.53 minimum necessary to meet the 10% open space requirement. So roundabout way to get there. Staff found that they do comply with the open space minimum requirement of 10%. Let me just go back to my slide. I'm sneaking around so I don't jump around so much here. Like I said, this was a point of concern with the Planning Commission, so felt it worth mentioning. Regarding the deviations to Titles 2 and 3, we test the proposed deviation against this criteria. So will the deviation, is it necessary due to unique site constraints? Will it equally or better meet the purpose of the regulation proposed to be modified? Is there something unique about the property that justifies this change? And by and large, the mitigations requested, staff does support. Those for the residential zone include pretty standard deviations to reduce lot sizes and dimensions, special setbacks, special flag lot standards, removal of floor area ratio standards. And these are necessary to provide a little more efficiency of use for the property and for the product intended by the development. um and also some special standards for large track land divisions you may have questions about that essentially what it is is a way to piecemeal property and i'm sure the update could probably answer this better than i can but my understanding is it just a necessary process to ease in the phasing and the funding of each phase as the subdivision or as the master plan has developed the ability to partition and sell off property without doing necessary improvements staff supports this deviation, particularly because the city is not in any obligation to handle additional capacity without those improvements. So as long as there is that protection for the city, staff supports the deviation. The one deviation that staff feels does not pass the test of equally or better is the water perimeter deviation. So in particular, the deviation is for the standard of 2 000 linear feet and that's measured in the center line of all local streets surrounding a block is the maximum allowed per title 3 to for all residential zones to comprise new neighborhoods the central block here that i've outlined in red is about 3 100 linear feet and again the test is does it equally or better meet the purpose of the code we didn't find a strong argument to why it would and then Conversely, is it necessary due to the unique site constraints? So this is a pretty flat site. There's no topographical variation along this area that would justify the need to reduce the block. I'm sure the applicant will have more to present at their presentation, but that was the one deviation staff felt did not pass the test for the criteria, hence why the recommended motion is for an amendment to that figure to add that additional local street. TAB, Alex Weinheimer, going back like I said November 10 planning Commission this project was actually recommended for a denial. TAB, Alex Weinheimer, By the planning Commission, based on the lack of compliance with the open space criteria and usability of that open space. TAB, Alex Weinheimer, Street connectivity and the concerns about the commercial lands being developed with affordable housing that last item is. slightly alleviated by House Bill 4037, passed this last legislative session, which requires a development to compensate for any commercial lands beyond 20% in the master plan developed with affordable housing. After that first 20%, they're required to replace that commercial use elsewhere on site. So that slightly alleviates the concerns presented during the Planning Commission deliberation. And I welcome any questions.

And I have a question, Nicholas. So at the Planning Commission, you've told us today that you think they are complying with our open space requirements at the Planning Commission. Did staff also tell the Planning Commission that you thought they had met the open space requirement?

Correct. Yeah. The recommendation for finding it was that was the same at the Planning Commission.

Even without the canal itself, canal channel itself?

Well, as a matter of fact, the plans that went before the Planning Commission, as I put in the preface of my report, slightly different. The original plan that went before Planning Commission was for four and a half acres of total open space. So as a matter of fact, about an acre and a half less of what is before us tonight. The revised plan has a little more open space around the exterior and interior of the master plan. But yeah, the plan was, the recommendation still found that the canal space was counted. TAB, Mark McIntyre, based on the precedent and based on the definition and one point to talking about specifically conservation uses and also it mentions the word water in the definition and I recognizing that there is a discrepancy about the. Openness to the public, one of the criteria in a master plan community major master plan is that the open space for the open to the public, there was a lot of deliberation i'm sure Scott could get into more that as well, how open to the public at canal is. So worth discussing, however, on balance staff found that the space was eligible to be counted.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, As a question related to that so. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Setting aside the question of the open now. TAB, Mark McIntyre, You had mentioned that this the plan would still meet the requirement of 10% if we counted. TAB, Mark McIntyre, The bpr the trail easement on the north side of the canal, but my recollection is you also said that trail easement was something like 20 feet wide and I thought that open space wouldn't count unless it was.

over 20 feet wide? 20 or has to be at least 20 feet in width to count to be part of the calculation for the master plan in space. And as a matter of fact, there is an area on the west side abutting the trail, the BNSF railroad right of way and tracks. It's less than 20 feet wide. So that area is actually not counted towards the six acres proposed. But I measured it at about a quarter of an acre. It's a thin strip that's intended to be another trail connection.

but yeah it does have to be at least 20 feet not not more than 20 feet yeah thank you that's a pot Nicholas I I think it's a while you know it's been a while since I watched the planning Commission development but for discussion on this one I don't remember that trail being on the north side of the

of the canal when it came to it was it was up for discussion i think that got added in this version am i right on that i think the applicant can confirm but i think that the design was a little more uh clear in this one yeah this easement is uh was existing before this master plan was proposed it's an easement benefiting ben parks and rec it actually connects all the way to the railroad right away yeah um but i believe that it was Place there is to make more illustrative, clear, but this is the plan part of the plan just to be improved at some point.

Council friends. There's a question.

Yeah, thanks. This slide's perfect. What? Maybe this is what Councilor Mendez was talking about, but that kind of open space that looks like it sort of connects the neighborhood to the railway. On the West side. Yeah, that right there. Exactly. What?

is that exactly it's hard to tell because this is a big pdf on a small slide but there is a thin uh a very small pathway so i walk a walkway proposed within that that narrow open space and again that open space isn't wide enough to be counted so it's not part of the six acres but there is a a pathway that goes north to south connecting the northwest corner there of the master plan And then ultimately, we go all the way south into the purple pathway, which would be the undergrade crossing to Alpenclo Park.

Oh, so there is a path there. I just can't see it because the slide is.

It's there.

OK, great. And then did you say like that little green block is actually too narrow? Is that it looks like it's larger than 20 feet.

That's along the railroad. It's really where my cursor is here. Just kind of if you can see it just all the way along.

Not counting.

Yeah, that is not part of the six acres that is declared as part of the open space.

okay thanks i appreciate that and then um the with the respect to the um block perimeter what is the my recollection of the perimeter block perimeter is basically for walkability um not drivability is am i thinking of that correctly the purpose of the the block perimeter is to just increase access increase uh decrease out of direction travel

In general, more opportunities for straight connections is better usability for everybody. There is a deviation language in Title III that explicitly says You can deviate from the block perimeter. And then if the city finds reason to do so, that there's a cohesive argument why the deviation should be granted, that the city can then ask for a multimodal pathway, a pathway such as this, in lieu. So staff does agree that it is mitigated to a practical extent by that multimodal pathway in lieu of a street. But staff felt it didn't pass that first test of being equal or better in terms of compliance with access for all modes of transportation. Multimodal does include cars, to be clear, as well as all the other modes of transit.

Okay, and then my last question is, there were some, you talked about some deviations that are supported by staff, like setbacks and things like that. And I was kind of, I was curious why those were supported and like, what forms of housing that would enable

I think some of those questions are best answered by the applicant, and I'm sure we'll get into that in the presentation. But to be more specific, they ask for the ability to call certain property line front setbacks, even if they're technically off the front end of a road. For example, if they front the canal, maybe we can call that the front setback, decreased distances and setbacks for a little more efficient use of space. But I would prefer the applicant to kind of get into the details of how their product needs those deviations. But in general, they were not excessive in terms of what the standards entitled to are currently for RS zone and RM zone.

Okay, thanks question like um so just so i'm clear on the roads that are entering especially I mean, obviously, to the north of the canal there we have a call the fact essentially one way in and out with your driving on street. That is in that in the northeast corner yeah yeah that's essentially like a landlocked or yeah and then the same we have two other entrances street D and this other one that goes through the commercial and. stuff um down there and connects to murphy road both of those are full streets full access in and out from HAB-Jacques Juilland- There was one of them limited in some way.

HAB-Jacques Juilland- yeah. HAB-Jacques Juilland- yeah I think they are there, so these are arterial roadways and that means that the accesses to them have to you know meet certain standards. HAB-Jacques Juilland- I believe the Murphy access maybe right in right out maybe one of the engineers can confirm for me the 15th street access would be full turning movements. HAB-Jacques Juilland- We jump estimates here to perform the transportation analysis, he could probably talk. Far more particularly than I can about the performance of these intersections. But if our engineers review them and agree with the assessment.

Yeah, we can follow up with that into to get more detail. Other questions for staff before we move on.

Yeah, seeing that we're sorry, go ahead. Staff is proposing that we push a road there from where it curves up or that little narrow green line is right that we push the road through.

So, to be clear, take those 2 pieces, local street, connecting streets, which are those 2 streets where that where that. uh pin line anywhere in that mid block area would comply with block perimeter and create two two thousand feet or less blocks uh where that is could be where specifically that is could be worked out through a future subdivision review um but uh conceptually it would be need to be shown on these figures as adopted it's around that area yeah okay okay thank you um is scott winter here or online oh scott hiding back there

Nicholas, summarize some of the Planning Commission conversation from November.

Oh, let me get back up there.

Here? Yeah, you can sit there. That's fine. And maybe Nicholas can put the map back up. Awesome.

Yeah, so just to reiterate, there was kind of three things the Planning Commission had an issue with. The big one, which is also kind of the hardest to nail down in terms of like stating specifically why We felt it didn't meet the master planning requirements with the commercial. And so last planning mission, we were able to implement the new development code that follows the new working law so that only 20% commercial areas can be taken out in master plan. So we're happy with that. So that's kind of a non-issue. So then the other two things was the open space and connectivity. The connectivity, I would say there was internal and external connectivity concerns that the Planning Commission had. So the internal would be the block length perimeter. And that which I believe is not deviated from what the Planning Commission saw to what you guys see today. The other was the external. So yeah, we talked about the Murphy access right in, right out. And yeah, there's just a little concern that You can stay right in, right out. But are people going to actually follow that? And the applicant had stated that they would have preferred to have being able to turn left on a Murphy on that road, but that the city said that the city wouldn't allow it. So that was something that, you know, dangerous connection if people are going to uh take a left and maybe just an awkward left going around the median which is the end of the median is right about where that drive aisle is um and then open space so yeah the plant uh I think you guys you guys probably remember there was a city council meeting right before our plant commission meeting that had to deal with open space master plans and it was the drainage swale that had a fence around it and the intent was like this is not an open space you know even though it's outdoors it's open if people couldn't use it then didn't really meet the intent of what an open space is and so i think we were having a hard time trying to figure out how that would be different from a canal which you're not supposed to go in uh and don't tell the people that run their dogs in that canal right there Well, yeah. But yeah, so this master plan has more open space than what the Planning Commission saw. So for instance, along that north edge between the canal and the northwest corner, there was that green strip. That was added since the Planning Commission. Same thing with the open space in the northeast portion of the site along 15th Street, basically from the uh kind of the roundabout up to the northernmost part of the property and then uh right at the end of d street so the entrance to the east where when you hit the t intersection that was just a little strip um so Thomas Needham, In terms of the plank restaurant, there are some issues with also the kind of meeting the bare minimum 2520 foot with. Thomas Needham, On the open space, so, for instance, on the West side of the site in the blocks, it was kind of like what what is that space it's not it doesn't look like it's a part of a trail connection that eats up with other. pedestrian circulation paths and things like that. So with the skinny open spaces and at least in the Planning Commission, or what came before the Planning Commission, having the majority of the open space being the canal, which we didn't think met the definition. Yeah, that was one of the reasons why the majority of the Planning Commission

Greg Rutledge, Recommending last point Okay, thank you, thanks for that background. Greg Rutledge, All right, and then we'll have the applicants, if you guys want to present your up.

