Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Sorry.

My first time. [laughter] Sure. All right. So, we're going to start the uh Monday, January 12th, 2026 then Planning Commission meeting and start out first with roll call. So, we'll go online and then starting here on the left then moving down. Just say your name. Katie Schneer. Margot. Margot Clinton. Oh, real quiet. Margo, just one second. We'll fix that. That's probably on our end. [clears throat] We referred you but fairly. Try again, Marggo. Marggo Clinton.

Thank you. Yep. Bob Gresens, Scott Winters, Suzanne Johansson, Nathan Nelson, Aaron Leton.

All right. So, we'll start off with agenda item number one, visitors section. So, if anyone wishes to address the planning commission on anything that's not on the agenda tonight, and I know some of you may want to talk about the uh the tree code update, um more than welcome to email the planning commission or come to the public session. The this is a work session, so we don't generally hear uh visitors commenting on that. But if there's I'm not sure. I got handed a few of these and I wasn't sure if it was pre-code related or not. Um but yeah, now would be the time to speak to the plan commission on anything else. Uh start off with uh with Mark Gentle. Was it about the tree code or something else?

Something else. Awesome. Thank you.

Members of the commission, thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Um, congratulations for your appointment. My name is Mark Gentle. I'm the chair of the Aubry but neighborhood district. Um, I'm here to just explain why I asked Renee to send you a document today and that document is the citizen involvement program. I hope you will take an opportunity to review that. That is the document that you are responsible for and it is a very important one. It's our connection that is our the community's connection to you and your decision-making process. It's a document that dates to 2009. It deserves a complete review, re-evaluation, and we want to participate with you in in performing that evaluation. When you boil it down, it's a one-pager. It has four or five bullet points. Our position is that it needs [clears throat] to work and we are here to help facilitate that and give you some ideas and comments about it. There was another document that um [clears throat] after we met with Bob and got the request to uh do a survey of our neighbors and our membership and give you kind of the top three land use issues. We submitted those um survey results to Bob and I believe he is as our liaison

and I believe he's submitted those to you. Uh it's a two-pager. It's very interesting. We got over 200 responses during that window of time between the Thanksgiving holidays and the Christmas holidays. And we thought we were we were pretty happy with that result. uh we're going to be active and involved, interested, and we hope in a positive way all along the way because I believe Bend is at a crossroads in several issues. There's going to be a large initiatives for a sequential review of your urban growth boundaries coming up. some of the most fundamental decisions that the city has to make is in the very near term and th those issues will become a part of your workload. It will become part of our workload. So I just wanted to mention those two documents and thank you for your time.

Thank you Mark. All right. Uh Kirk, were you gonna tree code? So, I'll um defer to your public hearing uh in a couple weeks and we'll maybe get something in writing to you before. Awesome. Thanks. Uh Roberta Silverman.

Hi, I'm Tree Code also. So, I'll submit in writing. Um I guess I did have something to share about come up. If it's not tree code related, but you do want to share something, do you mind coming up? Okay. Just want to make sure we catch what you say. Okay. And then Patty McCormack, I'm on the fence. [laughter]

Well, thank you again for allowing me to speak. Um, really two quick topics. One is um I did send the entire planning commission an email regarding um us scheduling a roundt with all of the land use chairs. Uh Bob did respond back. He said, "You guys are probably going to chat about it tonight. I'm probably not going to stay. I may listen in from home, but thank you for that because we're very eager to um get that going." Um secondarily, I won't really say it's about the tree code, but it's a piggyback on what Mark said about the survey. All it is is that the numbers themselves that we gathered from that survey do indicate with 70% indicating that they feel that tree preservation is extremely important. So I will leave it at that and then um I'll be back in two weeks. So thank you.

Thank you. And let's see is there anyone online that wishes to speak? If so, raise your hand. I'm not seeing any. Right. Yeah. So, we'll move on to agenda item number two. Welcoming our new planning commissioner, Katie. So, welcome. [laughter] Welcome. Yeah. Um and now she'll spend the next 15 minutes talking about her entire life story.

All right. Well, well, thank you. Um agenda item number three, nominations. Nominate and elect planning commission chair and vice chair for 2026. Um so I'll go ahead and nominate Margot for chair. I second that. I would also nominate Scott for chair. I'll decline. I like a buffer. [laughter] I'd like to nominate Suzanne. I'll second that.

Okay. Uh All right. So, we have two nominations, I guess. You know what? I'm going to decline. I'm going to decline. So, I'll I'll go with Margot. Okay. Do you want to vote on this separately? Resolve the chair. Do you want to Sure. Either that or take it as a package. Maybe it's easier to

Yeah. Um it's always a weird part of the first meeting. Um all in favor for Margot being chair. I I I opposed. All those abstaining. Mark, how'd you vote, Marggo? Uh I'm I'm fine with being chair again. Okay. All right. Uh, nominations for vice chair. I'll nominate Nathan for vice chair. Okay,

I'll second that. [laughter] Scott, do you want to be vice chair? I to be honest, I I'm not I don't mind. So, and let's just say that I think you've done a good job. being vice chair. Yeah. All right. Uh any others? There's not. All right. All in favor of Nathan? I I all opposed. None. And abstaining. None. All right. Unanimous. Um do you want to take over the meeting or do you want to do it next time or

I will get your advice on that next meeting. you can keep going, but I can try and take over if you'd like. Um, either or. I mean, that's fine. Okay. And Margot, just to confirm with you, are you okay with those in the room running the meeting? Do you want to run? I'm okay with those in the room running the meeting. I think it's a little bit smoother. Thanks. Just wanted to make sure. All right. Um, so if you find me just finishing this one out,

then cool. All right. Uh, gen item number four, work session. So, PLEX 2025 0658 updates to tree preservation standards. Uh, we've got Pauline. So, let's do this. Okay. Looks right. small. Um, good evening commissioners. Um, welcome Katie. Nice to meet you. U, I am going to go over some proposed amendments tonight uh, for the tree code um, section in the Ben Development Code. And because we do have some new members, I am going to take a little bit of time just to uh, go over what the existing code requires and then we'll go through some data that was collected and then talk about the proposed amendments. Um, the purpose of the work session tonight is to, like I said, go over the adopted tree code. And when the council adopted this back in July of 2024, they also directed staff to analyze the code's implementation over the year, collect data on certain aspects of the code and the report back to the city council to let them know if it's meeting community and council objectives. The things that they wanted us to report back on were um best practices on the use of incentives for tree preservation, uh the impact on housing development, and as well as the outcomes of the options that developers have to preserve trees and which ones are they using and which incentives they're using. And I'll go over the data on that third on the code outcomes um in a couple minutes. The city council had an opportunity in October to review um the data that was collected and because it is such a short time frame of data being collected, it's been just about a year um they they were um directed staff to bring back some minimal amendments um keep the scope pretty narrow so that we have more time

to collect additional data and then meet with them again in a year. So the current tree um regulations define two different trees that uh we um we collect data on. One's the regulated trees and these are measured at uh 4 and 1/2 ft above the ground and they are 6 in or greater. The regulated trees are the ones that when a developer is required to comply with the tree code that they have to survey and provide a lot of information on the regulated trees. And then we also have priority trees which are the larger trees which is the 20 inch um in diameter at press site or DBH. And there's different um incentives to either preserve you know a majority of the smaller trees or to preserve the larger trees. So when an application has to comply with the uh tree preservation standards, it's typically on a site that's 1 acre or larger. They're going through either a land division application or a site plan review application. So maybe they're developing some multi-unit housing or commercial industrial uses. And then it's very rare. I think we had one application of a a middle housing land division that's actually on a site one acre or more. Most of them fall under that one acre. And then recognizing sometimes that the sites of one acre or smaller are a little bit more difficult to develop, uh the committee that we worked with to propose these amendments. And then the ultimate adoption was allowing those smaller sites, so one acre or smaller that do want to go through a land division or a site plan review to either um preserve some of the trees or clearcut. But regardless of the option that they choose, they still have to mitigate. But they don't have to go through the whole process. they can clear cut and just propose mitigation because the sites are so small. And then if there is a site that's 1 acre or smaller and it includes um a dwelling unit or proposed dwelling units, so um single family or um middle housing, if

it's on one acre or smaller, they're completely exempt from complying with the tree preservation code. The options that developers have um we call them option one, two, or three. Option one is preserving at least 20% of those priority trees, so the bigger trees. Option two is preserving at least 25% of the overall um DBH of the regulated trees. So they look at all the 6-in trees and add up the diameter breast height and they have preserved 25% of that. And then option three allows them to go down to preserving only um a minimum of 5% of that DBH. and then they have to mitigate for the difference. If it is um not feasible to even preserve that 5%, there's several discretionary tracks that we've included in the code where they can propose um to preserve less than 5%. Um and maybe it's because they need to meet block length perimeter standards, connectivity standards. If in our transportation system plan it shows an arterio or collector street and they need to remove trees to um construct that street, that's a discretionary track. Um if utilities cannot be located topography and then um properties that are zoned um are two industrial districts. So either general industrial or light industrial, they can go through the discretionary track. Uh this is just an example of if a developer preserves only 5% of the DBH of regulated trees on site, what is their um mitigation requirements? And they can do one or both of the mitigation that's up on the screen or a combination. So they can do tree replacement uh which is a replacement ratio uh for number of trees that they take out they have to plant back on site or they can do a payment in lie of tree preservation and that amount is $600 for each required replacement tree. Now one of the examples that we have is a

multi-unit development just giving you an idea of um m an option that a developer chose for mitigation. It was for 264 multi-unit residential units in our highdensity residential zone and they also had 127 shared court town homes. So pretty dense development and it was on 16 almost 17 acres. And the total diameter of breast height of all the 6-in trees on site was uh 2,729 in. And if they wanted to meet option two and preserve 25% of all the regulated trees, they would have to preserve 683 in on site and then they'd be done. They wouldn't have to mitigate. They just need to preserve that much um uh DBH on the site. In this case, the developer opted to preserve 5.5% of the DBH of the regulated trees on site. So um 152 in. And the difference between the 25% and the 5% was um a responsible responsibility to mitigate for 531 in. And then you go through the number of trees that they're removing that adds up to that 531 and that uh dictates the number of replacement trees. And in this case um it was 104 trees if we if all of them were very large. And then uh the amount was 62,400. So again, they can replace some of those on site because they have the parking lots that they can put the landscaping in or in setbacks or they can um pay the $600 per replacement tree or a combination. the incentives that are in the code today. Um if a applicant is um able to say 20% of all the priority trees or 25% of the total DVH of the regulated trees on site, they can um request reduced um setbacks, increased lot coverage, uh reduced landscape coverage, and even a

reduction to lot and parcel dimensions. And to date, not one person has actually requested any of these incentives, I think, because our code's pretty flexible to begin with when it's comes to development of housing. But it is an opportunity for them to um get an incentive and we're going to try and let developers know more about these incentives being available because maybe it's just been a missed opportunity. So the data that's been collected started on August 16th, 2024. So that's when the tree code went into effect and we collected it through September 30th, 2025. So a little bit over a year of data collected. During that time, there was 766 applications um that were subject to the tree code. However, several exempted out um 711 exempt out because a lot of them are just single dwelling units or um middle housing or on um yeah, housing developments. 55 were subject to the tree code preservation standards and those included our land division applications and our site plan review applications. And then to break it down a little bit more of the 55 applications on the um uh pie chart in the screen you can see which options uh developers chose. So three chose to preserve priority trees which is the large trees. Six of the applications um propose preserving 25% of the regulated trees DBH and then 17 actually preserve both 20% and 25% of um well 20% of the priority trees and 25% of the overall DBH and then nine applications preserved at least 5% or more of the total DBH and provided mitigation and then we had two that proposed proposed to go through the

discretionary path and then one um just proposed mitigation only. So in summary uh just looking at the data that we had projects that preserve priority trees tend to have a few large trees. So for example if a site has 42 trees but only four of them are priority trees they can meet that by preserving one large tree. But as you saw, a lot of applicants went even further and preserved both larger um trees and um uh a number of smaller trees. 26 of the 41 projects are preserving trees and not requiring any mitigation. Uh 15 of the 41 projects are mitigating for the loss of trees. So of those a total of 1,160 new trees will be planted on 13 project sites and um 111,000 have been assessed in fees. So that's that um payment in lie of planting on site and then six of the eight projects paying fee in lie of preservation did include housing. So we wanted to break it down a little bit to see how much that was costing per unit on site and it ranged between $60 to $600 per unit in a housing um project. So, in summary, this is a good start to collecting data, but as um council and staff um also recognizes, uh it's still too early to make significant changes to the code. We need to collect more data. We need to see if the root protection zone requirements are working and a lot of the mitigation trees haven't even been planted yet because this just started. So a lot of the um development that you're seeing uh today is still possibly falling under the old code. Applicants are definitely getting more familiar with the code. We did a training in July again to help developers understand the requirements as well as the um we have an Excel chart that um calculates everything for them

but help them understand how to input the data accurately and uh again just need more time before making significant changes to the requirement. So you'll see the proposed amendments are very narrow in scope. This was the direction provided by council as well um supported by staff. Um and these are things couple things that we've just learned as we've worked through the code um that just needs some clarity or cleanup and then we want to add a little bit more flexibility as well based on some of the applications we've seen. So, um, one of the amendments in the code, we currently have the exemption from having to, um, even comply with the code, and that's if you are doing housing on a lot parcel that's 1 acre or smaller. We're proposing to add three more exemptions from the code. Uh, the second bullet is to u not require residential land division or middle housing land division applications where the original lot parcels would grow smaller, which is consistent with the first exemption. I mean, anything 1 acre or smaller that's going to have housing is going to ultimately be exempt, whether it's right when they're building the house or even through the land division because we know they're going to be building dwelling units at some point. And then the third bullet is land division applications that results in lots or parcels that are larger than 1 acre and the resulting lots or parcels will be subject to the pre tree preservation in the future. So, this one's come up quite a bit where all the applicant is doing is preserving or coming through and just creating large um lots or parcels of land because those lots are all over one acre. They will have to come back in through and do site plan review or some type of land use application that will trigger the tree preservation standard. So, they can go through, they can create their lots. uh they're not allowed to remove any trees. And then when they come in in the future for the next application, that's when the staff would review and they would have to submit all the information and proposed tree preservation. And this it's just going

to be put in the code. But any site that has no on-site regulated trees just does not have to comply because there's no trees, but must state it. Um and then the next um uh amendment is similar to what we added with the last package of code updates is just recognizing that if they are doing replacement trees, there might be a better time to plant them. So it's mirroring the exact same language that we just approved in the last package of um they may be deferred for no more than eight months and it could be due to weather, the ground is frozen or maybe that species just isn't available at that time of year. So the root protection zone uh we are proposing um keeping our clear and objective standard and then adding a discretionary track and this has definitely come up with a lot of applicants where they have some wonderful huge ponderosas that they would like to preserve um but they don't get credit for them because they um would have development within that root protection zone. and to encourage them to actually preserve the trees. We want to make sure that they have a path that they can go through and still be able to save the tree and um do the appropriate root protection zone for it and then they would get credit um and then it's more likely that they would work to preserve those larger trees. So, the clearing objective isn't changing. It's still the same um circular area that's measured outside of the trunk um of the tree equal to one foot radius for every inch of the tree at the 4 and 1/2 ft height marker. And then the clearing objective does allow some encroachments even into that up to 25% um can encroach the discretionary track now that we have a urban forester on staff is going to be able to review a request from an applicant when abiding by the clear and objective standard um doesn't work for them. And so they would be able to propose a reasonable alteration of that root protection zone based on factors such as existing or planned

infrastructure and tree shape. And this will be based on site visits to from their arborist. The recommended encroachment would not exceed 25%. Um, and if it does, then they would have to propose special mitigation measures and have a supervision of a on-site um, ISA certified arborist to help with that project and possibly work with um, our urban forester as well to make sure that those trees are um, preserved the way that they are proposing the root protection zone. So, those are the the amendments that are being proposed. Like I said, they're very narrow in scope. Um and it is really just so that uh we have another year or so to collect the data. the planning commission public hearing and where public comment can be taken is on January 26th and then the city council public hearing and first reading would be on March 4th and um just note the time for people in the um audience that the city council meetings start at 6:00 p.m. So those are the two dates where public comments can be um provided and then the public comments can also be emailed to the planning commission city council and a copy myself so I can enter it to the record so I can answer any questions and I'm hoping that our um urban forester can be here to answer really detailed questions um at the public hearing.

Right. Thanks. Pauline, could you go over just the last one? What what's the issue uh currently with the the root zone? Yep.

And and how's this creatively being addressed? So on particularly on smaller sites, but even we looked at a a lot of this comes up during our pre-app meetings where they're just coming in and they're proposing maybe a middle housing development and they have a beautiful ponderosa tree that would be situated in the parking lot but within a nice landscape planter but because that landscape planter and the actual parking lot would encroach more than that hashed area that 25% they cannot count that towards their tree preservation requirements. So they're not incentivized by any means to preserve it. So if we allow some flexibility and um some different type of mitigation to preserve that tree, then they can count that and more likely save that tree.

Good. Thank you. Yep. And what our Ian, our urban forester, has mentioned many times in meetings with um staff is that depending on the tree size and species, they can they can actually adjust to more disturbance in their root zone if it's done carefully and methodically just based on that root structure. that particular tree. So that's where he'd need to use some discretion to work with the applicant on how to work around certain trees.

And then guess a comment slashquest. Um going back to the 766 applicants and 55 of those were relevant or subject to the tree code and in the pie chart sounds like uh well whether they would have done it anyways but um if I got this correct twothirds are preserving the the regulated or priority trees. Yeah. 17 um preserved the 20 and 25% and then uh nine preserved at least 20 or 25%. So so that's I think good news. There was some concern a lot more than what we were getting.

People were just going to go to mitigation and that's the second point that was encouraging to me is there are two ways to mitigate. One is to plant new trees and the other is just to pay up some money or a combination or or a combination. And there again uh most are planting new trees which I think is kind of what what the goal is. Yes. So that that too was heartening. Oh and then I did and then my question how did how was the training in July received?

Um Karen uh Swson our senior planner in the office who's um really taking a liking to this tree code um preservation standards led the training and she had some really positive feedback. And we've heard positive feedback from developers, too, saying our code's fairly easy to understand compared to some of the codes that we even reviewed during the true act process. So, and those sessions are helping us build up our library resources on our website we have dedicated to frequently asked questions and the Excel spreadsheet that Pauline mentioned that runs the calculations once the data is input for a site and the tree sizes on the site. So, as we get more questions, we can provide more

on our pages. Yep.

Y um well, I'm also very encouraged to see that like a vast majority of applicable projects are using the um preserving the trees, which I think is really cool. I find it really surprising that given that most people are using the preservation options, they're not using the incentives at all. So, it seems like only the fee is kind of incentivizing people to make this these changes. Um, I don't really know what to go uh how to go with that, but

staff needs to do a better job of letting developers know about the incentive and we're going to add that to the website, too. um just really get the word out there that there are these incentives that they can be using. Yeah. Um and it might help preserve some more trees too, but they should take advantage of them if they want to. Yeah. The other thing that I'm I'm really liking is how like it seems like the payment in [clears throat] lie of mitigation is a pretty low like not not very many people are using it but it is generating a considerable amount of re revenue. Are we talking are we have we started talking about applying that revenue towards our urban tree canopy at all or

um so that would be a great question for Ian when he comes next okay meeting um because he's going to be overseeing that maybe Colin has some more information to add on that but I believe Ian will be working on that those funds must be used for for new trees it can be used for um not just new trees but m maintenance and some other it's tree preservation and expanding the canopy citywide. So there's a lot of things that take place that so that relevant trees not not something else. Right.

Yeah. So um Pauline's correct Ian Gray are our our uh urban forester one of his tasks will to be to develop an urban canopy plan um that she's going to be working on for the calendar year. Um and part of and that and that's going to contain um sort of the city's um policy towards uh h how to increase the urban canopy by using the the funding for that will be the the fee in lie of that's being collected through this program. So, it does have a funding source and and if you'll recall, I can't remember how much we talked to you about it, but it the fee was calculated to be um what it would cost to plant a tree, what it would cost for our crew to go out and purchase and install a tree.

Okay. So, I question uh what does it look like when somebody chooses the discretionary track? Uh, so we've had two discretionary tracks and I'm drawing a blank on was it topography and maybe industrial. [clears throat] Yes. Okay. Um, so the industrial one they would propose uh going through the discretionary track and they have to submit a narrative explaining why they're going through the discretionary track and each one has like you know what they need to describe depending on which track they're going through. And in uh the case of the industrial one, I believe it was um just being able to use the site for industrial purposes. So it goes through a we call it the type two process, which mirrors the process they're going through with site plan review. Anyways, it just allows um them to go less than the 5% staff being able to use discretion and then approve the um number of trees that they are proposing to remove and then apply the mitigation. So they're mitigating it but based on the circumstances of that site then they're saying in order to do the project we have to be

right. So a lot of like industrial sites have large truck turning radiuses large loading areas where it's just not feasible to save the trees. So then they would go through a discretionary track. Okay. Um and then I have another question and that is big topic recently has been fire safety and defensible space. How are defensible space requirements interacting with trade preservation?

Um, do you want to Sure. This has come up quite often, so I'm not alone in your question. And we've said they're not mutually exclusive. You can comply with the principal space uh recommendations and still meet the tree preservation code. Um because although the bin development code regarding tree preservation um is numerical and objective, it doesn't say where you're planting the trees or where these trees are that you're saving on the site in relation to buildings or homes. And so um so in order to comply with both, we believe it can be possible. Um, so it doesn't necessarily um, yeah, you can you can meet the preservation requirements and also meet defensible space requirements. If for some reason that was not possible, then perhaps that you know would be a reason to mitigate. If you couldn't save as many trees as possible, meeting the 20% or 25%, then maybe going down to 5% and mitigating would be the best option in that case in order to to meet both codes. And we've been working closely with um Melissa Steel. She's the fire marshal um for uh fire mitigation and making sure, you know, even before we brought the draft to planning commission and city council of the original code update that um we worked with them then. And then as we gathered data and prepared for the city council work session, we had Melissa meet with a group of developers and staff to help us understand how the codes all work together and how they're also very separate.

Uh I can see if she's available for the planning commission hearing in case there's any other questions on it, but she's very valuable resource when it comes to um fire mitigation.