Greg Rutledge, A short presentation to share here. Okay, Mayor, Council, thank you for your attention here this evening. My name is Joey Scherer. I'm a planner with AKS Engineering and Forestry here in Bend, and we are a consultant for the applicant and the developer, Polish Homes. I've got about 15 slides to go through, kind of touching on some of what Nicholas summarized for you to try not to be redundant. And then we're going to trust that you'll ask us any questions that you have. So the application that is before you this evening is the product of a team effort. This team represents a collection of professionals with expertise and decades of experience in master planning, development home building and as nicholas mentioned this property is right across 15th street from the bridges which is a pud that that paul started in in 2007 and finished up in about 2017. further south is is easton which is another master plant community that is currently under construction um We have colleagues here. Most of the folks on this slide are here and able to answer any questions, including Joe Bessman with Transite and Adam Smith with Schwab. And so before we get into the kind of the meat of my presentation, Ana Bozic with Paul Chelms, I think, is going to do a short intro.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilors. Thank you, Joey. I just want to say that as a representative for Polish, we're really excited to present this to you guys today. The Cavi represents kind of the completion of the 15th Street corridor, which Polish has been involved in a great amount of infrastructure for the past 20 years with the development of the bridges, Easton, Uterman, and partnership with Caldera High School, the school district. uh we're also honored to be working with the ward family again um to bring another community to bend that includes needed housing along with um a trail system that we believe will connect the existing neighborhoods the school the park um and as you'll see it makes a large part of as the master plan director of this community um i'm gonna let joey kind of speak to the details but here to answer questions and forward to hearing from you thanks on

So kind of just zooming in again here, and this isn't part of the slide, if there's additional questions about the site, we can refer back to, but it's 45 acres. There's two separate tax lots. You can see the COID canal that cuts through the northeast corner. And we can touch on this here, but to, I think, Councillor Platt's question, the rendering showing that easement, the BPRD easement, going to be an issue at planning commission so we didn't have a slide showing it but we'll we've kind of corrected that here um and then obviously the railroad running along the west side of the site and so that that kind of creates again as nicholas kind of said it's a landlocked site and the access points that we'll talk about here are relatively fixed So this is a preliminary layout kind of overlaid on the aerial primary access would be provided by 15th Street kind of at these two locations. If you can see the cursor and then southern access would be Murphy Road and that is planned to be a right in right out. There is an existing median there that would effectively block the other turning movements. I've been putting this layout together, we very much intentionally located some of the lower density housing to the north near the existing single family homes in Nottingham Square. And then you can see that the density kind of transitions to higher density. And we're trying to do that in a relatively gentle way. And then we have the multifamily and the ME there on the south side. And then here is a closer look and to Councilor Franzosa's questions, some of the trail alignments are hard to see, but we've tried to highlight those here with the yellow dashed lines. So the kind of the pink lines are the arterial street improvements, the multi-use paths that need to be improved. The blue line is kind of more clearly showing the existing BPRD easement, and then the yellow lines are showing kind of the internal but off-street ped paths that we have planned throughout this community. So as Nicholas mentioned, and I think is a key benefit of this project, something that we've coordinated closely with BPRD is, and again, so we've rotated the screen. So page right is actually south. The kind of pink line there at the south along Murphy uh is that under crossing that connects people from murphy road um under that overpass to alpenglow park and that saves any users coming from the north from having to cross another arterial street i also want to acknowledge that we've made a few other changes to this this layout relative to what we presented to the planning commission and then You know, what we're looking at here is based on some of those comments that we heard. And so just to summarize those, we have increased the amount of open space by about an acre and a half. We've added specifically a small park kind of at the entry of off of 15th Street. And then we have enhanced this off-street path network that we're showing in yellow. And that's actually more than a mile of kind of a circular pathway system through the community, which is a nice amenity, but also again, provides multimodal connections through the community and out to the surrounding streets.

Joey, that multi-use path along 15th Street, there's an arrow there that's going south over the bridge. It looks like the arrow is kind of going into the road, but there's no sidewalk or path facilities on that bridge. Are there improvements planned for the bridge?

No, so it's just getting people to the crossings there across 15th and then the bridge that is on the west side of 15th. Okay. And I think the pathway there, Peter Haslund, Along that whole stretch of 15 is relatively new, but the city updated standard so technically I think it has to be a foot or two wider than it is so we'll be ripping it up and replacing it to make sure that it complies with current standards. Peter Haslund, Yes, yeah so. Okay, so this is kind of the number summary of the master plan. The zoning acreage has stayed the same. The residential homes are slightly different counts than what was presented to Planning Commission. So 362 homes, 169 of those would be for future detached single family homes. About 50 of those would be for future townhomes and planning for the multifamily site to accommodate roughly 143 homes. As I mentioned, the open space was increased. So previously we were showing 4.6 acres. That's been increased to 6 acres. Again, more than a mile of off-street paths throughout the community. And some of the areas that we that will function as open space that do contain like this pathway system, kind of most specifically along the railroad, that path is 15 feet wide. So it does not count, it's not 20 feet wide. So we're not counting it as open space, but it is going to function and benefit the residents and users similarly as a 20 foot wide corridor would. And then kind of just to acknowledge this, this is showing a net decrease of four lots. And again, this is an attempt to respond to some of the comments that we heard at Planning Commission. So block length, and this is the one part of the application where we have a disagreement between city staff and applicant. And even though it's a disagreement, I'd say that we are agreeable. The vast majority of times that I've been before you presenting on these map to plan applications, we have found a way to be generally in alignment. This is maybe one or two times that I can think of where we've had a disagreement. And I think we're, we're continuing to present this because we think it's quite clear that we can meet the criteria. So I have about five slides to walk through, kind of show how we meet the criteria to allow for the deviation for the block length. So, Again, you know, I think it's important to recognize that the layout that we're looking at here is a product of many, many iterations, including some changes that have occurred after the planning commission. And the idea here is that we need to look at this kind of holistically when we make these tradeoffs. uh around block design street location right it's it's very easy to focus on one piece but really the implication is like how this ripples throughout the entire community we're trying to design a community that has these amenities um that provide real benefits to future residents and and the users of these amenities um and we we kind of have to look at i would encourage you or ask you to please look at these things holistically So this property is very much self-contained. There are no other neighborhoods that will send traffic through the community. And consequently, there's just not a lot of vehicle trips passing through, especially the middle parts of this community. And as Nicholas mentioned, in these residential zones, there's a maximum block length of 660 feet and a maximum perimeter of 2,000 measured centerline to centerline. And so master plans explicitly allow for deviations to these code standards if the purpose of the underlying regulation can be equally or better met with the deviation. So that's kind of the case that we're trying to make here. The challenge is, where this gets a little complicated in this case, is that the Venn Development Code does not explicitly state a purpose for the block standards. Some of the language around that section of code does talk about promoting efficient multimodal use. And again, multimodal, we like to think of that sometimes as just biped, but multimodal also includes vehicles. We have to acknowledge that. And so that language around promoting efficient multimodal circulation is what we understand reflects the purpose. And we can show that this plan meets that purpose. So what is efficient and efficient is also not defined in the code, but you know that that just has us look to the dictionary. merriam Webster defines efficient as capable of producing desired results with little or no waste as the time or materials. So, consequently, when we look at efficient multimodal circulation, we think that can be viewed through terms of kind of movement, so how people are moving. through this community, time, distance, length of travel, but also costs. That is a key part of this efficiency. So materials, land, and opportunity costs. So when you look at this street and block plan from a pedestrian or a cyclist perspective, you see that it is very different. And this is why I would ask for you to look at this holistically. The planned mid-block bike and ped quarters create much smaller blocks that help people travel through the neighborhood comfortably and efficiently. So when you look at this broken down from the pedestrian perspective, all of these mid-block crossings create block barriers and block lengths that are generally far less than the maximums permitted in the code. And so to get back to that standard that standard of do we do is this deviation justified because it equally or better meets the purpose of the regulation. You know for bike and ped it reduces opportunities for vehicle and bike ped conflicts. It's safer and more comfortable pedestrian bicycle travel, more options for ped and bike users. For vehicles, again, this is very low volume community. And as Joe can speak to, the traffic study confirms that all of these intersections function well. The reduced kind of additional street, that affects infrastructure, right? So fewer street intersections, reduced impervious surface, which frankly is a benefit to the developer, but it's also reduced ongoing maintenance costs for the city. And then this, getting back to this idea of uplifting, promote efficient multimodal circulation. What we're trying to do with this layout is really kind of prioritize performance rather than these very kind of specific dimensional standards. There's, to my knowledge, there's nothing magical about 2,000 foot maximum block perimeter. We're interested in trying to design a street block pattern that works for people and allows people to move throughout the neighborhood safely and efficiently. So does this plan, this deviation, equally or better meet the purpose of the regulation to promote this efficient multimodal circulation? And this slide summarizes that. So the plan creates a street block pattern where the average block perimeter is a little bit longer because we have that one longer block. The average block perimeter is about 12.4% longer for vehicles. But because we have all of these PED connections through the blocks, you're looking at a block program that's almost 40% shorter for pedestrians and cyclists. So maybe it's a little worse for drivers, but it's significantly better for pedestrians and bicyclists. And on balance, when you consider these things together, this promotes that efficient multimodal circulation and satisfies the standard for a deviation under the master plan provisions. And so I do want to point out that we are not making this case as that this should be a question of housing. The amount of housing that is saved or not through this is not decision criteria, but the reality is that pushing a new local street, and it's true that the exact alignment would be decided later, but because of other city standards trying to reduce offset intersections, it would effectively have to go and align with the street there to the east. we know that putting a local street there reduces the lot count here, the future homes, by four. So it's not criteria. We're not trying to make the point that that's criteria, but that's a real practical outcome. And so just to summarize, The cavity is a complete community, we have the me property there on the corner that any property is very intentionally designed at that location to maximize its success. Putting it kind of out of location that's going to have the highest kind of trip counts eyes on commercial sites we've. Make sure that it also had streets, local streets around it to the degree practical to kind of again facilitate its success, make sure there was good as good access as could be had on this relatively access constrained sites. We have a variety of housing types that meet the density and housing mix requirements. We're going over the minimum requirements for open space, six acres, exceeding the 10% minimum by providing 13.2%. We have the wall-connected multimodal network, which I just described, including more than a mile of internal off-street paths, which the vast majority of those paths don't even kind of factor into the block length requirement, especially around the perimeter, but they are a benefit. And then With the improvements to the bike and ped facilities along 15th and Murphy and the under crossing under Murphy Road, we're providing very good connections to recreational opportunities. Obviously, 37-acre Alvin Globe Park is an amazing park, and that's in addition to the open space within the community. So that's the conclusion of our formal presentation. And as you typically do, we're expecting very good questions.

Thank you. We've been going for 2 hours and sitting. I'm wondering if we can take a 5 minute break and then come back for questions and then we'll do public comment after that. So we'll take a quick stretch break and we'll be back.

All right.

So we're still in the public hearing for item number six. And if you want to come back up, we'll have a chance to ask you some questions. So reminder to council, we're not deliberating, but we can ask the applicant questions and get responses at this point. And then we're going to have public comment after this. And then the applicant can respond to the public comment if they want to. And then we'll do our deliberation after that. So questions for the applicants.

okay so start with you customer this okay so um question about the multi-use paths of the yellow dashed lines looking at this from a person walking or bikes it feels very discontinuous and I'm wondering what you think about like I think that the concern about block length really is at heart about people walking. And I think that we could meet the intent of blocking those by providing a more intentional flow for people walking and biking. Because I think that the needs of drivers are different than the needs of people walking and biking. So my question is, would you be able to accommodate A more continuous path that goes east and west so imagine you're at that under the crossing under Murphy road and you want to know if you can get to that bridge crossing over the canal. What is the most direct route that you could take that maybe goes up north along the railroad track and then moves east in a continuous fashion so that you're not doing these little jobs and.

uh maybe goes by you know some some open space along the way but it's it's really more of a direct route so i think one way to achieve that would be to take this open space and if that were simply aligned here with that sorry sorry show me again i mean i'm happy to stand up and annotate if that's okay i have to go behind at the tv yeah move this right over

there. So it's one continuous alignment going through.

And that's certainly possible. I mean, I think there's flexibility from the applicant's perspective on exactly where that's aligned. We were trying to make it a little bit more middle of that block. But if the trade off was kind of more continuous corridor and city council felt that that was advantageous, I think that's a relatively easy change to be made.

Okay.

Question?

Yeah. So just to be clear, you're saying that if you had to do the road that the staff is proposing to not allow the deviation on the perimeter standard and the location would have to go, it would be a total of 4 units that would be lost. Correct. 4,000 units. Okay.

Taking a 20 foot corridor, turning it into 60 feet and then adding additional wider setbacks because it's on a street.

The road to Murphy. Sounds like a novel or something. Did you look at a different location for that? And if you did not, why not? Is it because of the grade change going up to the bridge?

Correct. So as you move west, page down on Murphy, the grades really change there. And so our access points are relatively thin. There's just not much room to shift those along those two streets. And so that's, we tried to create some alignment there with the parking lot. There is the median that's kind of in between the two that forces the ride in right out. But that was about the best location.

Okay. um what's happening just north of the roundabout at Murphy and 15. there's kind of a weird little wedge there that is not part of this development is that just somebody else owns that City pretty sure that's right away yeah I think they're just storm water storm water okay thank you so then um along the lines of sort of ideas if you will but counselor Mendez presented one I'll be just really direct with you. I don't agree with counting the canal channel itself as open space. It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't think it meets the definitions and stuff. And you all, as I understand it, have made an effort to respond to the planning commission by providing more open space overall in the development. And if you removed, I'm just talking hypothetically here, you removed the canal after doing some discussion with staff today, you still would meet the minimum requirement, but just barely by like 1.1 tenth of a percent or something like that. Or in terms of the acreages, sorry, the number of acres. So the reason I'm bringing that up is just I'd like to see a little bit more usable open space in here. I think this place is kind of a cul-de-sac development is very isolated because of the barriers that are on the east with the road south with the road, the railroad tracks, and there's no connectivity to the north. And I know it has access to the park, but that's a one way a place that a mom could send her kids out to play for half an hour while she's cooking dinner or dad if he's cooking dinner that and they just they know they don't have to go all the way down and go underneath Murphy Road I'd like to see a little bit more open space in here that's usable for the community where people could play so I'm wondering about something that's the equivalent you know what I was thinking about is in the location that the staff is proposing the road instead of a road putting essentially a park there keeping the multi-use path there and that's a little counter to what we just talked about but or maybe a way to figure that out but just basically getting a little bit more open space in here you know it just seems needed to me in this development particularly because of the geographic kind of obstacles and barriers around it um and in my brain that's like you know two two housing units it's not four and we did when we went through after planning commission and we've looked at this uh layout in a number of different ways we did expand kind of this

This area here at the entry, you can see for programmable space. This is quite a large area where we do see something that's more programmable. We put it there so that when you enter the community, it's the first thing you see. and can kind of give that really community feel to it. And our justification in that is, yes, we want something for the community, but we also recognize that Alpenglow is not far. I walked from the corner of this roundabout from this location of where you would get on this sidewalk to the playground, and it was less than a four-minute walk with my three children. So it's not far, and we think that it's still, even without the underpass under Murphy, which would maybe kind of give you a more roundabout way to the playground, you can get there in a very safe, manageable way along 15th.

Okay, so the answer to my question is no.

Well, I think it's up for discussion. I think we can look at that. I think, yes, we would rather see a wider open space there that we could program than a full right-of-way if we can do something narrower. But we did address that with that kind of open space right when we entered the community because we thought that that was more of a monument-type ability to put there.

I mean, to me, it's a lot more valuable to the neighborhood.

Let's save some for deliberation.

Just make sure we're asking questions.

Anna, would there be amenities in that little park?

Yeah, we don't know what those look like yet. I mean, we'll get there when we're closer into the tentative subdivision and kind of programming. You know, there's, I think, a lot of opportunities for pocket parks, for small playgrounds, natural features. You can see those kind of Raissa Diamante, Corners and and they though they don't look like much they are good opportunities for gathering space that are kind of scattered throughout the Community along the trail network and and to really make those spaces more of us are just not addressed in this application.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, and Council really I think your point. TAB, Mark McIntyre, is well taken. I would also, I'm kind of prompting Ana here. I mean, what Polish has also experienced is trying to create in some of these communities maybe more open space it would have to be smaller just for the sake of efficiency but giving folks who live in these houses more visual access to open space that's different it's a different benefit than what you're talking about as far as usability um you can correct me if i'm wrong but that's some of the the conversation we've had what they're hearing from their from their buyers especially when there is a very large um park facility, recreation facility nearby. So it's not saying that that's better or worse, but it is intentional. It's trying to give folks more kind of visual access to pockets of open space and landscaping.

Thank you. Councillor Frenzel, is there a question?

Thank you, yes. Sorry, can you hear me? There was like a little blip in the video there. Okay, thanks. I am wondering, I heard your response on Murphy Road and the grade increasing, but I'm looking at the two, the mixed employment and the high density residential parcels, and the odd shape of those parcels makes me concerned that they're not really usable. So you might be meeting the number of acres, but they're not as easily developed. I don't know that. I think I mean, I think it's pretty important that the council kind of consider this in this application because this would be the nearest commercial to quite a bit of residential development. And I don't think it's that unreasonable to say that you have to build up the road so that you can meet the grade um so in addition to those that those um Parcel uh shapes that is unusual and um having a right in right out onto Murphy um to my mind is uh I don't know not um I understand there's a right in right out to the parking lot at the park because there's a roundabout right there, but there's not a right. But the right and right out out of this development would mean that people have to go all the way over. The bridge to the roundabout at Murphy, if they wanted to turn around, or they have to drive through the neighborhood. So, to me, that seems really inefficient.

Do you have a question for the applicant? We'll be, but what's the question?

Yeah. Like why, why didn't you consider just building up? Are you just looking to find the most inexpensive way or did the city engineers tell you, no, you can't move the entrance further up Murphy road. Um, and do you have development plans for those two parcels that show that they work for mixed employment and high density residential?

Yeah, so I can, I can try to take a shot answering some of these questions. I may need to rely on Joe for. some of the details about this, the alignment of the access to Murphy Road. But when we look at the ME and the RH sites, we don't see these as constraints. I mean, the geometry of this overall property is a little bit unique, especially when you consider kind of the access, the fixed access points in the canal and the railroad. But it's a relatively flat site. And the site the me and the rh are rectangular enough where we wouldn't anticipate that this would be constrained and um we we've done a number of projects on uh much more irregularly shaped uh properties within the city of ben so um we just that we weren't even i wasn't even considering um getting that question we just haven't seen these sites constrained through this process

And to further answer your question, we have done site plans for both the ME and the RH to vet out these layouts and the acreages. For the RH, we vetted out 143 units being laid out on the site efficiently with the amount of parking that we would require for our community. And there's more than enough, I think, flexibility in that site layout for for there to be flexibility and for it to be a marketable parcel to be sold to a high density residential developer. For the ME, we have done several site plans to vet out to vet out the kind of geometries of that site and access points and what that would look like. And then also kind of just scalability of uses and what that could look like at full build out. And it's more than efficient enough. And we've gotten good feedback from commercial developers on it.

Can you just be more specific? Like what kind of development would go there?

On the ME? We've looked at kind of a kind of there's broken up into four different parcels. Two of the parcels would be probably a multi, you know, one to two story building, maybe an office on one. We've looked at kind of fitness and a like daycare or day use, maybe an insurance company. And then kind of on the murky side, looking at kind of like a tap house style building that has access to food carts and an open space. um for uh to kind of use as an amenity for the entire neighborhood um with a playground and fire pits and kind of just an outdoor space and so that all fits with enough parking to some you know support the three different uses that would be on a shared kind of

But again, it's neighborhood scale commercial. It's not a large site. This is probably not the location for something that's beyond neighborhood scale commercial.

Yeah, totally. And then how about the road alignment?

Joe is standing up here to answer that question.

Oh, great. Okay. I can't see him. Thanks.

For the record, Joe Vestman, Transite Consulting. So great, great question, Councilor Franzosa. So we had looked at this road alignment a few different ways trying to figure out, could we get a full access there? We really saw the value, especially serving the higher density residential and the mixed employment zoning. And what we found was if we shift it to the east closer towards the roundabout, it was too close to the roundabout. And if we shift it further west, We're starting to go up the grade. The real problem is whenever you have an access here that has full movements and you're coming down a steep grade, we really need that dedicated left turn lane for that traffic to pull out, especially as we think about winter conditions and sliding down the downgrade. You start chasing your tail going up that grade and there's just, there was no way we could catch ourselves and catch the slope with how steep that is. It's about a 25 foot grade difference. So that's why we settled on the right in right out. And our thought was with the roundabouts at either end of this corridor, well, it's not ideal. You could make that work or you could use the full access 15th street entrance, which will have those left turn lanes.

and and moving that access point kind of up slope in addition to the problems that joe mentioned on murphy i mean just realistically how you build that you're probably going to lose less you're going to lose more land in menrh because of slopes from kind of the the more elevated access up to murphy so um we vetted this location with both emergency services and city private development engineering staff um and and that is kind of where we are today

And then my last question, I have one more question about the the trails shown around the property are pretty narrow. And a lot of times homes in these developments have fences around them. So are are these really narrow trails basically going to be kind of like walled in with fences?

So that would certainly not be an attractive amenity for the community. And I think the goal is to make this an amenity. I think, again, we're trying to react to comments that we heard from planning commission and then kind of show that or implement that in a way that is a community benefit and not just checking a box. And so especially here along the railroad. I may have mentioned, I think this is the corridor is 15 feet, not 20 feet. You know, this pathway network is not required, right? This is nothing in the code that requires this, but we think it's an amenity and you can probably speak to other projects where you kind of had this kind of scenario with a corridor trail and trying to create some transparency or trying to do different things with fencing to kind of make that feel more inviting.

Yeah, what we've really tried to do here is replicate what kind of that perimeter trail system that we have around the bridges and then what we'll have around Easton when Easton is fully built out so that there is kind of this large continuous trail. This trail will probably react more with the bridges And if you walk to the bridges perimeter trail, it does, you know, your fence to fence with the bunny neighborhood. In some cases you are down to 15 feet, which is why we felt comfortable with a 15 foot trail there. You know, you have the, we're not gonna have a cedar fence on one side, you know, kind of how that gets built out will have to be dependent on grade and what that looks like back there. But obviously we're using this as an amenity for the neighborhood. We want it to be attractive. We want it to be safe. We want those homeowners above that trail to feel like that is an amenity for them and not a liability. So I think what we'll see is a very, Very nicely landscaped area that is really a connection point to get from the north side of the master plan to the south where you can make connections to out below and the rest of the neighborhood.

Even though it is narrower than 20 feet, it would be in a tract owned and maintained by the HOA, right? So it's not like you're counting on each individual property owner to kind of police it or maintain it. It would be the HOA across the entire community managing that space.

JoAnne Hanrahan, Okay, thank you Steve question.

Steve Monowitz, join you're at 362 lots right and the minimum you need to hit is 348 Am I right.

Joey Hess, Norcal PTAC, it depends a little bit with the with the.

So I thought in the city packet, it was like around 348. Yeah.

So it does depend on how the open space is treated. So the math here would indicate the absolute minimum density with this current program, this current amount of open space would be 347. Which is probably around 348.

okay so just getting back to counselor mendez's riley's comment you have about 14 sites to play with right above if we if we start cutting out some more in uh open space right i mean i know that's going to meet the code requirement at some point that becomes a challenge um for totally the viability of the economics yeah i totally get it yeah i'm gonna understand i'm just trying to see what kind of trade space we have here on that thank you okay other questions for the applicant before we go to public comment

Okay, so thank you very much for answering all those questions. And we're going to have a few folks who signed up for public comment. So Karen Johnson, I see you here. We'll start with you. You want to come on up? And then we'll go to a couple of online commenters next. Same rules, two minutes.

Yes. Good evening. Karen Johnson appearing. My husband and I live on the Central Oregon Canal. We're about 100 yards up from Ferguson. When we bought the place, I was standing on the bank of the canal with my wheeler, looking at the water flowing by. I said, this is so cool. I'll be able to put my kayak in here. She grabbed my arm and shook me and she said, you'll die. And she was serious about it. This is presented as a union master plan. The problem is whether or not the space over a canal satisfies the definition of 1.2, chapter 1.2. And that is to say that space has to be for recreation, conservation, or quote, other open space uses. The problem is you cannot use the canal With water in it, you will die. Without water, even deer cannot cross the bottom. The applicant is still using part of the canal as its open space. They needed 4.53 acres of open space, and that meets the 10%. The canal itself is 1.89 acres, And even though they've increased the open space to six acres, they're still using 0.42 acres of open space. I think that as a matter of policy, all the canals crisscrossing bend should not be counted as open space under Chapter 1.2 because it is not usable for any particular purpose. And that's why I think that they need to find another 4.2 acres of open space in the canals, and not the canal, but the trails, but the little parks that they've set up.

Thank you, Karen. All right. And then online, we had two people. So let's start with Michelle Martin. All right, Michelle, you can go ahead.

Good evening. Michelle Martin-Bend. I support mixed use developments, and I live across the street from this one, actually. The applicant is not meeting the open space definition and requirement without including the canal, which does not seem to meet the letter nor intent of the usable, usable open space law. We need more usable open space added. And I did hear the developer say earlier that reducing four lots to meet that other requirement was not part of the decision criteria. That's great. That means there's plenty of opportunity to do the right thing here. It seems the developer is telling us today that rather than truly meeting the open space requirement for usable open space, increasing from 4.5 to 6 is a crumb to be grateful for while still not meeting the requirement. I read all the public comments in the file, all of them, and the vast majority were about open space requirement not being met without the canal. Basically, the developer is ditching the real usable open space by counting a ditch, a canal. i would hope that the city would require the developer to please resubmit this plan and have more open space that's legitimately open space and truly meet the requirement especially if this project overall has mixed use and we really appreciate that affordable housing component we're looking forward to this development bottom line thank you thank you michelle and then next will be patty mccormick so patty you can go ahead

OK, I think you can hear me.

Yes, we can.

Thank you. So my name is Patty McCormick. I do want to be clear that while I am the land use chair for Aubrey Butte neighborhood district, I am not speaking on behalf of the board or its members on this topic, but individually as a citizen of Bend. I intended initially to really focus my comments on expressing a concern about the fact that the KV master plan came directly to city council for approval without going back through the planning commission for reconsideration, given that the Planning Commission had voted against recommending this master plan as it had been originally submitted. Now, my concerns were mitigated a bit as I listened tonight by the fact that Scott did speak to provide some background on the Planning Commission's concerns. But in reality, as the two other folks have already also mentioned, this updated plan has not addressed those underlying open space concerns. The Planning Commission did not really fundamentally agree with the staff's interpretation of the definition of open space. And I do not believe that the precedents that were being referred to are necessarily accurate or should be the basis for making more poor decisions going forward. As has been stated, an irrigation canal is not for conservation purposes, and it's certainly not usable given its extremely dangerous nature during certain seasons of the year. I ask that the City Council consider the true intent of what should be considered open space, reject this proposal as submitted, and clarify the coding to prevent this ambiguity going forward. Thank you very much. Thanks, Patty.