That would be interesting. Uh Pauline, I I watched the presentation to the city council in October um in anticipation of this today, but then there was a few things that were said that weren't part of your presentation today. One of them was something that and maybe it was just a example and it wasn't really a true project where there were 42 regulated trees and four were priority and one was preserved because that was the 25%. And so I was like 42 trees and one gets preserved. Do we feel like that's the code is achieving its objective if we get one tree out of 42?

Well, I the very beginning even before um the tree regulation update advisory committee true act was created council's objective was to focus on preserving the larger trees on larger development sites. And so we worked under that to make sure that we are incentivizing preservation of large trees. So in that case there's four large trees on site. we still got one large tree which may be more than we would have gotten under the old code. Um so yes that's an extreme example but that's how the the percentages work out.

Uh the other thing I so I'm really looking forward to hearing from the arborist and he was there at that presentation and he mentioned something called eye tree. Uh so he talked about the doing the survey of all the trees. It wouldn't be all the trees. It would just be the trees in public right away or public on public land, right?

Uh but I went to that it tree just to look at it and the first thing was the website said they're no longer funded because they got money from the USDA. Um and so they but uh you could type in the city and it said that 19 and a half% of our city is covered in trees which I thought was interesting. So, it' be interesting to hear from the arborist especially after the surveys get done to find out uh you know what that what that actually I have no idea if they use Google Earth. I don't know what they used to

to do that but uh and you could actually actually have a big big ponderosa in my front yard and you could put in your tree and it would tell you the impact from your tree. So, I thought that was really interesting. So, it was called I tree I letter or Yeah. But anyway, so that was interesting and I I'm really excited to hear about um getting that information about our community because the big thing is so many of the big ponderrosas have been lost as the city has grown, but there's still a lot out there and um yeah, we don't want to be the city with one tree left. [laughter] Definitely not. Everybody needs the

Exactly. Right. right the trophila trees. So so appreciate the information. I I am with everybody else I guess that we're really happy to see not as much mitigation was chosen. We were worried that it was going to be all mitigation uh in the beginning and then would be helpful for us to know about where the mitigation funds how the mitigation fun things are going to be used. If there's a some idea of that I think that'd be helpful. Okay. I guess I had one more comment question. I don't really think that you're going to have a satisfying answer necessarily. That's good.

One of the the more visible parts of the tree code that I've seen around town is like the like protection that is now needed to be put in place on construction sites. And I think that I mean seeing that is very like makes me feel happy, right? I see like the fence around the trees and I'm like, "Ah, we're like doing the the half-hearted attempt to keep them alive." Um, do we have any anecdotal or other information about how effective these mitigation strategies have been for preserving the trees that we we retain through the construction process or

I think that's one of the things where we just have only been collecting data for a year and the new tree fencing requirements plus they have to post a sign with contact information and violations listed on it. that's only been around and those projects are just starting to be under construction. I believe the Ponder Rosa project is a good example where they're actually trying to preserve more trees than what they said. Um, and they're putting the fencing up and our arbor is working with them to make sure the fencing is staying up, but it's too early to tell if if that's all working. Sometimes it takes a couple years fine and then all of a sudden it just goes brown. Yeah. Yeah,

there's a tree off of 27th where the new library is being built and has a great big fence around it and the tree is dead as a doornail. Yeah. Giant ponderosa. Huge ponderosa. And you know, it's hard to say what it was that caused Yeah. Uh but one main route might happen to go in the wrong direction. In the wrong direction. Exactly. Yeah. Tree trees don't necessarily grow in that perfect circle. In a perfect circle. What I was given as a kid that question if if they are if we are allowing the the intrusion into the root zone 25% which it seems reasonable to have some intrusion but is there

um we need to have do they need to have an arborist look at the tree and make sure that it's not going to kill the tree. Um I do not review applications. So when they do propose the clear and objective because that's all we have right now anyways. I know that they are showing I believe the planners you know that where the 25% encroachment is and now we have again the arborist on staff who can review and make sure that that's it. Um but they're not supposed to be going any further into that zone. Right. just

but this the one that we put in the code um well we didn't have an arborist on staff so I looked at other codes and several cities uh use this standard for encroachments and so I talked to their arborist and they felt comfortable that this is um a good standard to go by you wouldn't let them go any further unless you have an arist on staff so that way they can review alternative encroachments

was your question if right now in the field are we confirming that no more than 25% is being encroached upon or was your question about if we went forward with a more flexible root protection zone how would that be determined for a project I my yes that is part of my that is something that's like my follow-up question but um yeah there I Okay, I'm going to go with if if you're getting an herbist to examine that particular tree with that encroachment and they're comfortable with it. I mean, I would certainly not

be qualified to second guess them. [laughter] You move forward to the discretionary one of what we'd be asking for. So, my question was with 25% though, I mean, I know the trees in my yard, they they have a direction they want to grow and where the water is and whatever. So if they're doing the 25% is there any requirement that they look at that tree and see if they're happen to be doing the 25% on the treere's main route or if

oh that we're not reviewing currently it's really a numerical um measurement under the clear and objective track. Um so correct based on how that the shape of that actual root zone we may that 25% encroachment may actually be in a very critical part of the root zone and we wouldn't necessarily know um just by looking at plants and two dimensions. Okay. And then the the diagram up on the screen too that 25% has to be in this outer ring area. they can't get closer to the actual um right

because that is a even more protected area. So with the clearing objective they can't go any closer. Um they have to be in the outside ring after they do the calculation. And we do get like um there was one tree that they were trying to um meet this 25% and they did but uh the planner asked for very specific drawings because it was in a parking lot um and they wanted to make sure it truly did not exceed the 25%. And so just to verify what they were saying, they had to p provide very specific drawings.

Okay. Um All right. And then I think one more um I didn't see anything in the tree, but I guess this is more of just a suggestion. Um some sites have like really beautiful stands of trees or or some that are maybe more unique. Is there any reference for certain trees or just arrangements that can be that are um No, we I mean or incentivized or anything.

We don't have any um trees that are prohibited to be counted. So all trees count. Uh we did through the committee discussion talk about clusters of trees, but how do you define that clear and objectively? So that kind of was a discussion that didn't go too much further because it's very hard to define a you get credit for preserving a cluster of trees and how do you define a cluster and um maybe we could look at that with the urban forest staff. Yeah, maybe I don't know. I understand it is hard to make a law that applies to everything that encompasses the nuances of every site. There aren't any trees that are designated in the ASIS, are there? Is that all?

I say that's what that's what it sound like you're saying. Yeah. Like an area of special interest and they both have to be preserved. I know. But are there clumps of trees that are ASIS or they Some of them they are tend to be rock trees. Okay. The ones I'm familiar with are tend to be a formation of a special rock formation and then there are trees as part of that. Because I've seen in Tilcom Village, there's a tree that has a plaque on it. It's like a looks like a juniper that died and came back to life or something and I was wondering if that was like if if we did have a Yeah, maybe a a marker for a few specific trees or something like that or

Not that I'm aware of. I have one last question and then I'm done. Um you mentioned that and as we all know the code was created before we had a arborist on staff.

Um now that we do have an arborist on staff have they given any feedback on the way that the code has been structured? Well, he definitely provided the feedback on the proposed um flexibility for the root protection zone. And then he is also working on updating the street tree list that we worked on um with other staff. Um but with his expertise, he's able to um add some trees and take some off. And because we took it out of the Ben development code, he is able now to update it administratively through an easier process. So that is one thing that he is working on that we had changed and he's focusing on that. Cool.

Great. Um I had some kind of like I guess process questions for this updated code package. Uh for instance, was there any talk about uh different applications for different zones um whether or densities or anything like that? No, I think what we have in the code already has the discretionary path for different zones, particularly the industrial districts. I think it's is it just the industrial district?

Yep. Yep. Um and then densities, if it's an acre or less, they're exempt. And then there's that one acre was a big discussion between TRUAC, Planning Commission, City Council because it ranged between a half acre and two acres and we landed on one. Does it just seem it seems to me like let's say you had two 10 acres in one part of the bend and 10 acres in another part of the bend and this one is a more high density area with mixeduse buildings, things like that. There's less flexibility in terms of layout. I mean, you have parking lots, units. I mean, if I if I were to uh lay out a a site plan for a developer and I eliminated an entire row of apartments to preserve a tree, um they'd laugh at me or get mad at me.

Our other track was an apartment complex um on Connors and 27th, I believe, and it um fell under topography. There was slight topography, but it was I mean really impacting the development of those apartments. So they did go through discretionary. Yeah. And that's so in that one it seems like more trees would just by nature of the type of development obviously there'd be planted trees in the in the parking lot and where they can. But then that same 10 acres, if it's in an RS zone, you could divide that up into smaller lots and essentially no tree would be covered, right? Like all trees could be taken out if

that land division of 10 acres triggers a tree preservation code of that whole 10 acres. Yes. Yep. And then if they identify trees for preservation, they have to be preserved for three years. Okay. And then you mentioned topography. That was the question. How does that work? I mean, I'm thinking clear of objective. It's kind of

it's not because it's a discretionary track. So, they can say there's a certain amount of topography, we will review it. They have to make the the case and then staff has the um review authority to decide whether or not it meets it. But if they're showing that the topography um is like the one that we just talked about um going to hurt the project and they just cannot preserve the trees and also meet the layout and the subbacks and the parking um lot trees and everything else that was involved then more cases not will approve that discretionary track. But they have to prove that it's truly an issue and they still have to mitigate. Oh yes. Yes.

Yeah. because that one it just seems like I mean you know buildings don't necessarily jog and and finish floor. So it's like one side of the building the other side of the building and then you've got Yep. uh parking and accessibility. I mean, it's I mean, I don't know if I've worked on a plan where we haven't had to regrade most of the site. Even if it seems not that um not that sloped, it's you know, once you look at cross slopes and all that, um yeah, that seems I don't know. That's the big confusing one for me, I think.

Uh and then nothing with the use, right? And there was like no I mean it clarifies if you are this particular use on one acre or smaller you do not have to preserve trees. So single dwelling units duplexes triplexes quads and we've had quite a few of those but they still end up preserving trees.

Yeah. And I I think I brought this up in the last week, but I I was remembering uh with Northstar Elementary and something like that. A school is a certain size. It's a big you have playfields, they're a certain size. Parking lot, it's kind of requirement. That was on a 10acre site. And that I mean there was no feasible way to save most of the trees on the site. And then I just think they made a playground out of one though, didn't they? Isn't that the one where they put the tree in and went, "Hey kids, this is

they cut down one setting aside for a playground. It was stolen from the site and then they found a replacement." Wow. Um, but like in in a situation like that, it just seems like that's a a tree tax on the on the project. I mean, if it was a different if was a different use that required a different demand, um, it would be much easier to save trees, but you know, you're thinking of a large school that has the same footprint and you got have storm water drainage and saw that. Yeah.

Playground. Mhm. Anyway, that was that was I just kind of wanted to know if there was uh and nothing with species, right? Nothing with species. Again, you know, we've only been collecting data for a year. So, before we dive in and make significant changes, I think it's um appropriate to analyze the code and see if it's meeting the community objectives as well as council. Is it impeding housing? Is it impeding um development? Are we preserving more trees? As you can see in the pie chart, I mean, it shows it, but that's only 55 applications.