All right, that was it for the folks who had signed up for public comment. So we'll end the public comment period. Joey and Anna, is there anything that you wanted to respond to that came up in the public comments?

And actually, I have here.

So this was, again, the open space question was, raised at Planning Commission and this is this is one item where staff and the applicant are in total agreement and I can take a moment to address this and we did we did address this in a supplemental narrative kind of introducing some of these changes to the to the layout coming out of the Planning Commission but on the screen before you here are the two sections of code that deal with the open space for environment. And so the Bend Development Code in Chapter 1.2 lists all the different definitions that will apply to the other provisions of the code and defines open space. And again, open space being common, active or passive as any property or area of land or water set aside, designed or reserved for the public or private use specifically for the purpose of providing places for recreation, conservation, or other open space uses. And in both of these cases, I think the plain language of the definition is actually quite broad. So other open space uses, that's kind of illustrative rather than exhaustive. And if it is space and it is open, it would seem to fall under that specific part of chapter 1.2. If you go to the master plan provisions, kind of how Chapter 4.5 kind of applies this or requires something different regarding open space. 4.5.200 sub E sub 4 implements that open space requirement for master plans and requires that minimum 10%. of the gross area as public or private open space, and then gives examples. Again, it's illustrative, not exhaustive, such as parks, pavilions, squares, and plazas, multi-use paths within that 20-foot wide corridor, areas of special interest, tree preservation areas, or public and private recreational facilities. a broad kind of set of categories for this open space that, again, the specific examples provided like ASI or tree preservation areas are not areas that are easily accessible. Those might be areas where it would be unsafe for some member of the public to access. And so the argument that because you cannot physically access the canal or it would be unsafe to do so, It doesn't hold up to these other examples. And beyond just the definitions here in this code, the way we are asking the city to apply the standard, the way I think that staff is also talking about the open space is consistent with previous past city council approvals. And we list some of them here. You know, and in a lot of these cases, the open space that is acknowledged as helping to satisfy these requirements for these other projects is open space that is not accessible, has access limitations, and is either limited or really doesn't have any capacity to accommodate kind of this physical recreation, which we hear from a lot of the comments, which we heard from the planning commission, and is, I think, a reading into this two sections of code that is not there actually in the plain language. We would certainly invite council to kind of ask us about this explicitly before you close the hearing for any sort of deliberations. If there are specific provisions in these definitions that you have questions about, please give us a chance to address that specifically.

So Council, this is the standard that we are deliberating to tonight. This is what's in our code currently. There may be some desire on this dais to change this definition, but that's not what we have in front of us tonight. And that's not what the applicant is being held to. So if there are any other further questions about how the applicant is meeting this definition, let's ask them now.

Is that a central Oregon irrigation district canal there? Correct. And do you consider that a public or private entity? um i don't know the statute or the laws around the irrigation districts i think they're probably some sort of semi-public agency okay and do you consider the purpose of the district to be providing places for recreation conservation or other open space uses or is it something else uh

I don't know the purpose of the district. The purpose of the purpose of district would be for irrigation, but I don't know that that prohibits the kind of a dual benefit of the land that they own.

Okay. Council friends. There's a question.

Yeah. Can you pull up the map again with showing the open space? So I'm curious about the

so is is that area along the canal but outside of the canal right-of-way being counted as open space in your open space correct so a canal corridor the area shown is green and the area that we try to make more transparent to show the the blue of the water that entire area is being counted towards the open space because it is wider than 20 feet

Okay, and then is there any, um, have you considered an open space? Is there are there trees significant trees that meet the city's development code definition of significant or universe that are planned to be preserved?

You can so I want to be clear. There's nothing about tree protection or preservation. That is. criteria for the master plan, but when you look at the transparency here on the green, it may be hard to see because we're not necessarily trying to show this, but you can see that there are, just from this aerial photo, there are trees within that open space corridor.

Okay, other questions? Joey, just to be clear, if you took away the canal space, you're still meeting the open space requirement?

um so we have not done that analysis but that's what that's what uh staff has put in the record uh our our position is that the um the the water area the the canal is part of that open space okay any other questions before we wrap up here and go to deliberation okay thank you so much appreciate that

um okay i'm gonna close the public hearing at this point and move to the deliberation um questions first staff questions no we should have the hearing open for that right yes okay so i'm going to reopen the public hearing and we can ask some staff questions so my understanding is that in

the role that we're acting in right now, we get to interpret the definitions of open space, right? Yes. Right. So, I mean, we have the words up there and people may perceive them differently. But I mean, this group gets to interpret.

Yeah, I think the discussion presentation tonight shows there are multiple ways to look at this and that goes for council too.

Tom Preston- um because because my reading of that is that there's like I mean there's relatively great and so it's open to interpretation, they don't think it's a black and white. Tom Preston- set of criteria and one half is. Tom Preston- I guess my other question is the acreage related to open space, you and I had some back and forth today about this particular issue and my concern was about. including the canal channel itself as part of the open space and what it maybe wasn't as exact as it might be. But my understanding is that we just removed the canal channel based on your look. It did get them very close to the minimum requirements for open space, but they still were slightly above it.

Just for illustrative purposes, I just went and just very rough estimation, aerial imagery measuring the area that comprises the water of the canal was about an acre. So of the six acres, I'll bring it back down to five if you're just counting kind of the dry areas of the canal, if you will, which is over the 4.5, roughly four and a half acres.

And the total amount of the entire, like, I guess it would be the right of way. It's like there's like 20 on each side. Correct.

Well, actually, it's 100 foot wide total easement that travels through the site. so i think for a distance of around 800 or so feet but it's it's a total of 100 feet wide within that 100 feet though is that 20 foot bend parks and rec trail easement um but yeah so the total width and again this is all just estimation but about an acre of water area any other questions for staff

Oh, that's okay. All right. Now we'll close the public hearing. Oh, sorry. Opened again. Sorry. That was premature. Any final rebuttal based on what was just said?

I just wanted to reiterate from Polish. I think in terms of this application, and we understand the need for open space, and if the basis of Any sort of denial or question of denial would come from just the open space calculation. We would rather be conditioned to achieve the open space within you know, without using the canal, then be denied today. So, I mean, we hear you guys, we hear the city, we hear the public comments that not utilizing the canal, though this is something we believe has, you know, is how the code could be interpreted today. We would rather take that and be able to incorporate that through our subdivision application and accommodate the open space within the master plan rather than be denied today.

Got it. Thank you. Yes. Okay, now officially closing the hearing that was open for all that stuff. So that all that is in the right person to get tired. I know. Okay. So, counselors now is the time to deliberate again reminder of the standards that Nicholas showed us. That's what we're deliberating to here tonight. Um, and so if. If anyone is advocating for denying this application, please make sure you're telling us why, but otherwise open to discussion around what we want to do here and how we think this meets the code or doesn't.

So I think in light of Councilor Riley's earlier questions and the thrust of providing more open space, I want to be really clear. I don't think it's that gray, actually. I think that a canal is not open space, and I think that the previous precedent was incorrect on that. Whether it's public or private, it is used specifically for the purpose of providing places for recreation, conservation, or other open space uses. Well, a canal is definitely not for recreation. Canal is not for conservation, so the question is whether it would be for other open space uses. When you consider what the Central Oregon Irrigation District's purpose is, it's not other open space uses. I don't see how you can stretch that to say, well, Their purpose is because the code says reserve for the public or private use specifically for the purpose of canal for irrigation is not specifically for the purpose of other open space uses. So I don't think it should be used at all. The question then is whether or not the open space requirement can be met. in another way without the canal. I think it's really close. I think it's basically razor thin. And it's like if we had gerrymandering for open space, this would probably be it. So what I'd like to do is I support Councilor Riley's idea of having more open space, but usable open space. So I don't like the idea of meandering paths that cut across crisscrossing and making that space less useful for things like recreation. I think if we look at Petrosa, another development where we have seen open space, the place of streets, it's about 100 foot wide. And talking to residents in Petrosa, they love it. I think it's called, what is it, Eagle Creek? Now I can't remember the name of it. But there's at least two instances of that in Petrosa where a long linear park takes the place of a street. And I love that idea. I think neighbors love it, residents love it. So I'd like to see that here. Specifically, I think it makes sense to incorporate it into a linear trail segment that connects the western trail to the bridge over the canal and one second of that should be a 100 foot wide open space between the um the second of the easternmost blocks which is uh get the name of the uh streets here correct that is between street a and street e I don't think we have a B. It's an A and an E, right? It's hard to read.

Okay. And so basically asking for an east-west contiguous path instead of how it's jogged along the block there. Again, this is a master plan and not a site plan, so there would be more refinement in the future, but that would be that. Okay. All right. Other thoughts?

So, I mean, I agree with councilor Mendez on the definition of open services. Now counting, I think consists, you know, it looks to me like it just barely needed even if we remove the canal channel, but consistent with polish's effort to be responsive to the concerns about more usable open space. um i would like to see you know some additional space added sort of along the lines and my original thought was that instead of the road that staff is proposing that we put that open space there if it has to has to move a little bit and maybe even move the one that which road that curves around right at that ends the staff is proposing the best solution would be to continue that road through to the other curving. So I was suggesting keeping the multi-use path there and just adding, taking two of those lots and turning them into open space. So if you have to do something a little different than that, that's fine. And I think it would get the result of having More usable space, I think it's better for the development as a whole. I think the people who live there will like it more. Um, it. Takes less potentially a little less units than it would be for the road. Um, so I overall think it would add add a lot and it would be consistent with you all trying to increase the overall open space and development be responsive to comments. I also the other. comment i would make is i'm comfortable with not doing worrying at the block length and giving the exception on that in the circumstance because i really view this as a cul-de-sac kind of development and i don't think we're going to have the same sort of through traffic that we would get in other places that lends itself more to a lot of speeding um you know a variety of things that come with that i'm okay with that exception in this setting um but i would like to see more

Can I ask both of you a question about how you're interpreting open space? If that canal was filled with a big rock outcropping that wouldn't be safe for people to be climbing, is that open space?

Well, my understanding from many of those locations is that it all depends on the geography, but there's a lot of places where some attempt is made to access some portion of that.

Let's say it's an accessible rock cliff.

Mayor, I agree with Councilor Mendez and Councilor Riley's comments and what I would respond and then I'm happy to come to you.

So hold on.

So I guess I still wouldn't know a little bit more about this. Specific specific circumstances, but. To me, it just that's not what this canal is about. It's not here for those purposes. And I may have been protected for those purposes, but that's not what this canal is about. And I think. In my experience with developments, when I've heard them talk about those kinds of settings where wildflowers, the 1st, 1 that comes to mind, I remember some discussion at least portions of that were going to be accessible. They saw it as an amenity with sort of natural trails in it.

yeah so i i think yes oftentimes it it will end up being accessible in some way it sounds like we're kind of focusing on the intent of this canal versus potentially yes because maybe that falls under conservation specifically for the purpose of recreation, conservation, or other open space uses. So an inaccessible rock cliff, I think, you know, it depends.

We'd have to see, but it could be. And that is why an ASI was developed in the first place, was to conserve some of those places for the community benefit. That's not what it's kind of.

Okay. Yeah. Council friends. I was just going to say, yeah, conservation. That's why that's why the rock outcropping and that's covered in the development of of open space. There's value and conservation land. But the reason why there's value in conservation land is because, or the value is there when you can at least see it. And I guess I just want to emphasize I'm just kind of concerned in this application. And maybe it does warrant some look at our code about open space being visually accessible. If it's kind of fenced off from everyone's view and it's only accessible by a couple of places, then it's sort of open space that's just, I don't know, not really. delivering kind of the benefit that we hope for. And we have it in the code. I also just want to agree with what Councilor Riley said that I'm not too worried about the block length because of the connecting trails. So for pedestrians and cyclists, there are those connecting trails through the site. I like the idea of making those connecting trails kind of wider And higher kind of higher value open space and meeting the criteria that way. And then, I mean, I still just want to say, I really am concerned about that right in right out. I mean, I'm an advocate for bicycling and walking, but I do feel that it's going to make that commercial area kind of inaccessible by cars and with high density residential there, we're going to be forcing all What was it? 200, almost 200, better part of 200 high density residential units plus the 300 and however many housing units using that one road in and one road out. Doesn't to me seem responsible, but.

There's two access points to the neighborhood, just to be clear. Is the other one right in, right out? No, it's all access. I guess there's a left turn lane. Okay, Councillor Perkins.