I guess the other thing, and this is the last time, I'll shut up. Uh the what was the the one right before this? Oh, the Yeah, it'd be interesting to know in terms of like so that's 711 projects and 50 or 711 applications and big applications, but like what would be the net acreage of those um of those because I see this and I think it's that 711 only the one acre less or is that for the most part? Yes. Yeah, because it seems like that's where the trees are coming down then is those one acre or less.

So those are primarily like infill lots. Yeah. Single family homes are. Yeah. Or it could be a new single family home or new duplex. How does that work? If you if it's like a large, you know, new master plan area and you have single family homes, wouldn't they? So, the land division first will review the tree preservation and then those single family homes that get built on those lots may have a tree identified for preservation um in the land division and they'll have to preserve it for 3 years. But with those individual lots, they wouldn't be included in that 711.

No, not in this data that we collected. The land division that created those smaller lots was before the tree in the 55. The set of applications over an acre that would that were land division. Yeah, that just seems weird. 711 applications that weren't I guess it could have been from a previous land division. Right. Right. Because this went into effect in August 16th. So if the land division was created in July of 2024 and it didn't apply, right? Okay. But if they done the land division before then, then they essentially would have been exact. Yep.

Is there a way for us to get a visualization of the acreage applicable instead of like we have 711 of these applications and 55 of these applications. is more like this percentage of land is apply like that we're doing land use obligations on. So we are working with um our um IT staff and coming so I've seen it. Okay.

It's very very cool web page that we're going to have and it'll have a map and it's going to show where you can look and see you know what applications and what they're proposing for tree removal and you'll see their acreages and things like that. It's just not available to the public yet because it took us um quite a bit of time to uh create this I'm not going to say it right database to track everything that we're trying to get and then to um present it and once we were complete with that um it it just happened to be that what they created for staff to see um a lot of it will be available to the public and I believe it was just going to be in a couple months. Yeah, the staff working on that with us um were reassigned to a high priority project for a few months and so when when that's wrapped up, we can hopefully get them back and get that data online. The intent is to have it as a public facing dashboard so anyone can track as Pauline said the different projects that are subject to the code and what preservation options were chosen and you can see it graphically where where they are in the city. So it's like GIS data. So great.

Katie, do you have any questions or comments or you know put on the spot? We can get the camera to zoom in real close. Tell the life story. [laughter] Margo, I don't have any. Thank you. Awesome. Good to go. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

All righty. Overview of 2026 Council Golden related work sessions. We have a very special guest. Sorry. Oh, wow. First date. [laughter] I thought you were just He does this so he can technically get Yes. As you know, I'm looking for food donuts in the morning. Yeah. Actually, I'm getting I have to go to another meeting tomorrow morning [laughter] and then I get dinner tomorrow night with

meeting. All right. Let's confirm. They're not sure.

It's showing on the Zoom. Is there something, Kathleen, we need to switch on the Yeah. TV? Awesome. I'm not seeing it through the Zoom meeting. Might just be with the the camera highlighted. Oops.

You're going to be amazed with the SP. It's worth every penny, right? [laughter] The anticipation will try me out this year. Should I unmute the share or am I good? No.

So I can get started while we get she pulls this up. So basically um first of all, Russ Grayson, chief operations officer for the city. Thank you for your your service and volunteering to be on this committee or the slight stipen that you get to be on the committee. um appreciate what you do and really I'm here just to provide some context of what's going on at

picture Russ what and and the rest of the team um I'd like to understand what are kind of the governing uh uh documents policy regulations what have you starting with the state of Oregon bend etc for example As I understand it, planning commissions are required in each municipality by the state of Oregon. And I pulled down that thing from 2016, I believe it was. And then we've got Bend has something for from 2009, very broad-based. And then ultimately it gets down to, you know, the comp plan and the this and that. Um, but going back and but elevating back up to some of the guiding principles and the responsibilities, that's where I'm seeing a disconnect. Um, so I'll just leave it at that.

Yeah. And that's why we want to make sure that you're clear on kind of what your role is because we know that there's sometimes things come before you and yes they have been in discussion in city offices for a year plus and they feel I'm going to say the term baked by the time they get to you that is kind of by statute by design and by how the process works. I know and a lot of times you wish you could get in early and start, you know, we always say get your fingers in the cookie jar kind of thing, but there are reasons why we kind of have to present things the way we do and we want to make sure that you understand that. And that's that's why we're we're going to be working with um with the three over there to kind of to to make sure you've got the right rounding of like, okay, so where do we have flexibility?

Well, let me give you a concrete example. when we were doing and I'm not trying to be argumentative but just illustratively I think it was the Ponderosa project and the concern about the emergency exits and my takeaway during that discussion was we were advised that's out of our purview to to bring that up and I'm like you know what the hell um you know LA fires had just happened and here we're supposed to prove a community 400 homes that common sense says there's a there's a potential issue but we're not supposed to say anything.

No, but there's there are things of understand the concern and the question. It's well, what is what do our codes and documents say about what what the policies and approval criteria on that, right? Our code does not have requirements on evacuations. It doesn't. So that is not a criteria of approval, but we do try to make sure there's multiple points of access and there's there's there's fire considerations and things that go into that. But I understand I totally I understand what you're saying

and I think that's how we handled it was we understand it's not part of the criteria, but let's put a big um spotlight on this concern. Yeah. And and what I'd like to do is make sure because these concerns come up where what list of things do they go under? Do they go under code updates? Is that a comp plan, growth plan related discussion? That's critical to understand because a lot of times these things will fall in the different buckets and I'll try to explain a little bit as I go through, but this is just a big general update on kind of everything moving. But

I'm sorry to interrupt, but Ian's item on this work session later on in the agenda will cover some of that. Where does the planning commission's role fit in with what's going on in the city, too? So, I think maybe some of your questions will be addressed in item. And again, this isn't being argumentative. It's just really [clears throat] to better understand and be able to better serve in the role.

And the other thing we want to do, we we also know there's been a request to try to get your city council leaison here a little bit more to have more kind of interactions and dialogue. I think that's really important because a lot of times it's good for you to it's actually really important for you to know where council is where are they trying to go as a direction because the last thing the one is the planning commission's working working really something hard goes to the council and they go a completely different direction you know you're like well that sure there were several times nice to know that six months ago when we started having these discussions instead when it actually got to council right so making sure that we you understand the relationships of all those that's what we're trying to do as we go through this because we're going to have be having a lot of conversations over the next couple years on a variety of things. So with that, I'll just go through this real quick. I just want to get you grounded again in council goals. So these are done every two years. And I just pulled kind of some of the applicable goals that council has around things related to the planning commission. So we have, you know, goals around housing, about complete neighborhoods, a lot of it around we're about ready to kick off the growth plan. In fact, you'll see there's a work session coming up at the end of this month to start kicking that out. But that's a four to five year adventure that we're going to go on to figure out how what is the city look like over the next 20 years. Really exciting but at the same time it's going to be confusing like what world am I operating as we go through that. Um we also have very for those of you new to the plan commission we also say have very strong guidance and requirements from the state on what we can and cannot do. So I always say the fundamentals of the Oregon land use system it says thou shalt grow in cities. It's not a question of of if and why. It's how we will grow. We're supposed to design to a certain population forecast. That's not a that's not a question. We don't get to choose that. But we have to figure out how to be a city of 145,000 people in 20 years with certain requirements about how we grow, which is kind of more up and more infill development than out. That's not a local policy. That is a state policy that we have to adhere to. Um, the other

one we always have in in the council bills is around adopting development codes and working with the development code to remove barriers and get more housing on the ground. There's also now a new focus on economic development. Um, as the world is changing, we are changing with it. Not only do we have housing issues, but we also want to make sure that the company economic development platform that we have in the city is also really strong because those two things go hand in hand. We want to continue to be like even all the discussions you have at the commission. We want to continue to be a city where other cities wish they were having the discussions that we were having around growth, economic development, opportunities, people want to come here, people want to do things. Those are good discussions to have for a city. It's just more what's what's the right way to go about having all those discussions. If you go into economic prosperity, you'll see a goal in there about identifying the target land target sectors, land capacity, and infrastructure needs. Same thing. There's two big components inputs into the growth plan. How much housing you need and how much land you need for economic development. So you need to figure out what both those things mean and then figure out the land for that. Those are two major inputs. We also have a goal on climate resiliency around wildfire regarding our codes and updating the codes. I I've seen some discussions around this. I'm going to tell you kind of what the plan of attack is. Just know some of those things are going to be planning commission related items. Some some of those things go directly to council. Just want to make sure that you are you are informed of kind of how all it's going to come together. All right. So, what I'm going to do is what we're doing from a city manager office level is we're now we're coordinating kind of six-month look aheads on work sessions with council. Um, if you look at our kind of job is to see the entire landscape and then figure out how we're going to bring all these things forward. So a lot of times you will have you know from the planning commission a great urgency to do something but council has a very long list of things on their agenda and we are trying to sequence those things in some type of rational kind of schedule of conversations but also just

availability of of council to be able to do stuff. So just over the next six months here are some of the key conversations that are going going on. Um on Wednesday night I get to have a nice conversation with council around neighborhood commercial. Part of that is the kind of questions you've been hearing about Petro and Eastston. Others is just how do we get more commercial moving in neighborhoods and things like that. There are three components of that. One is what do we do at the state level? What do we do at our own code? And then are we going to offer incentives for any type of development? And we're seeking direction from council on the 14th with that. Part of that is I know that planning has a list of kind of kind of smaller code tweaks that we can maybe look at to bring forward. We'll figure out when that schedule may go around commercial to get commercial activated more um in neighborhoods. But that's what that conversation's about on January 28th. This isn't directly related to planning commission, but you know, it's it will be um around transportation standards. There's a lot of conversations about what do our cross-sections look like, what are our corridors look like, what do we how do we do uh um traffic safety and slowing down speeds and things like that. Those are all in our standards and specs, which is like the development code for the engineers when they design subdivisions. Um that's that kicks off a series of conversations around transportation that'll keep going on for the next year plus for sure. Um on the 25th we've been asked to come up and this got moved up to have a conversation with council about wildfire resilience. Part of it is what kind of what conversations that we had here. The two basic questions there are do you want us to adopt that higher building code standard that just I blanked on the on the number but it's out there 27.

Thank yep that is a very binary question for council. Do you want to high accept the higher standard? If they do we bring a resolution back to council and that is adopted. There's no work by planning commission that's needed on that. Um, but the second part of that is, do you want us to start looking at defensible space, gates, fences, things like that? If the answer to that question is yes from council, we're going to try to get some guidance on what where they want to start that conversation. And then that'll be kicked over to Colin and Renee to figure out a schedule to work with. I do plan first stop on that probably planning commission and discussions with developers. But typically what we do is we go to council first and kind of figure out what issue, what's the policy statement we're trying to do, what the what's the value statement? and then we take that information, figure out kind of an associated work plan and when we can bring that forward. Um so the the code updates would be a much longer um pathway than the building code requirements, but um we're going to be asking both of those questions. On February 26th is the current schedule to have another advisor advisory body city council summit. This is where we bring all the advisory bodies together. Um we did it if you were here for the council goals was the last time we did it. Planning to do that again. I think one of the main focus around that will be the growth plan. You're going to be hearing a little bit about it um at the end of January. You'll probably hear some of that again in February, but it's how do all how does this work relate to all the different committees that the council has um so we can get a basic understanding of that's going to go.