I disagree that the canal is fenced off and unusable. I mean, I grew up in Boston and I walked along the Charles River. You couldn't pay me enough to swim in the Charles River, but I definitely enjoyed walking along it. And that's what I see here. And so I think it's possible to still enjoy something and not actively use it. um and in addition i i really like this sort of urban style of of bringing small pockets of green space throughout the whole community and i think there is something to the fact you know if you have a central park and and and it takes you you can't see it from your house and it's a it's far away um you're really not impacting everybody in the community and so i actually really like the way this is designed with with little pockets of green all over and um the fact that there is a there is a major park um four minutes away by you know

by walking to me that that that is fine and um so I I don't know if I necessarily agree that that um they're not meeting the criteria here okay that's what ours yeah um ditto to what Council Perkins just said I think it's um I like the little small intimate green spaces I think it offers a lot of opportunity to for the community to come together in small little pockets like you know, neighborhood little, you know, within smaller neighborhoods. I appreciate, too, the loss of the four units to add additional space in the northeast corner. And I do agree that I think that that COB, Bethany Collins, head bike connection is sufficient for meeting, you know the block length requirements, it also in some you know it's this can also be safer because it's not particular. COB, Bethany Collins, I don't agree with the right in right out, I think we have other instances like that in the city that work just fine and I would be concerned if we did something else, just with the grade of that, and I also think that the me. And the multi family spaces are fine. I am very confident. You can make something work in those. The way that those are designed.

Okay, thanks. Council pot.

I'd like to see the trail. Between avenues a, and he moved move sales to make just a linear line. I think that that feels better for me for the community overall. Um, but I think. I agree with the latter 3 comments that have been made.

Do you feel that the open space requirement, do you think they've met that definition?

I would prefer to have the remaining open space be what they are counting and as their catalog here, that they are just barely meeting that. And I would like to exclude the canal from the computation and acknowledge that they've met that requirement, even with the canal to water space removed.

All right. um i i'm a little torn but i do think i do think just because i i live in this corner of town and i've been recreating alongside the canal forever that you can't recreate beside it even though the canal itself is not purpose for recreating upon it um and so i i do see how that can count towards the open space i think if we do the math um and you take that water away i think they've still met the requirement so that's why i'm feeling comfortable today but maybe we could make that very clear somehow that we sort of do a little bit more measurement of the actual canal and then maybe you just give us a few more feet of open space to to mitigate that um and to make sure that we are meeting that requirement under um under our code so that's kind of how i would think about it um not that i necessarily agree with how you all are defining it but that maybe we could ask them to just add a little bit more to make sure we're mitigating in case that Like, like you said, Steve, even without it, they're still meeting it. I'm fine with the, as others have said, not allowing a deviation on the block link as long as we have that bike path through. I agree. I would love to see it lined up. Um, so that that's just easier to get through there. Um, I do want to say, as someone who lives in this side of town and has seen these neighborhoods go up and has lived in these type of neighborhoods. Um, it's hard to picture from this map. It's lovely to have these. These paths that go all the way around the neighborhood and these little in in between paths, the under crossing under Murphy to Alpenglow is going to be amazing and you don't even have to interact with that roundabout. You can, you can send the kids down that path. And I think that's going to be really incredible. And so I think the other thing I want to say here is that we spent a lot of time talking about a lot of things. Except for all the people that are going to live in this neighborhood, which is pretty important. And this is an opportunity zone in our comprehensive plan. And these are hundreds of homes, families, workers, seniors, kids that are going to be living in our neighborhood and in a great neighborhood that's developing in Southeast Bend. And I just want to remind folks that that's a lot of why we're here and why this is important to do this kind of infill and help get this built out. So that's kind of where I'm at. Welcome. Any other comments or questions?

I don't think anybody here is wanting to oppose this moving forward. I think what we're trying to do is shape it to be a better plan for the reasons you said. This is a prime opportunity for redevelopment. There's good opportunities for neighborhood serving commercial as well I mean that's all very exciting I think generally this is a good place I I just would like to see a little bit more usable open space really is what it boils down to and I think getting to that place where the closer to that if it's not the six acres we're very close to that number and I you know I don't know if tonight what we're asking for is continuation of this and letting them come back and respond yeah I'm gonna ask you how we can do it I mean that wouldn't be for roughly four weeks because we have some breaks coming up here but

Yeah. Okay. Let me get council friends with this comment and then maybe we can talk about that.

Thanks. Yeah. I just wanted to say like, or, I mean, I think all of our comments are about creating this housing and a neighborhood that is really desirable and has lots of great amenities for people to live in. So, I mean, it's not about restricting housing. It's about making sure that our community develops in an orderly way and in a high quality way. So great.

So, Ian, it sounds like that we are okay with all the deviations. So that that's fine. And so I don't know what that does to our motion language.

Yeah, so I think I'm hearing that if at least a majority of councilors 5, or is the mayor pro 10 level. James Heiting. Are okay with approval and okay with granting the request of deviation to the block perimeter standards with maybe a relocation of that connection between a and B. A little further south to better align with the other East West connections. Is that right? Okay, I think that's seeing nods from at least four. I think my next question is for planning staff because. Lo and behold, we did anticipate there might be some discussion about this. Um, are there some alternate findings that are ready to go or at least preliminarily drafted that might support that conclusion? Because I think just to preface this. If the, if the answer might be yes, if it's, we need more time, we could consider council could consider just continuing the deliberation to the next business meeting. Where staff could come back with post and come back with some slightly revised findings to support where I think a majority is, but that's question.

uh so i did prepare an alternative staff recommendation that more or less accounted for an approval of the deviation um i have a version that has track changes that uh would be can be ready this evening if also wish um to the degree that the the east west multimodal connection um i think in talking with ian and please correct me if i'm mistaken but that i think that the location of that pathway could be a little bit flexible in the execution of those subsequent subdivisions. I am not sure if we need to be as explicit to put that into motion specifically, for example, even if the figure adopted is a slightly alternative to what is finally approved at subdivision. I think there's a way we can work with the applicant on finalizing that location in accordance with the wishes of the council, but.

Brett KenCairn, I think the question that comes down to do we want to scramble and then maybe come back and tonight to present some of these findings alternate findings supporting this or do we want to continue it. Brett KenCairn, To the next business meeting, where we can post them and get a get a chance to get them finalized and have what Council and others, give them an opportunity to see them and read them before the next meeting but. Um, if we did continue to provide the applicant an opportunity to sort of think through some of this and work through staff with coming up with a picture that shows people how they're responding to tonight and previously in theory, we're talking about continuing council deliberation, not reopening the public hearing, although that's something council could do if it is continue the just continue the deliberation. So staff can work on updating the finding staff can work with an applicant and that's not ex parte. That's that's fine.

I would like to add something. Colin Stevens, Community Development Director. We actually anticipated a situation like this within the crafting of the master plan chapter of the code. And I just want to make everybody aware, I think it may be helpful. There is a step within the master planning process. It says, upon approval of the major community master plan and prior to the commencement of step three, which would be a future subdivision, The applicant must submit a final major community master plan to the city in electronic format format. The final major community master plan must depict the proposed proposal as approved and must incorporate all conditions of approval contained in the decision. So you potentially just put these as a condition within your motion and then and then that final master plan will reflect those changes and we can just work on that with the with the staff and applicant.

Okay, great. Thanks, Colin. That's helpful.

Between in the next two hours, and you'll come back to us in July.

Which would be after the post-approval. Yeah, post-approval, something we work on. They turn the major master plan into the city. Because the master plan then goes into the development code, we need to make sure that it reflects all the conditions of approval so we can work on that and make sure that the conditions are then implemented within that.

That final master plan, but there's a condition that doesn't need approval then for tonight would be, well, we would choose to have four people.

Yeah, I was going to try to go over that. So, um, kind of. discuss right now and to see if we have support for is to grant all the deviations including the block length deviations they don't have to build the extra road that sap was recommending um and then to find that they have met the open space definition and to ask um to align that multimodal path to be straight and contiguous through the center of the um the development and i think that if we could just draw a poll who's in support of that i think we do have four but again open to more It's not part of it. It's not included. Yeah, this would be a finding that the open space requirement had been met as of this plan. I wonder if there is a way to talk about when aligning that multimodal path, is there a way to give some more?

We're not making that a condition of approval tonight, so therefore it doesn't have to be done. I would make it a condition of approval.

to do what to add extra open space similar to what was done in petrosa instead of building a road make it make it open space okay but so are you like how much i guess 100 feet petrosa's 100 feet that's more than two house wide though um i would say two two house you know blocks in here wide including more please not again i guess i want to be careful here because

They have a 10% open space requirement, right? So if I'm looking at the code, I feel like I have to be careful about trying to ask the applicant to go above that based on . So for me, and just to be very clear about that, I don't think they're going for six acres. I think they're going four and a half because it's a 45-acre unit. So I understand. a desire here, but I really want to sit myself right at that 10% minimum, even though it might make me happier with more. Yeah, I'm at 4.5.

Okay.

I thought we had a majority who did not want the canal to be counted towards the open space. I thought I heard counselor plat say that that that's true.

And they meet according to the staff calculations. The 4.5 still without counting that.

I just think it's important for that to be in the motion.

I think I think what we're saying is that. TAB, For our definition of open space, we think they've met the requirements.

TAB, But I think. TAB, i'm sort of penicillin's point is that four of the Council agree with that that there's a minority of agree that met. TAB, Like including the canal channel they've met. that qualifies as open space. So what's being asked is to remove that essentially from the calculation. So their calculation of open space is whatever it is, 4.56 or something.

Is there an easy way to include that information?

If I was tracking, and Nick can correct me, but as I understood it, removing the canal from itself from the math is basically bang on meeting the 10%.

Yeah.

Or pretty darn close.

I thought a little bit. Sure. So this, again, it's a very rough estimation, but based on my calculations, the area comprising the open space outside the 100-foot easement If then including the 20 foot easement that is actually within the canal to be a Ben parks and rec trail. And the crossing across it, you pretty much hit exactly the minimum 10% to be quick.

Okay. And and so to clarify concert Francis and concert Riley. I am saying I'm with with the mayor and mayor pro tem and comes to Norris that they meet their criteria for men's space. And it doesn't really matter to me that we're not counting because I think they meet it no matter how you slice it in this case.

Except for the fact that every time we make a decision like this where we include a canal channel that's meeting the definition of open space, we're beginning to set a precedent. So in my opinion, it would be better to remove that portion, understanding it's still, you know, if you interpret the code that way.

And it needs that for a suggestion. So there's still a majority of 4 that are in favor of approval in favor of granting all the deviation requests, including the block perimeter. And finding that the open space requirement is met without counting call it the water. So council is not necessarily interpreting doesn't need to interpret that tonight. If that's the direction, if that's where there's gravity of at least four of you, I really prefer giving staff time to bring back findings that reflects all of that at a subsequent meeting so we can post them and you can read them. And those findings can reflect this discussion, including, I think, providing some certainty to folks who are concerned about an expansive definition of open space, because the council can kind of dodge that if it chooses. Um, so my recommendation would be to seriously consider continuing the hearing. So staff can take all of this input. I don't think we need a motion if it's clear. There's 4 of you and we track the discussion and we can work on revised findings to bring back that reflect all of this. And that might obviate the need for a potentially complicated motion tonight.

Is there any opposition to that? Okay. I think that is a good decision. So I think we're going to need a motion to continue the deliberation motion to continue deliberations on that basis.

And I'm assuming planning staff have what they need to work on. I'm seeing out of the head, so a motion to continue deliberations, and I think we'll be okay. I move that we continue deliberations. Do we need a date certain? That'd be great.

What's our next? First business meeting in July, July 15th.

Okay. All right. Second. Councilor, I move to continue deliberations to July 15th, second by Councilor Perkins. All those in favor? Aye. Okay, great. thank you thank you staff thank you applicants thank you everyone who commented we appreciate you thank you everyone who's still here everyone who's still here we're going to keep going on to item number seven which is another quasi judicial public this is the quasi usual public hearing and first reading of the ordinance and has 10 acres of land in the southeast urban growth boundary expansion area all right i'm going to open this public hearing And Councilor Norris, do you want to declare?

I am declaring an actual conflict on this item. This annexation would have a financial impact on my employer, Hayden Holmes, so I will not be voting or deliberating on this item.

Okay, and then now Ian's going to do the questions.

Yeah, we're back. Does anyone have any ex parte contacts or site visits they wish to declare? Start with Councilor Francosa.

No.

Councilor Mendez?

No.

Councilor Riley? No. Mayor Keebler? No. Mayor Pro Tem Perkins? No. Councillor Platt? No. Okay, next question is, does anyone have any actual or potential conflicts of interest or other personal interests that could interfere with the ability to serve as an impartial decision maker in this matter? Councillor Fransosa?

No.

Councillor Mendez? No. Councillor Riley?

No.

Mayor Keebler?