On March 11th, we will be coming to council and just having a high level conversation with them about the second element of the tree code conversations around juniper trees and what do you want us to look at? You know, we're you're kind of seeing Pauline's doing the current work path to make sure that system's going. And then we've got this more higher level conversation that council said they're willing to have around juniper trees and what the policies are around that which may again kick off more work for planning commission to deal with that. April 8th growth plan update comes back. That's by that time hopefully we have a more definitive work plan. where we are right now, which Brian Rankin, who leads that group, will come and talk to you about is um we are negotiating the contract to get a what we call a full bench of consultants on board in a multi-million multi-year contract to do all of that work in a coordinated and sequenced down manner. Then on May 13th, we were having a work session with council on drainage and density. Um so we just adopted the storm water master plan and the public facility plan. Those are now through. Now we're going now into more of the design details of how do we handle density and drainage. So typic if you remember typically we've been doing it all in isolated pockets out there. But if you're in the core and you've got buildings at zero lines, we don't have room to deal with it on the property. What are we doing? Um so that's a conversation that will definitely come to the planning commission. Then on June 24th, we're going to initiate a conversation again to get the value statement from council before we come to the planning commission around infrastructure requirements for development, especially on infill development because a lot of times these are both barriers but also needed infrastructure for the city to get complete systems. So we're trying to find the right balance and it's basically the question if I'm coming in I'm doing a small subdivision, middle housing land division, ADU, a commercial development on a 60oot lot that doesn't have all the frontage improvements. what are we requiring them to build? There's a lot of policy discretion in that. Um, but we want to make sure we're balancing affordability with complete systems. Um, so we want to kick that conversation off

with council to make sure we're targeting the right areas of discussion and their values around what we're trying to achieve with that. Um, and then that that work will also come to planning commission, I'm pretty sure, to try to figure out where we go from there because that's both standards and specs on the engineering side and development code requirements. And then if council gives us direction to move forward with wildfire, we also have a placeholder on the development code side. We have a placeholder come back on June 24th with them to continue that discussion. So there probably touch points I imagine my planning commission before we do that. So that's just the next six months, [laughter] right? That's all.

And that's not all. Wait, there's more. At the same time, I'm just listing a host of other conversations going on with council um that are you could say tangently related to the work and planning commission, but also other goals and objectives they have. So, as you know, big conversation going around right now on electrification policies that's going to continue. We're also trying to figure out what's called the home committee. If you've heard of that, that's around trying to figure out if there's additional funding or other resources we can get in to spur housing development. It's not development code things. It's revolving loans and incentives and things like that. The same time we're doing our economic development strategy with Katie Brooks um which starts to inform our economic development strategy and our land needs. So you can see how that all ties together, but we really haven't had that at the city a very long time. So we're bringing forward that. Um, at the same time, cities needs to have a a very in-depth discussion around where's our funding prioritization because, as you can imagine with what's going on at the federal level, we're not sure where a lot of our money is going to, you know, we're we're sound, but we have things like shelters in the airport and how much in the housing where where are we going to where's that money coming from? What's the role of them of where we want to put that money and then what's the highest priority? Need to continue to plug holes in public safety. Then we also have a city hall discussion of where we're trying to figure out where the best place is to fit city hall. Um what we call the highest and best use looking at three different areas around town. Then at the same time we have a we're right in the we're right in the belly of the beast of 190 million transportation geobond project. I don't know if you've driven around town. There's probably construction somewhere and it's blocking you getting home. That's only going to continue and intensify. We have several projects going through the hopper that we need to continue to move through. Um, at the same time, if we go up to the upper right now, we're implementing Senate Bill 974, which is the engineering turnaround time on the permitting side, which has been the main focus of the of this gentleman sitting to my left over here to make sure that works. It's also done a really good job of getting permitting times down and and kind of

leveled out. Um, I think we've turned the corner on that discussion. There's always work to do, but now all the work around 974 and the requirements, we're we're leading the pack and going head first in that conversation. And I think we're getting ready to launch some pilots around that pretty soon, which Colin can talk about. We're going to natural hazard mitigation plan, urban renewal strategies. They're going to continue to have conversations in our urban renewal areas. Transportation safety action plans coming through. We're talking about our sewer system. That's the collection system master plan, public facility plan. We're probably going to be talking about a supplemental transportation SDC for the southeast area to continue that that area moving forward. Urban tree canopies kind of moving along now. That's coming back more in the fall. And then you're going we're also having conversations on on parking districts that are going to be created in several areas around town. That's all also kind of in this six to 12 month period. So I just want to give you the framework of kind of all the different moving parts and pieces. Um, if you have any questions about this, I am more than happy to come to planning commission at any time and give you updates on things to help provide context. Um, so always know that you have a resource to kind of try to connect the dots. So for you on the planning commission, I'm working with um Renee. Here are some things that are coming up relatively soon. So we have code updates around middle housing land divisions, neighborhood commercial sighting standards, potential WA updates. There are some changes I think we need in the development code around 974 on the engineering reviews. We never know what's going to happen at the short session. We're we're one of the questions we're going to be asking council Wednesday is the do we've already started some kind of advocacy around um Senate Bill 8 which is that affordable housing and commercial. We want to be sensitive to balancing the need for housing but also protect critical commercial. So we may continue that which may lead to code updates here. And who else knows what happens during a legislative session is if you've been here for a while, we always get we always get something like forces gumps box of chocolates. We never know what we get. Um wildfire codes, talked about that. We continue to have

development code cleanup packages that come through the tree codes. You're just had conversation on that. That development infrastructure requirements conversation, which that one can get pretty meaty. Um we know we're going to be talking to the development community, but also this group on the collection system PFP is probably coming through. the growth plan work session is already on the schedule for the end of this month. The same time you're going to see so that's on the code policy work and then you're going to see a handful of projects come through. So, we know Steven's Road Track Master Plan is already scheduled. I think February 9th,

the Timber Yards master plan amendment um that just came into the city. Just I want everyone to realize because we are getting some calls from the press on that. That will be coming before you. That is a that isn't a modification to the master plan. So, that will be quite editial coming to the planning commission. Caldera Ranch UGB expansion of master plan that's gonna be that's I know that's in the works right now is

um there is a I think they submitted the Stevens Ranch and so they got Stevens Tract and then Stevens Ranch Stevens Ranch is where the library is that's the active one Stevens tract is the one behind it um to the east so they are looking at doing a zoning amendment to potentially move their large lot industrial lot that has been planned on that then you'll see the collection system public facility plan and I'm sure there's probably a couple other things that'll pop in few wes and things like that.

Um, so that's just kind of a list of what's going on. So again, as you as you start to hear things, what I would what I would ask is just keep if you have a kind of that tickler question in your head, please get it to Renee and Colin. Then we can figure out how either how to get you information on that or or if it's more appropriate for the entire um planning commission to hear it. we can get a work session topic created and come and talk to you. That was great. Um, for the council work sessions, uh, is that open to us to listen and learn to

Yeah, they are. You can come. They're they're either going to be here or up at the Juniper Ridge campus. I think we're going to try to have a couple up there. Um, they'll also be online, YouTube, and also on the Zoom. Um, we don't take typically take comment there, but you're more than welcome to listen. Yep. Thank you. Yep. Hey, just a little input on the May 13th drainage and density. Uh what are you going to do when you have more infill? The tree thing that I talked about, the eye tree. My one tree uh over 10 years avoided 10,840 gallons of runoff and absorbed 71,000 gallons of rainfall. So that's one tree.

Yeah. So I mean there's a there's several things around impact design that we can look at. We can look at You know, there's green roofs region, but there's also, we know in some cases, even when you think about how how tight the subdivisions are getting, right? We are really struggling with maintaining water on a four to 5,000 foot size lot. So, do we start needing those combined systems, which is done everywhere else in the country um where we're managing public and private water in the same space. That was interesting. Yeah, thank you for that update. That's really helpful. It's a good good work plan. Are we getting that in email or something? I can I will forward it. Yeah.

Yes. And we usually will post um links to presentations when we post the minutes too. So, but that would be open for two out. Apologize. It's got done about oh I don't know 11:00 this morning. Really? Great. One more thing was just really happy to see that wildfire resilience get moved up because when we first brought it up it was like oh we'll take it up next summer. I was like well it's kind of late. Well, these are some these are some fantastic goals and topics and man there's a lot of stuff council has to deal with.

Yeah. And for me, one of my objectives is to make sure like you are stewards of the city when you go out and you go to dinner or you talk to your friends, right? I want to make sure that you have appropriate information and background where you can at least talk intelligently of like I I can't tell you how many conversations I have when people say what do you do and you go [laughter] in the city because I know the next 20 minutes of my life are going to be different than what I thought they were going to be. Um but being able to make sure that you have the right information at least to have those high level discussions with people saying like I I know you don't like growth but we have to we have to manage growth. you're mandated by the state. So, it's let's figure out the best way to do it, right? And kind of you can cut off some conversations or also just make sure you can let people know like we have control of this. We really do have control of that.

Somebody just asked me about timber yards yesterday. So, that was interesting. I didn't know that was coming back to us. Yeah. And yeah, so we do have an application filed on that. So, please judicial. Yes, watch the

one of the things that seems like it comes up very frequently is like we we have like the agendas for the council meetings that get released a couple weeks before the the the council meetings and that's generally the highest contact way that someone in the public can know what's going on in the future for city council. Is there any sort of way cuz like we have like these informal structured plans for the work sessions right going up six months or so. Is there a way that we can like have like that tenative schedule published in a way for the public to see? We have we we we do publish a council schedule in the city manager's weekly report.

Okay. Um but we'd have to see make sure the distribution list is good. But yeah, I mean we we are looking out that far if you kind of and that that's constantly moving as you can imagine with contracts and projects and work sessions or oh new topic of the day we suddenly need to talk about something very quickly. So thank you. Yep. Other questions but I will actually Rene you have a link to this so you can just take it.

Yes, I can distribute that to you. Um, I was going to do this in my report out at the very end of the meeting, but since it's somewhat related to what Russ was just talking about, and thank you for that. That's so informative and what the planning commission has been asking for for a while. Um, I also want to prompt you to start thinking about, and you don't have to do it tonight, but just as we're thinking ahead about scheduling out additional trainings or relevant topics for the planning commission for this year, think about what topics you'd be interested in. We'll be bringing to you many projects and and work efforts as it is, but if there's other things that you have a desire in learning more about and it's relevant to your perviews, the planning commission, we can either talk about it at the next couple of meetings or email me, however you prefer to relay that. Um, and we can start trying to do that same kind of like six month look ahead at planning commission meetings and where we can slot in some more work session discussions and stuff like that.

I mean, I think if we're going to get a batch of WS or a batch of master plans, uh, you know, maybe it'd be good to just have a little a little refresher course or a little something beforehand. Um, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Because I I always feel like what if you get a depends what you get in where you have discretion where you where it's more is it complying with the requirements of the development code because I know a lot of times you wish it could go further but it meets a lot of times under a certain application it meets the requirements of the development code right and so making you know where the difference where those different levers can be pulled is important as planning commission and that's where these three come in as very good guides in how to determine that. Do we know how uh significant the laws could update being?