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Perkins? No. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" Uh, Councilor Platt, does anyone present in person or online wish to challenge these declarations on bias or prejudgment? TAB, Mark McIntyre:" Looking around and seeing none, actually seeing a shake of the head by Nate Wyeth, whose name is now on the record. I'll now read a statement explaining the requirements of state law. All testimony argument and evidence must be directed like, oh, criteria and then I'll make a note and conference of plan applicable to this matter. The failure. will include an appeal of the Laney Court of Appeals on that issue. Failure of the applicant to raise a constitutional issue or other issue regarding a condition of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the decision maker or other parties to respond to the issue will preclude a claim for damages in certain court, excuse me, related to that condition. If prior to the end of the public hearing, a party requests additional time to present testimony, argument or evidence, the decision maker may allow either a continuance or additional time in its discretion for parties to submit that additional testimony, argument or evidence. That's it.

Michelle Patrick, Thanks okay great all right presentation. Michelle Patrick, Hello good evening counselors i'm Michelle Patrick i'm an associate planner and the Community development department and the item before you tonight is the cabin lane estates and station. Michelle Patrick, Come on. slowing down too there we go thank you it's everything uh so more specifically um the purpose tonight is a quasi-judicial public hearing and first reading of an ordinance to annex 10 acres of land in the southeast urban growth boundary staff is ultimately recommending um that you move to approve this annexation and the uh assigning sign district So as you are aware, the southeast urban growth boundary or the southeast expansion area was adopted as far as the 2016 UGB expansion previously referred to as the ELBO. And, you know, with the southeast area plan that is a master for it was an area plan. This particular property is 10 acres in size, so it is not required to meet the master plan criteria because it is under 20 acres. The development is still required to provide a development proposal showing how they comply with our subdivision criteria. That will be reviewed for compliance once the annexation is effective. So this is a little bit more detail of the property. You can see it here highlighted in red. um so at this time uh we've annexed approximately 130 acres in the southeast area plan it's about 30 of the total area um and you can see here the previous uh annexation so this is number five previously we've annexed ferguson magnolia meadows and lagore which about this property to the east and south and then of course copperwood crossing which you've just heard recently So the comprehensive plan designation for this property is RS, that's standard density residential. And so upon annexation, the zoning will change from urbanizable area to RS. And there are no changes proposed to the implementing that comp plan designation. So uniquely this property about city limits to all sides, north, south, east and west. So it's kind of a little donut hole in the southeast area. And the only other item here of note is that cabin lane is actually a private street. So upon annexation, the western half of cabin lane will be annexed with the property. The eastern half of cabin lane was annexed with the Magnolia Meadows subdivision that occurred a few years ago. So this is a simplified version of the development proposal submitted by the applicant. As we said, this is not under review currently. This will be reviewed administratively once the annexation is effective to make sure we meet all the subdivision criteria and criteria of the Southeast Area Plan. Again, there's no master plan required with this, which is why you're not seeing any open space. And there's also no deviations proposed and again, no changes to the compound destination. And this is going to be a 42 lot subdivision. And the intended development type will be primarily single unit detached with, although they could develop any kind of middle housing on this property. And this will be done over 10 phases. So staff found the proposal to comply with the annexation criteria. So I'm just gonna review these briefly. Again, no comp plan changes are proposed. We found this consistent with the Southeast Area Plan. The applicant provided coordination letters from parks and rec, school district, Avion Water and Arnold Irrigation District. So it's capable of being served by all the needed public facilities. Given the scale of this proposal, there are no off-site improvements required. So the improvements are going to be frontage improvements and off-site for the development. Arnold Irrigation District confirmed there's no water rights, assets, facilities, or easements on the property. And the applicant is going to be required to comply with the TPR transportation planning rule per the Southeast Area Plan requirements. And all proposed rights of way are going to need to meet city standards. As part of an annexation, we've worked closely with the applicant to prepare an annexation agreement that both parties can support, and it's fairly straightforward. For utilities, they are going to need to comply with the requirements of Avion Water, because it's in the Avion Water District, and they will be required to connect to sewer in Cavan Lane and then that to the Southeast Regional Pump Station. For transportation, they will be required to provide payment to ODOT for the TPR compliance and infrastructure. Again, there's no off-street improvements. They will be required to dedicate 30 feet of cabin lane and construct it to a three-quarter street. um and then they will be required to dedicate 60 feet or right away for all the streets proposed with the subdivision including extending a north south street to connect to the street proposed with the lagore subdivision which is just to the south so um that is all i prepared at this time um welcome any questions any questions okay um did the applicant want to make any

Yes. This is fairly straightforward.

Just a short presentation here, if I could. Thank you for allowing me. You know, they're great. Mayor Kuebler and Councilors, thank you. Jerry Johns with Walker Development here. We're down. at 251 northwest bond street located downtown beautiful bend here uh thank you for the consideration of this today as uh we've said this is a team effort we we think of uh land development picks most most of us in the community as well as our consultant team so um this is just shares with everybody that we've been working with on our project and i have most of them here with me if there's any questions with regards to utilities or access or transportation um Thanking staff and all of the hard work they've put together specifically for Michelle and her report and her presentation today and recommendation for approval. It is 10 acres. It's a small portion of the southeast area plan, which we've been involved with for many years as this has been coming forward. It's within UGB, contiguous to city limits, and the designated RS, giving the lot size type that was put forth within the area plan and consistent with all the comprehensive plans. working closely with avion for all the services and it meets all the application criteria A couple highlights and I'll be here for any questions. That's 42 lots. Our infrastructure plans have been submitted and our land use have been submitted. Waiting for review upon this annexation. Right away dedication. We have a place with our neighbors in Holmes to the east of us. And much coordination have gone in there with the infrastructure that will need to be put in place. So we're We're appreciative of that collaboration. And then, like Michelle said, all the transportation is set in place with ODOT fees, as well as work that we've been doing with sitting on several committees with other developers in the area to work on the supplemental transportation system development charge. Quick and easy. I just want to make sure I'm here as well to see if there's any questions that you might have about what we might be presenting.

All right. Any further questions, Council? okay no that's it thank you um there was no one signed up for a public comment for this hearing checking that no one wants to comment on this particular item hearing that i'm going to close the public hearing go to deliberation and motion i move for the first reading of the ordinance annexing 10 acres in the southeast urban growth boundary expansion area and assigning sign district five second all right moved by councilor mendez second by councillor platt all those in favor Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Moving on to item number eight.

Council asked to authorize two construction contracts that state any excavation and construction of the 2026 Neighborhood Street Safety Program. Packages A and B.

All right. Good evening, Council. As Christian's pulling this up, I'll get us started. Ryan Osterhagen, your Engineering Director with Christian Williams Project Engineer. And some of this may look a little bit familiar to you. We have some projects from the 2025 NSSP that we brought forward. You heard some information about it earlier this evening, not necessarily all accurate. But the main reason we're back is because we have revised the crossing in Chamberlain. We no longer have the century crossing as a part of this package, which would have been a reason why it got voted down in 2025. And we've also got a different contracting method this time, where should there still be a need to deliberate or separate these projects, we have two different construction packages that does allow council that flexibility that you'll have to have if there's one wheel here last year. So take it over, Christian.

Yeah, thank you, council. Happy to be here. 2026 Navajo Street Safety Program. Christian Williams, project manager of this project. um so we're here tonight to authorize two construction contracts uh both need for the construction of package a and package b for the 2026 nssp and here are our recommended motions and we'll get back to these at the end um but yeah two different packages here and then two other needs so a little project background ryan touched on this before but we split uh nssp this year into two separate construction contracts package a package b and we'll have construction complete by the end of this year and CoB, Gerrit Slatter. You have seen a few of this before. I'm going into the project specifically package. A includes five divisions. Archie breaks northeastern year, second Street, and at Taft and second Street at Roosevelt, and then Roosevelt as well. And so I can fill speed homes. And then package B is, of course, our enhanced crossing of Reed Market Road and our enhancements at Silver Lake Boulevard as well. The enhancements at Reed Market Road will also include a rectangular rapid platform beacon, which is one of the changes we made last year. There are two speed humps along Chamberlain as well. One as a part of each of these packages, as well as some curveballs at the intersections of Chamberlain and Silver Lake Boulevard. Justin Delacruz, Norcal PTACC, he's our project budget for this year, so we have $3.1 million allocated by the general another 200,000 from tnd. Justin Delacruz, Norcal PTACC, For the two intersection through means along second street I tapped in Roosevelt part of our 3.3 million and contracts tonight, first of which for jays 1,278,000 dollars $35 package B is 979,609 dollars and. for total construction package for just the construction of $2.2 million, project total of $2.5 million. So we are well under budget. And of course, that budget is rolled over into future NSSP packages throughout the program lifespans.

OK. Thank you. So a bunch of street safety projects here, Council. We have two different motions. And any questions for staff? Spencer Franzosa.

Thanks. Yeah, I can you bring up, like, the project designs so we can see what is actually proposed?

Sure. For all projects?

I mean, yeah. Normally they are provided and I've just been really busy this week, so I didn't have a chance to ask for them ahead of time. I'm curious what's going on on Revere. And can you also talk about the outreach that you've done with all the neighbors in the neighborhoods on these projects?

So we had a pre-construction open house this year for everyone. We had a targeted We had a few design open houses as well over the course of the last year. At the bulk of our public hours, we've obviously met individually with homeowners along all the project sites as well.

And a really effective tool you're looking at right now. So why don't you show, we'll drag this slider. This is on the project website that's been accessible to everybody. so you can see here's kind of the before picture here's what that weird curve in roosevelt looks like and then as christian moves it over it highlights exactly where the race crossings are going where the street improvements are going to be where the the missing sidewalk gaps are going to go so this is a great visualization for those who might not have been able to attend one of the open house meetings and you can scroll down each each one of these projects and it really kind of gives you a good

This is Revere and 13th, right?

This is Revere and 13th.

Yeah, you said a different word, but it's Revere.

Yeah, sorry.

It's a lot harder.

Yeah.

Can you go down to the Chamberlain one, please? Yeah.

This is Chamberlain. Are you wanting to see Chamberlain at our bleed market as well?

Well, this is this actually is the part that I want to look at. And what I want to talk about here is, you know, with Councilor Francisco, I walked this site last year and we looked at this kind of kind of thing. And there were concerns as you were impacted and coming into Silver Lake here. And when I looked at this updated design, I really felt as though staff had responded to the to the concerns of the community members there. And so I I give you high marks for the changes that have been made because standing on that corner, on that right corner there, right there it was. It was a lot of traffic going by there and I really think it's going to slow down. So I think it's quite an improvement. So I just want to say I think you've done a nice job here.

You heard something about locations of speed bumps and taking away parking. Can you talk a little bit about that and whether that's true from your perspective or

Yeah, yeah.

So what we were moving parking in one side of the road here is... Yeah, I showed it before. On the north side of Silver Lake, you can see it's basically just no curb gravel. Some people just park out there kind of randomly. So yeah, there's...

So that gray that's on the screen right now is actually showing travel lane.

That's the asphalt restoration.

But it's a travel lanes, right? Yeah, it doesn't include it.

I mean, there's there's still like you can see there's still parking available on the south side and there's going to be a sidewalk established because there's no sidewalk there. Right. And there's there's not going to be anything so you could park people can make a choice to park there and they're not violating there's not like no parking signs or as long as they're not on the sidewalk yeah yeah that's what i mean if you look at the intersection right there yeah yeah as you're coming as you're going to the to the west you can see the sidewalk is going to kind of do a little bit of an s curve so it there's a little bit of room in there and i mean we we can always if that's a concern we can always also paid more closer to the sidewalk to accommodate some of that but that increased cost of the project oh yeah increased cost it's going to allow for higher speeds and the whole point of this and the whole point of the race crossing just to slow people down yeah yeah right because this is one of our key routes so so they're still parking on one side of the street um but yes some people

Gareth J. So we have to choose well three speed homes that particular location, so what up here on Chamberlain North on Chamberlain we have one here I just sort of self West of the intersection that once the North East ish.

is up closer to chucker and he's not showing on this map it's just a little outside the image of this so there will be two ones like yeah two on something okay where's the other one one by chakra and where's the other it's not showing on this uh particular image uh it's where's the one that's shown on this thing sorry i just i didn't see where you're yeah yeah different tech out here today thank you thank you and does the project map go all the way to read market

TAB, Mark McIntyre, Not not no it doesn't go all the way in this particular case. TAB, Mark McIntyre, This is really a focus of the intersection of the Chamber and server like.

TAB, But the project does include paving Chamberlain.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, Yes, yes. TAB, Mark McIntyre, yeah it's a removal of that type three barrier that's blocking the right of way today and full paving, including a shared use path, all the way up to remarket on chamberlain.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, Right in right out.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, Right now.

Yeah, yeah, that's where I have trouble. I mean, do we have a history of there's there's a lot of gravel roads in like Midtown, you know, that could really be paved and help housing development and all that kind of stuff. But this is the neighborhood street safety program. And I think it's pretty clearly defined that it's for bike and pet improvements and safety improvements. roads for cars. So unfortunately, I can't support this project for that reason.

integrated into the room.

Okay. Any other questions? There we did a comment about accessing the memory care center and public safety. Just any thoughts on that and how would that speed bump? It would be just

I'll speed bump I guess the power will there will be two coming southbound on silver lake from reading market and none coming from brookswood through the new bronze.

Ryan, where I believe is the. Okay yeah. So it does depend on the route that I or Ms choose to take and that's a valid concern right, we have these conversations with them constantly. And you know our old policy was typically you know we're going to avoid doing anything like this in our tutorials and collectors. but we have allowed them on local streets and in special circumstances. So this is one of those cases where this is a key route. This is part of the NSSP and we are wanting to slow people down. And one of these concerns about maybe this is gonna add additional traffic is, well, we're gonna keep them going slow then. It's a public street, it's public right of way, anybody can access it. But yeah, speed up, you know, and it does add a second or two as they have to slow down and go over those things. And if they have a patient and they're ambulatory in the back, you know, that's another thing that does have to be factored in.

And the improvements at Chamberlain and Reed Market are going to be, what are the improvements being made? Is it just the rapid plus?

It's an enhancement to the existing crossing that's been there for a long time. So yeah, push button RRFB with some precursors. So one of the other concerns is if you're coming out of the rent bond in Reed, this is kind of up at a peak, which is actually where it's supposed to be. So you can see that we're going to have a preemptive sign. So if somebody pushes the button at that crossing, it's going to light up halfway down.

to the to the roundabout as well as at the crossing itself so the rfv is the main enhancement yes absolutely okay we're ready for a motion i move i move to authorize a contract with canny excavating incorporated and substantially the form presented to council for the construction of the 2026 neighborhood street safety program package a and the amount not to exceed 1 million 278 thousand 135 dollars

Okay, Councillor Norris with the motion, Councillor Platt with the second.

All those in favor?

All right, unanimous.

All right, motion number two. I move to authorize a contract with Fannie Excavating Inc. and substantially a form presented to Council for the construction of the 2026 neighborhood street safety program package B in an amount not to exceed $979,609.

yeah but she sounds so norris with the motion of councilman is with the second all those in favor aye aye any opposed no okay councilman says all right thank you thank you very much all right council i didn't plan on doing this but given the hour and i have a little child care pressure i'm actually going to take off and hand the reins to council perkins here and then later bura you will be doing that So I'm sure you will be able to manage without me. Thank you for doing this. I have never done this in my life. So the first time ever.

Take care of your kid.

We've got a late bedtime to hit. All right. Thanks, everybody.

All right. Resolutions 2423, 2428, and 2502 regarding incentives for affordable housing and replacing with an administrative policy.

There's no presentation for this. Oh, there is a presentation.

Good evening, Council, Mayor Pro Tem. I'm Carrie Bell, the Housing Production Incentives Coordinator for the City of Bend, presenting on the expedited review and permitting for affordable housing. Staff is asking Council to adopt a resolution to rescind these three resolutions regarding incentives for affordable housing, replacing them with an administrative policy. I'm not going to read through the issue summary, but I will highlight some key points that bring us here today. Expend review permitting originated in the first resolution back in 2003. And this was included just two other incentives, one being fee exemptions and another the SDC programs. Over the years, these incentives have the other resolutions have been um modified to rescind the fee exemptions and then as you know sdc programs sdc exemptions and loans all of that was moved into the sdc methodology and the code and so this leaves us with the expedited review and permitting in its current policy which has also needed some updating over the years for example back in 2003 to 2005 when the current policy was created we did not have a local housing fund So the policy simply called out qualifications as projects for receiving state and federal funds. The primary qualification items was just that, that you had been awarded state and federal funds. But since the creation of our local affordable housing fee fund in 2006, and certainly with the extreme shifts in the availability of state and federal funding most recently, it's been our practice to expedite affordable housing regardless of funding source or incentives being used for deed-restricted affordable housing. Our primary goal in bringing you this long-needed revision to policy was to be sure that we brought you something that was vetted from all angles, so this is a cross-departmental teamwork here. Housing, City Manager's Office, CDD, and OPM, shout out to the Office of Performance Management, you rarely get to see them, and they are behind the scenes doing the magic, pulling the data that supports strong policy decisions. So first, our team took a look at all this data from permits pertaining to how much time was spent on these reviews, both affordable housing permits versus typical housing permits, building permits, infrastructure, land use, all of it. We wanted to have a clear understanding of whether or not this incentive had any significant impact to our general review and permitting turnarounds. So what we found is that the data alone did not present any obvious need for limiting or expanding this incentive further than what the current practice has been. Though we have reviewed some instances where we could really benefit from providing clarity on the clarification aspect of qualifications for this incentive. And We feel that moving this to an administrative policy will help us manage and create transparency in this incentive program. This is not only helpful for staff, but using the administrative policy tool to outline more detailed expectations will provide more robust, fair guidance and support to our development community. So I'll wrap up by summarizing some key differences in the proposed new policy and then happy to answer any questions that you may have. First, the incentive would no longer limit only to be limited only to state or federally funded projects, but rather deed restricted projects. There would now be an agreement, though, to deed restricted property prior to expediting the permit rather than relying on just intent alone. Both the AMI range and duration of the affordability period will now be clearly defined instead of relying on just what the state or federal program parameters might be for a specific program. And the required ratio of affordable units to the market rate units is a new requirement. This is just to be sure that we are aligned to our best practice while still supporting mixed-use development. And finally, moving the administrative policy helps us manage and create that needed transparency in this program.

Any questions for Kerry?

I don't hear a motion. I move to rescind resolution numbers 2423, 2428, and 2502 regarding incentives for affordable housing and direct the city manager's office to adopt a policy to continue expedited review and permit processing for affordable housing, determining the relevant qualification and other administrative criteria.

Second.

All right. Moved by Councilor Mendez and seconded by Councilor Riley. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you.

Council is asked to approve Visit Ben's business plan and budget for fiscal year 2026 through 2027.

We always do this to Visit Ben. We put you at the end of the meeting and do it every time. Well, for being here.

Well, thank you for being here. Your services.

Wow.

Yes, a lot. So, um, let me figure it out here.

Okay. So you go ahead and do that. Yeah.

Good evening. Counselor starts moving business, fellow manager with city event. and have the pleasure of being the liaison to the Visit Bend organization and board of directors. As you're aware, Visit Bend is a contractor of the city that provides all of our destination management organization type of services. And as a part of the contract that we have with Visit Bend, it is required that they get their annual business plan and budget approved by both our Economic Development Advisory Board and by the City Council. And the presentation to VDAB earlier this month was recommended that Council move forward in approving both of the materials that are before you tonight. And we are here for that contractual arrangement that we have. And with that, I'll pass it over to Jeff.

Mayor Pro Tem Perkins, Council, City staff, thanks for having me here this evening. I'm going to hopefully log on here and share my screen and hopefully be able to navigate that successfully.

We'll say that while you're doing that, that BDEP actually took two meetings to go over this. So they did a real deep dive this year.

Yeah, I think the questions were very critically thought out, especially in the monetary components, knowing that Visit Bend's budget, because our tourism industry thrives the way that it does, has a really sizable budget, making sure that we're being good stewards of those resources. So I thought it was a good conversation.

Well, I'm not a master at this, so I think I'm going to, I don't know how to get the full screen, so we'll just kick off from here. So, I'm Jeff Knapp, President and CEO, privilege of serving as President and CEO of Visit Bend. My intention tonight is to go over some highlights as quickly as possible, but give you some highlights of this past year and looking forward to our plans for the next year and hopefully ask for approval of our annual fiscal year. 27 budget and plan. So this is a graphic that you are familiar with. We are funded through transient room tax people spending over 31 more days or under 30 days in our local hotels and vacation rentals fund our work. Majority of those resources go to fund essential services with the city and 35.4% go to fund our work. Our work is Twofold, we're an economic engine that drives visitation. People visit our community, spend resources, and then we put a portion of those resources back into the community. Everything we do is around this balanced spend model, focused on economy, people, and place. This is our guiding principle, our guiding model. It's our regenerative process where we are building and priming the engine of the economy and putting it back into communities. Some highlights, things to know about our work and tourism here at Visit Bend. Visitor spending remains a critical piece of our overall economy here in Bend. For the first time ever, the tourism industry at Bend this year exceeded 400Million dollars in local economic impact. So a record year for us as a community beyond subsidizing the tax base. They supported small businesses keep workers employed and even contributed significantly to secondary sectors, like education, health services, financial activities, manufacturing and more. We saw. Growth, significant growth in tourism jobs this past year with a 3.2% increase in volume and even more significant increase in earnings. So direct travel generated earnings reached 134 million in 2025, which is up 8% over the prior year. So citywide visitor spending was up 9%, but we did see local spending dip. So our local residents spending tightening up their pocketbooks, but our visitors still carrying a significant weight supporting our local businesses. We continue to invest significant tax dollars back into the community, and just for awareness, we receive a lot of recognition through national publications on our approach to accessible community-based tourism publications like Condé Nast Traveler, Outside Magazine, and i'm happy to report that we're going to be holding a first ever um conference next month we're welcoming other um groups uh from around the world to uh have a little summit here and see what the magic is how we are partnering with the city to do the type of work that we do so another positive note resident center we've been tracking over the last five years has uh increased significantly uh we have reached we've seen a 29 29% increase in towards the positivity where right now our data shows that 70% of local residents either have a positive or neutral. View on the impact of tourism. So, again, this is a slide. I just wanted to let, you know, that currently we're tracking about 4.4% over last year's budget as far as revenue goes, which is exciting. We see again these increases in almost every category, but we are very cautious about. Looking ahead at the next year ahead of us, we do have some headwinds and that's wanted to spend a little bit of time about on this looking ahead prior to jumping into the budget. So. We know that we are sitting about 8% of our normal water table as a community. There's a drought threat, significant threats around fire and smoke. An unclear picture of the economy, clearly gas prices, all of those things. Being at war. impact consumer behavior. So our plan has been designed to remain nimble and very responsible to that potential volatile landscape looking ahead. So we're going to continue to invest and explore opportunities in the next year to diversify our visitor base, continuing Uh, investments, expanding investments in group travel, um, and working collaboratively with the city and private sector to explore the feasibility of potentially constructing a public assembly venue. So, what are ways in which we could continue to grow the engine and make us more resilient year round? Uh. exploring those opportunities. Speaking of resilience, we're launching a collaborative wildfire messaging effort with regional partners, including Leadership Bend, regional land managers, fire management, fire districts, and others to help ensure visitors have a more accurate and timely wildfire messaging and suggested alternate activities when they're visiting. This will be deployed both digitally and in print, both to local property owners or vacation rentals, engaging our hospitality partners and lodging. And we're really excited about the creation of an agentic Sort of using AI to have daily alerts for weather conditions that'll go out to those key partners. We continue to look at opportunities to diversify revenue streams beyond just transient room tax to support the work that we're doing and the growth in the community. We are actively performing supplier surveys with our industry kicking off this month ahead of the conversations we've had with council around potential extra support for business resiliency grants as such to really measure the community need and adjust our strategy to meet that. one other critical thing we'll be working on uh this year is looking into uh the impact measuring impact around our grant programs over the last 10 years we've invested nearly seven million dollars of transient tax back in the community uh projects uh we have the ben cultural tourism fund and the sustainability fund over the last six months we've engaged contractors to help us take that back um engage deeply with community members to assess what that need could be. And over the next year, we'll be looking at how those programs may change and adapt to meet the current needs and how we can measure impact over time. Finally, it's important to note this is the final year of our current contract with you. I think we've talked about that recently and we'll be working closely, as always, with the City of Bend, the economic development team here, taking the learnings from that community engagement, from our grant programs, and hopefully back next year to help secure that.

Jeff Terrell, A contract really quickly check that second to last bullet, I just wanted to clarify for Council that I think it's referring to. Jeff Terrell, Creating some intentionality and alignment with the supplier diversity efforts that we have here at the city of trying to procure goods and services. Jeff Terrell, That are going to remain in our local economy remain in Oregon based small companies to the best of our ability so just to make sure that that was abundantly clear for you all.

Jeff Terrell, Yes, so it means both of those things we will be doing that as well, thank you for covering that absolutely yes absolutely.

this ties in here and it also probably ties into the budget, but because we are largely a drive market and how do you, with gas prices are what they are, how do you determine how much that is going to impact behavior this summer with our tourists?

Well, I think people still, we see people still drive, right? It just impacts a type of visitor that we may have. So we diversify our marketing efforts in sort of a Trifurcated manner that Nate likes to say. So we see that people at a certain demographic are still spending. In fact, they're spending more. So we have different strategies within each of our demographics to entice folks to make a decision to travel and maybe As far as tactically, I'd be happy to have Nate speak to that. If you'd like, he can give you an answer right now. What we do know is that we are in a better position than many other destinations because of that drive market. The folks that may be deciding to not travel to

Got it.