Generally speaking, we've mentioned actually as we've had projects before the commission. Um largely they've been residential projects in the walls and it's quite um as it's currently written many aspects of it are pretty subjective. So, we do need to go through and make as much of that as clear and objective as possible. So, that'd be our primary focus. Um, so it's a clear and objective pass. Yes, that makes me very happy. That's that's the primary objective. Yeah. Cool. All right. If you if have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. You can either get my contact directly or you can they they know where I live. So,

we can't wait to see how you make preserving scenic beauty clear. Yeah. [laughter] Got bad news. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's got this percentage of green. There you go. This percentage of brown in this.

If you if you're reading the tea leaves from the state, they're saying we want housing anywhere and everywhere we can get it. That's really what I mean. They're they're they're removing a lot of kind of what would have been more typical kind of standard requirements. They're they're they are making kind of big shifts in that environment um because they want to open up more. We're in a housing crisis, so they want to get more housing on the ground as quickly as they can. And if you actually can show you the data, I'm sure you've seen some of it. I mean, what we're doing in the middle housing world, it's working, right? We're getting and there's a lot and also theory there's a lot of existing capacity within the city to get more housing in here with the infrastructure that we already have built. And that's all kind of that's all growth plan related stuff that we'll get into.

Cheers. Cheers. Awesome. Welcome. Thank you. Um also I'll still here I'll say this at the end of the meeting. One thing I'd like to do uh periodically as part of my report out to the commission is give you an update on recent administrative decisions that we've made on some of the more significant projects where they may not come to the planning commission um for you as a as the decision maker, but to just keep you informed of other subdivisions or commercial projects that we're reviewing administratively so that you again, as Russ was saying, are having conversations with other people in the community. you're informed about other developments that are going on around town.

That's helpful. Thanks. Cool. Um, so there's one in particular because I live in Southeast. Everyone asked me about the the Murphy um was it the gas station on Murphy and Rob Murphy and I'm like I have no idea. It's not uh it's not a planning commission thing. Uh, it's administrative approvals are still valid, though we've not seen much of any permit activity on it.

Awesome. Um, I guess is it Ian's turn? I think that's me. It is. Yeah. All right. You all are going to be very excited that I'm mixing it up a little bit. So, some of this some of this might not actually be um the same as it's been before. The graphic novel. I know. I think there's updated music. I'm waiting for the dance routine.

Yeah. Um and and some of the some of the questions in the last presentation. Interestingly, Russ and I did not coordinate. I did not review. Actually, I think I had an opportunity to review his presentation, but I didn't have time, so I didn't and he hasn't seen this. But I think these these might correspond pretty well. Nevertheless, um I heard a question from Bob about sort of guiding principles and responsibilities. Where are they? Well, it's your lucky night. We are going to talk about that a little bit tonight. So, um call it good luck. Um, what I want to do instead of doing what we've done in the past, which is talk a lot about distinctions between quasi judicial and legislative land use decisions is is really talk a little little bit uh about what the city does, what the structure is of our form of government and then how our advisory body systems and the planning commission in particular fits into that. So, I'm going to try to do this in 30 minutes or less. So, call it 7:30 plus. Um but we'll see how that goes. So this is a slide I've used for presentations to um we have this sort of curriculum or have had a curriculum for newer managers at the city because people will come into a program and they'll kind of work their way up but have a really narrow view of what the city does because they're really head down focused on technical stuff. And so this this slide and some of the other material here is from in part the my contribution to that curriculum to try to give people an overview of what is a city and what does it do and although the slide doesn't say this a city in Oregon and in many other states it is legally technically a municipal corporation. A city is an entity. It is a corporation. It's a municipal corporation with multiple different lines of business. Um we have very broad jurisdiction but there are some limits. These five checks on the

screen are in some ways a pretty high level yet comprehensive description of what cities do. They regulate land use both long range and current development through the comprehensive plan and the development code. And that's a lot of where the planning commission comes in. Right? Cities do other things too at least in Oregon. They do some regulation of the urban environment. We have a noise code. We have a sign code. We have public rightway over which we're responsible for building, maintaining, regulating um public spaces. We do some business regulation through permitting and operating license requirements for different kinds of businesses. Not all kinds of businesses but some. Um we impose and collect certain taxes, fees and charges. Not all but some. And cities of course last but definitely not least provide core services in the area. These are in no particular order but water, sewer, public streets and rights away and public safety. That's police and fire. This is one way to describe most of what a city does. And staffers, Renee, Cohen, myself, Russ, everybody, we support all of this work. Um, that's that's what we're here to do. Uh, in Bend, we have a council manager form of government. Um, this is the most common and I would say probably practical, pragmatic and modern way of managing local government in the United States. Um, this is intended to combine political leadership of elected officials with the professional administrative expertise of an appointed city manager who is the CEO. Council's the board of directors, city managers the CEO. Um, I have the word political in the first slide. I will say this about a city manager. A good city manager um needs to understand politics but while also being almost inherently apolitical, right? A city manager is not a political official. A city manager is ideally a really really good administrator that helps I would say support and sometimes that means educate

elected officials on what they what they can do from their policy per um what some of the limits are, what some of the resources are, what some of the trade-offs are. Um, I will say Bend has been lucky to have a city manager that takes that aspect of their job really seriously. New council comes in every two years and the city manager says, "I'm going to guide you and help you through a goal setting process where you, the electeds, are going to tell staff what your policy goals are. We are going to help you try to figure out whether those are achievable and how and spend the next two years um trying to um effectuate those goals through the jurisdiction, authority, and resources that we have as a city. To me, this is a when it works well is a really good example of how representative democracy works on a local government level. Um, I'm honestly really proud to work in the system. It's it's a it's an effective way to do government. Um, the city manager directs day-to-day operations, prepares the budget, advises council, has supervisor authority, supervisory authority over city employees. That is not something council has. Um, but our our jobs are really to keep the core functions going. Um, you know, Russ uses the sort of um iceberg analogy. Sometimes what the public cares about or sees or what council is focused on is kind of the tip of the iceberg, but there's a bunch of stuff under the waterline, which it's not to say it's hidden. It's just the basic stuff that is always there and always happening. So, that's our form of government. In that form of government, we have advisory bodies. Planning Commission is one. Uh, these are all outlined in the municipal code. There are eight currently active permanent committees. Planning commission is one. Environment and climate committee is one. The Bend Economic Development Advisory Board is one. The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee is one. I could go on. Um these are all committees, commissions, um advisory boards. It doesn't really

matter what the name is. They are all equivalent in the code and that they are permanent. There are rules in the code about appointment status and operation that apply to all of these advisory bodies. Some of the important points are the authority of the advisory body is limited to making recommendations to council and that's language from the code on matters gerine to the advisory body. No individual uh member of an advisory body or any advisory body can bind the city. Um you've all been through a selection process to get here. you probably were interviewed. Um, the mayor and council appoint members of advisory bodies, can remove advisory bodies. The code has criteria or members of advisory bodies. The code has sort of I'll call them factors that the mayor and the council are supposed to consider in appointing somebody. You've all been evaluated via these metrics whether maybe you thought about it or not. Um, and members of advisory bodies or volunteers. You can't bind the city and you have no individual independent authority, but you're you can act as a group. A majority of you can make decisions, make recommendations to council. So, these are some general rules that apply to the planning commission and all seven other currently active permanent advisory bodies. The code also allows the council to set up temporary committees. Um, TRUAC, Pauline referenced the tree regulation update advisory committee earlier. TRUAC is an example of a temporary committee that the council set up to to do a thing to do a task. It was a job specific committee and when that job was done which in the case of TRUAC was making recommendations to the planning commission and the council for updating the city's code for tree preservation it essentially goes poof it goes away. Um planning commission fortunately for all of us is permanent. So, um, in addition to having these generally applicable standards and guidelines and principles for advisory bodies, the code also has specific

sections for each of them, including the planning commission. And so, to Commissioner Crescent's point, we're going to get into this a little bit. Um, is that $10 you were paying me for the question? I can't remember. Um, so thanks for the setup, but the code does say that uh the planning commission has specific powers and duties, and they don't always do this, but I did just lift this from the code. Um, this is, you know, unnecessary language, but this is sometimes what codes do. The planning commission has authority and responsibility provided by this code. Okay, what does that mean? Um, it says the planning commission is the appointed citizen body that provides recommendations to the city council on land use policies, makes land use decisions on planning applications, I'd say certain planning applications, and provides a public forum for community values, visioning, and strategic thinking in long-range planning. And then this is these bullets I did not lift directly from the code. I paraphrase because a lot of words um but the principles are there. Planning Commission does these things. reviews land use applications within its jurisdiction pursuant to applicable laws. So the things that the code says go to the planning commission for either a decision like a waterway overlay zone application or a recommendation like a type four legislative application or a master plan application. Um those things that the code says go to planning commission go to the planning commission either for a decision or a recommendation. Um, planning commission reviews and acts on quasi judicial land use decisions pursuant to the land use procedures. Periodically reviews the comprehensive plan is prioritized in a work plan approved by the council through goal setting or as otherwise directed. And I'll come back to this in a second. And this this is a question that seems to be going around right now. Acts public involvement committee and advise council as directed by council which can include interaction and engagement as directed by council. And that's that's my paraphrasing. If you want to read this for yourself, you can go to the municipal code and read it. And the planning commission makes recommendations to council on type four legislative land use actions. Those are

generally we're going to change the code. We're going to change the standards or the procedures that apply to applications. Uh I want to touch on a couple of these things. Um the third bullet and this ties into a little bit of you know Russ talked about the fun exciting four or fiveyear adventure that's coming up regarding the growth plan. uh when the code says one thing the planning commission does is periodically review the comprehensive plan as prioritized in a work plan approved by the council through goal setting or as otherwise directed. The growth plan is is a it's not going to be just an update to the comprehensive plan. It's it's a I'll call it a rebuild, a tear down and rewrite. Who knows? Um but it's it's redoing the comprehensive plan. So the planning commission's engagement and role uh over the next four or five years in the growth plan work is in part fulfilling this obligation and function of the planning commission. That is a big four five year long adventure. It's a great word Russ that the planning commission is going to be part of and that is part of the planning commission's role. Um this other piece the and you will see in goal one uh Oregon's uh land use planning system 15 15 goals 19