The East Coast or to Hawaii are much more likely to still continue to travel. So our concern is more about smoke, I would say, than around people significantly who said not to make that trip. It still holds weight, but I think really the weather has much more impact on consumer spending.

Interesting.

Any other questions? So we've put a lot of time and energy into coming up with this budget, including working closely with the city's finance department. We are anticipating a 2% or budgeting for a 2% increase above this year's numbers, excuse me, above last year's budgeted numbers. So we are also, normally as an organization, we budget to spend down to an even amount each year. This year we are, with the uncertainty of next year, our intention is to continue to market aggressively. And so we're anticipating, we're budgeting for a deficit in the next year, but we know that we are moving into the next year with some extra funds due to the kind of banner year that we've had. much in part to the prior last summer being smokeless um so we are uh this is um would that they all could be jeff well we're working on that right now so yes we are nate's got some ai stuff and even the words we're working on the next item on the agenda So I also want to point out that for our bylaws and contract with the city, we keep a reserve. Right now our reserve is roughly $640,000 to be used for potential wind-downs. We need to uh wind down as an organization or for a rainy day um type situation so our proposed budget is before you um has been you've received our business plan ahead of time so i didn't get into super detail but i'm definitely open to answering questions about the business plan or um budgetary questions that you may have any questions

all right yes i know that's the benefit uh any motion you know to read a motion i do approve visit bank business plan and budget for this period 20.6 2027. second all right by councillor mechtis and seconded by council plan all in favor uh i oppose thank you thank you all uh i know that

keep me working on that ai yeah the laser dome yeah so they can find themselves yeah

This is the 2nd, reading of an ordinance, creating bend municipal code chapter 18.20 climate pollution fee.

I'd really like to do this.

Well, it's a roll call vote.

Yes. Yeah, that is. Oh, yeah.

And then we have and I have to declare an actual just like I did on my first meeting. It's my employer's hidden homes. I have to recuse. All right, Steve.

so as counselor norris norris is leaving i just want to before we do this vote i want to acknowledge the folks who have stayed with us here all all night and uh and i'm i'm this is this is government it's slow we get things done and we we continue to iterate on the process so i'm going to read the motion for you i move for the second reading and adoption by roll call vote of an ordinance creating Bend Municipal Code Chapter 18.20, Climate Pollution Fee. Second.

Moved by Councillor Fleming, seconded by Councillor Riley, and roll call vote.

Actually, I'd like to just make a comment before we do the vote. I believe, sorry, deliberation, it's late. is allowed on second readings. And so I just want to just telegraph to the community that while I support this because of my experience in developing net zero homes, and I do believe this is the right way to go for our community, and it's in all of our residents' best interests, I want to recognize again the burden that this is putting on our home building community. Our permit timelines are long, and earlier today we approved increases to fees and to SDCs. And we even heard some public testimony about how challenging that can be. So I think it just was weighing heavily on me, that conversation earlier, and I needed to kind of bring it up again now. So, thank you.

Councillor Franzosa?

Yes.

Councilor Mendez? Aye. Councilor Riley? Yes. Councilor Platt? Yes. And Mayor Perkins? No.

All right. Motion passes. Sorry, my brain just stopped for a second. Motion passes. Congratulations. It was stopped. And now we have the city measures report.

Yeah, I'll be quick because it's late, but I just wanted to follow up from the June 3rd meeting. I was not there. I know there was a couple of council schedule requests. We went around. Roundabout safety, and whether the city's approach should be considered for future projects. So just wanted to follow up with a little bit more of a detailed plan. The city does use the roundabout design guideline that meets industry standards for safety and accessibility. These are evolving issues nationwide and staff will continue to monitor new tools and practices to stay current on the leading edge. our current process involves in-depth project by project analysis in response to council's direction staff are committing to strengthening how we apply that work by using the aim equity tool to add on to the roundabout design guide intersection control form to more clearly evaluate equity vulnerable users and safety trade-offs these safety and equity considerations will be spotlighted more in the future presentations and will come forward explicitly for council review the decision making on proposed double or hybrid roundabouts i think that's the The commitment is for any time there's a hybrid or multi that there will always be before Council with equity considerations as part of that. The next anticipated example is the bond and read market roundabout where staff will use that project to walk through that in-depth safety and equity evaluation.

That's it? Eric, will that also be part of the discussion about 8th and only, which I believe is coming back in July when they have more data?

That one's already included. So beyond that one, it's the Bond and Reed. We're already coming back on the 8th and Revere with that same consideration. So just wanted to highlight the other one that you wouldn't talk about a couple weeks ago, which is the Bond and Reed.

Got it.

Thanks.

All right. Then If there's nothing else, then I will adjourn the City Council meeting and pass the gavel to my colleague here for Bura.

I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Bender Urban Renewal Agency for, what is today, June 17th, 2026. Barely. Yes, barely. Believe it or not. And the first order of business is to approve the minutes from May 6th to open motion. I move to approve the May 6th, 2026 Bura meeting minutes. Second, so moved by Councilor Mendez, seconded by Councilor Norris. All those in favor. All right. She passes any post. All right, and then we're going to move into the year end budget items and adoption of the budget. Dan is back with us still here and your warrior.

Yeah, so we have four items to discuss today. Two of them have public hearings. Item A and C will have public hearings, but we will go through this quickly. As again, all these things were presented to the Budget Committee on June 3rd. First off, we have budget adjustments. This is creating supplemental budgets, creating the four new TIF area funds, creating a construction and a debt service fund for each of those. and then a budget adjustment to create the funding for a second urban renewal manager position, as was discussed in the City Council meeting. Year-end loans and promissory notes, as discussed previously, this is just how urban renewal agencies work, urban renewal areas work, pardon me. The City loans the money and then the for the end of the fiscal year. We also have to, so this is one of the public hearings, just presenting the borough's CIP, $1.69 million for both the five-year and just next fiscal year is the plan right now. And lastly, the ad valorem taxes, we need formal action to approve these for Juniper Ridge, Murphy Crossing, and Core Area. We intend to To make sure that we are operating those properly as this is kind of a new area. Institutes counting will not be levying any amounts in history or in future years as the projects are built. Then we will work with the county accessory to those amounts levied.

Those are the four items. Any questions for you? Okay, i'm gonna open the public hearing. Brett KenCairn, For items requirement of public hearing items three and three see which are the supplemental budget. Brett KenCairn, And the tip open public hearing is anybody here for public comment. Brett KenCairn, Going once twice see none i'm going to close the public hearing and further discussion around motion. Brett KenCairn, will to approve items three a and C second move by counselor Mendez and seconded by counselor plat further discussion. All those in favor aye. Anybody opposed? Measure her motion passes unanimously and then I would be open to a second motion for items 3B and D. I moved to group varieties 3B and D. Second. Moved by Councillor Mendez, seconded by Councillor Norris. Any further discussion?

Yes. TAB, Can this be broken into two that this is presented to us differently than it was presented to the budget committee, so the site specific tiff areas are incorporated with the already approved urban renewal areas, the juniper rich Murphy crossing and core area and. TAB, So I guess I guess since there's no levy this year that's fine i'll vote for it, I just. I would like to be consistent in my objection to using TIF on individual parcels versus planned thoughtful urban renewal areas.

So at the Budget Committee, this is how we discussed it. It was not how the slide looked. Apologies for that. The item attached to the Budget Committee time is the same item as here, but I understand your commentary. Thank you.

It's fine. You can just go forward with it. It's fine.

Justin Delacruz- Okay, all those in favor. Justin Delacruz- Aye. Justin Delacruz- Opposed? No, none opposed. The motion passes. Justin Delacruz- And then, Jonathan, are you going to come up and do the presentation? Jonathan J. Thanks, Tim. Jonathan J.

So I'm going to be quick tonight. So tonight you're going to see a few programs and policies that staff along with CAP and our community have been developing over the last few months. This is part of our development assistance program. The purpose tonight is to get general feedback and consensus on the proposed program framework for the commercial site revitalization, tenant improvement, core area mural grant, micro loan, small business loan, and pre-development loan. Stapp will return in August with policies for a final review of an anticipated adoption. This targets our 2030 investment returns from our strategic investment plan to meet six of the eight We have done a lot of public outreach. We met with Central Oregon Community College Small Business Development Center. We've met with COIC. On June 28th, we're partnering with the Chamber of Commerce for a lender roundtable. And at some point in July, we'll be partnering with COBA, Central Oregon Builders Association, for site-specific stuff. This means plenty of tenants of our strategic investment plan. A little bit of background summary. All of 2025 staff went through and met with many business owners and they said make programs accessible in all urban and rural districts, not just the BCD. The pilot and tenant improvements can help offset additional costs. That's adaptive reuse. I would provide it in May. The small business credit survey that showed that 77 businesses are experiencing rising costs primarily associated with taxes and tariffs. and then 59% sought less than $100,000 in funding. I was able to find some local data, 13% increase in loan demand from 2023 to 2024. That highlights our entrepreneurial community, and this is from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. And then June 28th, 2027.

Database, not intuition.

Do have a lot of that, though. Reduction in loans and financing for restaurants and retail and food truck pods have been reduced in our local area. So that's something that our retails and restaurants are experiencing. CAB has looked at some best practices from Asheville, Boise, and Denver, and then this is where we'll get into it. So we're proposing a large commercial site revitalization grant program. This is primarily from the Murphy Crossing area, but we intend to also apply to the core area. We're proposing some funding ranges between $50,000 and $500,000. The program concept will be scaled based on tiered and building sizes. We will model it after the care program, which private match 50%, and then the cat is also determining. Should we emphasize locations that catalyze the broader floor like the Bcd. The program framework considerations is to support high quality and visible besides, and this will be an integral competitive program.

I like what you do with the before and after. Yeah, that was totally good job.

Image produced with AI. The tenant improvement grant program. This is something that we've heard a lot from our business community. Tenant improvement. There's a growing gap need between what is offered by landlords and what is required for project costs. In 2023, we had our original facade and interior improvement grant program. And one of the things that we noticed in that original grant application was a lot of tenant improvements were used. But cab and Burra in 2024 made the determination that visible saws were more important. Now we're bringing back the secondary application of this, not only frontage, but also interior. This is modeled after many other programs in the state. Typical funding range will be between $10,000 and $75,000. We want to activate, so basically prioritize vacant underutilized parcels, propose match grant, support businesses across business life cycles. So this will assist new businesses entering the space. Cyrus and I have been meeting with a lot of businesses, and that's the number one concern that we've heard. But it will also meet our other economic development strategic plan goals of existing businesses expanding their operations and also establish businesses reinvesting. And then this is something that is actually growing in popularity among the BCBA and then also the core area. They are proposing to establish a core area mural grant program. This will be a visible identity for the core area and the BCD to establish and support existing arts, culture, and maker businesses. This is an opportunity to create an early signal of change that will go in tandem with the Franklin improvements, Greenwood improvements, and the Hawthorne Bridge. And it's also a relatively low cost investment for high impact for public views. There will be two framework considerations that CAB will be looking at. Will we incorporate this into an existing Facade Improvement Program or will BRRA establish a commission-led process? There are pros and cons that were identified in your staff packet, but we'll be flushing those out with both CAB and BRRA in the future. So the next steps for this will be the core area will continue to develop program parameters, research some framework implementation options. But also, if we do go down the path of a burn commission process, how do we partner with our third party partnerships like you already do with City Council?

Another nice image to me.

And then the three things that I will not belabor on because we've already heard this the last two meetings of borough, but just a little bit more structure. We would like to establish a micro loan program with a small scale loan up to 25,000. short repayment terms of about five years. And in our meetings with COCC, we actually are going to help them participate in some education programs to graduate them to traditional credit utilization. Some of the cool things about this is the eligible activities. This could be used for VERA's grant matching capabilities, also fixtures and furniture and equipment, but it's going to exclude payroll and carrying costs. Small business loans. This will be between 25 and 250. This will be fixed rate financing up to 10 years. This will be a blended collateral approach based on our values that we noted in March and also in May. We do not want to compete with our local lending institutions, so we're only going to allow a target gap of 75%. So basically, if a business needs an additional 25% of funding, they can come to us. We are exploring partnerships with our community partners in addition to that lender roundtable. We would like this to be 3rd party administered and also underwritten. And then, lastly, this is something that we've heard from our Pre development community that could actually be a game changer for some of our developments. This is a Pre development loan. Traditional lending institutions do not do redevelopment. They only do construction and hard costs. So, you come in and step in as a bridge loan structure up to 36 months. The loan sizes will be 50 and 750, and this will cover feasibility studies, environmental assessments, conceptual designs and survey and entitlement.

So, the idea is, you know, are we giving Jonathan blessing to move forward with this and bring back the formal proposals to us to establish these programs by September, right? Yes, Chair.

I love the way these have developed. So yeah, it's just awesome.

I think there's been a lot of good community input and there's going to be more and it seems like it's pretty, you know, it's targeted on kind of the various strategies we've been, we've developed and that's true initiatives for each of the urban and rural areas.

And I love the fact you've gone to our local colleges too. Yeah.