19 not all of them are applicable everywhere but goal one is citizen involvement. We have moved away from saying citizen in government speak and there are a lot of reasons for that. One is if you if you care about the constitution, the constitution guarantees uh essential fundamental rights to people and persons, not just citizens. Um so we've moved away from at least some of us have moved away from using citizens in when we talk about public involvement, but the code our code and Oregon's land use goal one still say citizen involvement. So this is an example of my paraphrasing where I say public involvement. Um, but you do you are what the I think the administrative rule for goal one calls it commu uh commission gosh committee for citizen involvement. They use the acronym CCI which is kind of funny. Um or citizen involvement commission some people will say CIC. Again this stuff is old. This stuff is this stuff is from the 70s so it's a little out out of date. Um but in our code we do reflect that role responsibility obligation of the city um as carried out through the planning commission to be that. Now if somebody asked me how that happens I will say well a big part of how that happens is through noticed public hearings. U the noticed public hearings on applications where community members can come in and offer public comment and testimony is a big aspect of public involvement. There are notice requirements. It's they provide opportunities for people to come to public hearings to provide input to the decision makers or recommenders the bodies in the process which are generally on a decision level at a high level of the planning commission and the city council. So I think if somebody asks how does that work um notices of of public hearings and land use

applications in general that is a big big way in how that function is realized and met. But as we go through the growth plan work, that's it's not going to be that simple. There's going to be a lot more engagement. So, um, moving quickly through this, there was a reference in one or two of those bullets to the comprehensive plan. What is it? Benz was first prepared in 1974, approved by the state in 1981. This language is directly from the comprehensive plan. If you want to think or if you want to learn a little bit about how the comprehensive plan works, go read chapter one, which I think is called plan management and citizen involvement or something like that. That's pretty close. So read chapter one of the comprehensive plan. Um it's not hard to find. There's a lot in it, but if you read if you read chapter one, um you will get a at least a good overview of what the document is supposed to be and what it is supposed to do. Uh there is language in the comprehensive plan um about what the planning commission is and what it is supposed to do. Uh I'm not going to read it, but I'm going to point you to chapter one of the conference plan. Again, um there are in chapter one of the comprehensive plan a couple of policies going to uh the public involvement component. Um comprehensive plans, Benz is no different. There's a lot of narrative and there are figures and there are maps and there are also enumerated policies in each chapter. In chapter one of our comprehensive plan, there are these two policies that speak to the city's public engagement efforts, some of which include advisory committees and the planning process, largely the planning commission, but not just the planning commission. Um, and then we say through the comprehensive plan that we'll use other mechanisms such as meetings with neighborhood groups, planning commission hearings, I alluded to earlier, I think noticed public hearings are a big way that the

planning commission functions as the public involvement committee of the city and public forums to provide opportunities for citizens, I'll say community members of the area to participate in the planning process. So, it's all there. Um, I think there is an ongoing I don't know even even if I'd know I'd call it a concern, but you you have to be somewhat you have to decide you're going to be tuned in to know this is all there and start tracking things. So, um, because this is supposed to be two-way, I would encourage all of you to help people get connected to these things. Um, just a a plug. If [clears throat] you Google City of Bend land use or City of Bend Land use planning, I'm reasonably confident that the first search result, the first hit is on uh the page on the city's website that has the result of a lot of work that the city did during the 2019 21 bienium when one of council's goals was this land use education project. So again, Google City of Ben land use and you will find a page with a resource library. What's the comprehensive plan? What's in it? How do you read it? Um what are the different types of land use applications? What are master plans? Um a lot of FAQs, a lot of fact sheets. Um it it takes time and interest to read it, but it is there. Um just a plug because I had actually forgotten that site was there. There's even a there's like a little animated

video thing. Um, good stuff. So, that's a way um that all of I can ask all of you to sort of boost public involvement. Find it, send it to folks. Um, it's at least a primer on how a lot of this stuff works. Okay. Thank you. Because people people ask

totally people ask and it is a it is I think I think if you're coming in it as a community member you're coming in through one application a particular application that kind of lights up your neighborhood or is interesting to you. Um you're coming in it and you're trying to figure out a system while also in the context of a particular application or issue or sometimes controversy. That is not always the best way to get an overview of the system. So um find that site. keep saying it's not hard to find. Um push that out because staff Colin did a ton of work on that um in 2020 2021 as well as others. The the work is still there. We've kind of moved on you know like as Russ was illustrating to a million other things that we have but that foundational educational work on how the the system works that's still there and it's still a really good resource. So

there's a link to that page at the bottom of the planning commission's landing page. Okay. It's called land use education. So hopefully easy to find. And I am going to move into a slightly less interesting if that's possible stuff. Um some some ethics, some talk about exparts and bias. Um so I'm going to move away from this topic, but if there are questions or thoughts on this, um now is probably not a bad time. That was very helpful. me.

I think mainly what I'm trying to do is say there's a lot there's a lot out there and I can't get it all here, but it's there. Okay. Um, there we go. Okay. This this is not land use specific. This is not planning commission specific. This is for all public officials, including city staff and volunteers, including you. Um, public official ethics in Oregon can be a little bit nuanced and they it can be really simple. Um, it's simple in that it's all about money. You only have an ethical or potential ethical problem if there's some financial impact to you as a decision maker or people around you, including people in your family or household. And we're not going to get in the nuance, but um what you need to be thinking about to navigate um kind of as your ethical north star is is there a financial impact to me or maybe a partner, a spouse, a kid um from a decision I'm making. If there's not or if there doesn't appear to be one, if there one if one is not potential, you probably don't have an ethical issue. Um, and that's a little bit different in a land use context, and we'll get there. But just as an overriding principle for all of us, um, we cannot use or attempt to use our position to obtain financial benefit if the opportunity for financial benefit would not otherwise be available but for our position. So for me, that means I can't use my position either as a city employee or the city attorney or a member of the city attorney's office. I'm all those things. I can't use or attempt to use that position to get something from somebody. I get a paycheck. I get benefits. That's okay. Um I can't I can't go to the pub say, "Hey, I work with the city attorney's office. Can I get the discount?" You can't do that. I'm saving a dollar on my pint. [laughter]

That's all he knows.

I'm saving a dollar on my pint. Can I get Can I get the Can I get the discount for Mount Bachelor employees? You know, I know it's from Mount Bachelor employees, but I work at the city attorney's office. Can I get it, too? I can't do that. Right. And that's a that's a stupid example. Um you but financial benefit includes the avoidance of financial detriment which means a discount. It's a financial detriment to pay more. Right? So if the pint is $7 and the discount takes it to five. Um I can get the discount at tissues tonight um because it's Monday and they give it to everybody. But I can't go in and say on Tuesday, "Hey, you I I know you local tonight is Monday and the plants are only $5, but I work at the city attorney's office. Can I get it tonight?" I mean, one, they'll give it to you. But don't ask. That's wrong. That's a mistake. Don't say, "I work on I'm a member of the planning commission and they get the discount." Um, these are silly examples, but you would be surprised at what people not invent thankfully try to do. So, keep that in mind. um you shouldn't get something uh any financial benefit because you're on a planning commission other than your stipend and a sandwich. That's okay. Okay. Um Oregon law and again this is a high level applies to everyone all public officials. There are actual and potential conflicts of interest and again these are only about money. You have an actual conflict of interest. any of us do if an action, decision or recommendation would or will result in I'll say a financial benefit. I'm not going to use pecuniary even though that's what the statute says to you as the person taking the action making the decision or making the recommendation or um a relative a client or any business with which you a relative or client or a business with which that person is associated. So these are just things to think about, right? If you are making a decision as a planning commissioner um

that might lead to more work for the employer of your spouse because let's say a project gets approved and then your spouse's firm is going to be able to do work on that project. We need to talk. It's not a bad thing. It just means you may need to declare it before we get started on it. And it means you may not be able to actually participate in that decision. It's not bad to have an actual or potential conf conflict of interest. It's bad to not recognize it and declare it. And it's really bad to hide it. And I know no one here will hide it. Um, this only comes up when people just sort of aren't thinking ahead or thinking about the landscape of of what the impacts to them could be. So, just something to think about. Um,

so I I just had a question on that. Sure. because I know this came up and and I didn't not fight it or anything with the the tiff, so I sat out with that. Um, but most of these master plans, I mean, the was not a big deal. I don't do single family homes or anything, but like most of these master plans, there's potential for a project that the firm I work at might go for

that. And I just but it's it's not like it benefits me personally. It's not like and I so I just I guess I just I'm a little bit seems like a little gray area or do I just mention that hey I work on you know we're approving a master plan and there's a a school in there and I work on I design schools and it's possible that work could come I mean I would think usually that's all lined up but if if there's if we truly don't know yet and it's possible that the recommendation you're making could lead to work for your firm we should talk about it ahead of time and that's probably a a I'll call it only a potential because they don't know that one involved buildings that my firm had

done some work on personally but I don't quite remember all the details on this one but this one that one my recollection of it was again this is a continuum right and can something be so speculative that it's not even you know anything's possible can something be so speculative it's not even a potential sure can something be technically a potential, but maybe the pool of outcomes is so narrow that it feels like it's closer to an actual um we have a contract if it gets Yeah. If it passes.

Yeah. So, I think if you see something like this and the best thing to do, look look at the agenda ahead of time. Um know what's coming and come talk to me if any of you ever have any questions about this. Always okay to talk to me. Um we can almost always figure it out pretty quickly. It's harder to figure out during a meeting if it first comes up. And you know, I might ask questions or other people might ask you questions and maybe you have answers, maybe you don't. Maybe you'd rather be um offline talking about it ahead of time to figure it out. There can be really good reasons for that. Um so I just look ahead and we can talk ahead of time. And again, having a conflict with actual potential, it's not bad. Just missing one or being late to one is where things get kind of kind of dicey.

Okay. um exparty contact. Uh couple text walls are coming at you, but that's because I took I took language on exparty contacts and bias directly from the Department of Land Conservation and Development training materials. So, I wanted you to sort of hear this from DLCD. Exparty contacts are things that um I generally say uh avoid them if you can. You can't always avoid them. So if they happen, all you really need to do is disclose them. And these are these are things these are relevant in a quasi judicial application, which is why we go through the rigomear role at the beginning of a quasi judicial hearing. So you have an opportunity to declare expart contacts. um if they happen it's not the worst thing in the world but as uh DLCD says if an X part A contact does occur the decision maker in this case this context that's each of you you have to disclose it on the record of the hearing at the beginning uh describe uh the circumstances under which it occurred uh and present any new evidence introduced through that contact. That sounds like a lot. I mean that can sometimes be satisfied by yeah you know I ran into somebody who was working on this project at the coffee shop and they said they thought it was really great project and I said you know I can't really talk about it but the public hearing is on March 14th that's it you've probably met the requirement by saying that at the outset of the quas judicial hearing when you are asked if you have any ex party contacts you wish to declare not a big deal okay um I will repeat best avoided and if They do happen. Boy, the deeper you go with an exart contact and the more you talk, the bigger a problem you are creating for yourself because the more you have to explain. So, they happen. Um, you can't always avoid them. You know, people I don't know that people really seek you out trying to influence you, but we're still a relatively small town and people bump into each other, right? I don't know. You're laughing. Maybe people do.

So, I'm just, you know, throw back to when I was like run down in a Costco parking lot. Okay. So, it can happen. So, it can happen. It can happen. just just run faster. [laughter] And while you have this slide up, can you just provide a little distinction because site visits are on there? Um like that one seems a little bit right being knowledgeable of a site that exists in the city versus I visited it knowing that I had an application coming before.

Yeah. And we sometimes hear and I think we may have heard this from this planning commission and we've heard it from council. Oh well, I drive by this site every day on my way to work or I ride by it or whatever. I do. Um I think that's fine to declare when you have an opportunity to declare site visits. I don't really think that's the intent of this requirement. I think the requirement is oh I I think it goes to a circumstance where a decision maker realizes, oh gosh, we have a public hearing coming up in 3 weeks. I'm going to go check out that site because I want to I want to put eyes on this thing before I'm hearing the presentation and testimony. That is okay to do, but you need to declare it when you get there. Right. Part of it is it's helpful actually to go and see to understand the context of that.

Totally understandable. You just need to say it. Say, "Yeah, you know, when this in this circumstance, yeah, I went out to the site on a weekend. Um, share what you want. I ignored the no trespassing signs and walked around for an hour or I I I stood on the I stood in public right away and observed only what was within plain view. Describe it as you want, but that is completely fine. Completely fine. Well, it's helpful when you get one person telling you the river goes to this Yeah. this side and sure says, "Oh, no. The river actually is way over here." Right.

Yeah. That it can be help. It can provide context for for evaluating presentation and testimony and um it it might it might provide you relevant information to apply to the approval criteria, I would say. But, you know, there you go. That's my one finger wag for the night. Okay. Um another text wall. This is also from the department of land conservation and development's training materials. Um, everyone is entitled to uh process and a decision free of bias. That is I say this all the time that is for the proponents and investors in a project and the applicants and that is goes equally as much for the people who hate a project and are doing anything they can to stop it, kill it, slow it down. Everybody is entitled to a bias-free process and decision. uh and deliberation. So what is bias? According to DLCD, bias occurs when decision makers have a prior judgment of the case that prevents them from making an objective decision based on the facts. Uh if that's the case for anyone, they should excuse themselves from the proceedings. That rarely happens. Somebody says, you know, I'm so bi such strong feelings on this. I just can't be an objective decision maker. Rarely happens, but it can. Um, and this is this is where it gets interesting. Even though bias is often subjective, not all personal views or positions are actual bias in the eyes of the law. While it is not unusual for decision makers to have a perspective or background, the threshold test is if this will influence their decision. Decision makers, that's all of you, should carefully consider any issues related to their personal bias and be prepared to step aside if necessary. This is pretty aggressive. like this is this is asking all of you to be proactive. Um I think it's it's a pretty high standard to prove that somebody was biased. It can happen. We have seen it at the city of Bend. Um, we have, it's

been seven or eight years, but we had a circumstance in the past where one city councelor, they're not on the council now, a former city councelor, um, their objectivity and ability to not prejudge and not be biased, was challenged by an applicant and it was it was it was uh it was a gritty contest. Um, but that counselor I think eventually stepped aside um because their their their objectivity was challenged by an applicant. Um, right thing, wrong thing. I won't weigh in on it, but it can happen. Um, the more exarty contacts you have, the more you talk about an application before the public hearing. Um, your your words matter and I won't say they'll come back to haunt you, but people are watching and paying attention to how you analyze applications and how you respond to questions or contexts. That is up to you how you do it. But just be aware that there are there may be there may be people who are analyzing all of you to assess how objective you are. Um, that's because that judgment is so subjective. I I it's a hard one for me to speak to. Um but I do believe really really really strongly in the the the legal reality and just the the strength of the system in requiring um that everybody is entitled to decision makers without bias. That's honestly personally that is very important to me. So um and the law actually thinks it's important too. Um and that that's regardless of who the interested party is. So, um, I think this is a high standard to meet. Realistically, [clears throat] it's also a high standard to get somebody kicked off or challenged for bias. Um, having opinions does not mean you're biased. Um, having views on good policy does not mean you're biased. Um, having thoughts about what kind of development or future you want to see in the city of Bend does

not necessarily mean you're biased, but you've got to incorporate all that with um, a commitment to applying the criteria in the code. kind of complicated. Not that complicated, but there you have it. Okay. Um, really boring stuff. I'm gonna end with this and we're almost non shuts down at eight. So, [laughter]

I'll keep I'll keep this really short. Every everything you create, every record is a public record subject to disclosure. You know this. Um, it doesn't matter the medium that you create it on. Um, if you use a personal email address, if you use your personal phone to send text messages about planning commission business, um, it is likely, possibly or even likely going to be considered a public record subject to disclosure. That's okay. Just be aware. Um, it's not the disclosure obligation that's a big deal. We get public records requests for people's emails, people's text messages every day or something. Not a big deal. Um, but it's a bummer to say, "Oh, yeah. I had some messages, but I deleted them because I didn't think they were important. Well, that might be a problem because it is is actually a crime to destroy public records. So, um if you don't create them, you can't do a crime by destroying them. So, so there's that. Um I will say uh I think somebody maybe talked about onboarding. Bob did. Um Katie, you're I checked your name's on this. We actually are doing a sort of an onboarding um training for newer advisory body members on January 23rd. Um I don't [snorts] know if Aeron's on it. I think we have a lot of rank

I just checking members. Okay, we have brand new and newer advisory body members. So I think that dragnet caught Katie and a bunch of newer members from other advisory bodies, but um most of you have been here for I think Aaron, you're the next newest one, but you've been here for a while. So, um, if you're interested, it will be a lot of this, um, if you're interested in attending that on the 23rd. I think it's at noon, talk to Renee and we could probably add you. But, um, it it's it's a lot of this content that we talked about. I don't know. That's a different one. So, the one Ian's referring to now is new advisory body.

Yeah, I think it's Friday. new advisory body member orientation. The one with there's two options for is the what's it called? There's it's called Nope. You're right. There were two options for that. I was thinking it was the council advisory body summit. It's not the summit. You're right. There's two options for the new advisory body member orientation. It is either um

Friday, January 23rd or Monday, February 2nd at five. Yes. Okay, that was quick. But um but that's it. Again, a lot of material out there to digest, but big spin through it. All right, and that's the end of our training. That's it. There it is. Yes, don't give a chance talking. [laughter] Uh move on to the approval of minutes December 8th. Does anyone have any errors or emissions they wanted to point out?

I noticed there were some on the table. So, there were some errors and emissions. Just want to know right because we had some last minute uh requests from a member of the public to correct some typos. And so, what you have in front of you is a late breaking track changes version. So, if you could defer those minutes when you say that

whether or not you decide they look good, that'll be the version that we keep. At first I thought there were problems but it was just the Austin seme so we can just do it simple. Is there any errors and emissions besides uh what was presented to us during this meeting? Nope. That's what I see. All right. Uh, now we'll move on to agenda item number six, communication reports from planning commissioners. We'll start with Margot and then just go down the line. Margot, do you have anything?

I don't have anything. All right. Um, [laughter] do you have anything? The neighborhood districts, right? Um, is anyone designated to Boyd Acres? Because it's currently inactive, but like I'm working with Renee Mitchell to get it active. Fantastic. You should be assigned to Boydacres. I would love to meet him. [laughter] What was John? What was John's? Or did he have uh He did. I'll I'll take a look. I didn't bring that with me tonight. I'll take home one more. Okay. Yeah, we each had two. So, fantastic. Bob, did you have anything? Uh, nothing for me. Okay. Um, I have nothing.

Nothing for me. Suzanne, I was gonna talk about the neighborhood commercial that um was going to be coming up in the next city council meeting. I'm pretty excited to see how that goes. Um but I watched last the last city council meeting and that it started at like an 11 and then it stayed at an 11 for like four hours. So I recommend watching that if you want it just four hours. And with that report, [laughter] it's pretty fun when you're not there. It's like there's been a lot of news coverage on this issue. We've seen some of the the land use

or the the neighborhood district surveys coming in. I'm trying to get that. This is a huge topic for people especially on the on the east side, but I think it's something that we really should address. I don't know if this is if we can like brainstorm ideas or something or just listen to public ideas, but this is clearly a huge public concern

and that's what will be discussed with council on Wednesday. As Russ mentioned, we'll be um and actually those slides are already on posted to the council agenda are the staff slides that they'll be presenting to the council with some preliminary recommendations and we'll be seeking council input. Is there shortterm, medium-term potential um solutions to explore? They'll be looking for council input on that, which is really hard to fix the these big ones, these big master plans. Like you can think create a new law, but we already have these big master plans. So

studying the barn door after the cow is, you know, up the street and over the river. State coming in and just blowing all our planning out with their their regulations is very frustrating. Consequences. I think like this idea. Yeah. Allowing commercial and residential areas. You mean it makes sense all with I mean we thoughtfully allowing it. That seems like a great idea to me. All right. All in favor say [laughter]

an enforcable recommendation. Yeah, I just saw a thing came through from Central Oregon Land Watch. They had a I read that too. Um like a kind of a mock uh I guess code update. I just got it late in the day and printed out and haven't even had a chance to. And I think they're going to be so I'm going to see if I can try and make the meeting and just be there as Scott, not a commissioner. But uh yeah, so if you're interested, I should go to the council. Um planning manager, did you cover all your stuff earlier? We're all done with planning commission. Oh, sorry. We are all done. Hey,

okay. Uh I do have a few more things. So what I already mentioned, um think about any topics, trainings that you might want to see come to the commission in this year. Um also, as I mentioned, my future reports will periodically include um listing some recently um decided administrative decisions that staff works on um that don't come to the planning commission um as a decision maker. And then I did want to let you know of a few other things that are we're queuing up for the planning commission agenda partially so you are aware that you do have a number of quasi judicial matters coming before you and so if you do see people at the store or in the parking lot you'll know uh to give the f the the response that Ian suggests. Um so at your next meeting we will during the work session have the growth management team um and give a high level overview of their rest as the growth plan uh work effort multi-year work effort there. Then we'll have the public hearing on the development code updates that Pauline was just here with you to discuss at the work session to the tree preservation standards. February 9th, um Pauline's working on a another focused package of development code amendments um based on council direction to um a handful of properties that are zoned neighborhood commercial. So, it has the actual CN zoning, which is really only like five properties in the city um related to short-term rental uses on those properties. And because and I want to highlight this because usually what Pauline works on are legislative code updates that apply citywide. This is such a small group of properties. We are processing it as a quasi judicial development code amendments. So, just be aware if anybody engages you on

short-term rental uses on commercial CNZ owned properties that that will be coming to you work session first on February 9th and then a public hearing on following meeting February 23rd. Also, we are still on track we believe to bring to you the Stevens Road tracted comprehensive plan amendment and master plan on February 9th. So, I'll be a quasi judicial public hearing on 260 acres of land on the um southeast edge of town. Then on February 23rd, um again, those amendments to the CN zone related to short-term rentals. And then also, if we can keep this moving along, you might have the Timberyards master plan amendment before you on February 23rd. that's also a quasi judicial um development code amendment and then a whole bunch of other development code updates [laughter] March through the end of the year. But um we do expect sometime in the spring to have the Caldera Ranch the one time UGB expansion um south of not road uh across kind of across not road from Caldera High School. Um it'll be UGB expansion comprehensive plan amendment um first then later in the year we'll probably have the master plan application uh before the planning commission and there'll be more but that's the next couple of months just so you're aware of anybody starts um these are all active well ranch isn't quite an active application the rest of them are all active applications so just to be aware aware of

those. Aren't we due for a UGB expansion? A general UGB expansion? Part of the growth plan. That's part of the growth plan. That's the major out outcomes of the growth plan effort is when and how and where we expand. When when do we think that would be next? Okay. It's it's out of approval. Yeah. Yeah. So he'll help he'll line out how this is all going to flow and then there's outreach and committees and all kinds of fun stuff. Um okay another reward. Great.

Sweet move. So moved. [laughter] Your first commission meeting. Are we going to schedule something to get on but the the neighborhood? Oh, right. So before Yeah. Before we go, so at the neighborhood districts have asked for Oh, for a round table discussion with all the neighborhood land use chairs. Do we want to put something on the calendar for that? Uh fill out some potential dates.

So it would be a Renee thing. We can't organize it and talk. Yeah, let's I would I would suggest maybe we can talk to the the new chair and vice chair. I I don't know what kind of meetings we do, but um but we should we start the weather and the how especially given the engagement should be directed by council. So, it'll be easy, but not talking. See you. Thanks everybody. Thanks. Bye. Yeah, I know. I was There we go.