Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Can you harass Margot? Yes, I did. It did push me off. So, if anything happened in the last minute or so, I missed it. Are you going to start us off or do you want me to do that? Is it okay if you go ahead and run it? I think it'll just be a little bit easier. Okay. All right. So, we'll start the uh Ben Planning Commission meeting for Monday, June 9th, 2025. Uh we will start off with roll call with Margot and then going down the line. Marggo Clinton, John Lavad, Bob Cresens, Scott Winters, Suzanne Johansson, Aaron Len. All right. And so now we'll move on to agenda item number one, the visitors section. So if anyone wishes to speak to the planning commission on anything that is not on the agenda today, now would be the time to do so. And if you're online, you could raise your hand. And I don't have a computer so I don't know reason to take no one online has their hand raised at this time. Okay. So since I don't see any uh we'll move on to agenda item number two judicial public hearing for PL WZ20250148 waterway overlay zone application for the Columbia River Columbia Park river access and restoration project. Um, and oh, we got to the So, first we will open the hearing and then have a statement of prehering context, bias, prejudice, or personal interests going down the line. Starting with Margot. I do not have any. I visited the site. No conflicts. I visited the site. Um, I have none. None.

None. Although I've been to the site many times. Yeah. Okay. So, uh we'll take a moment to ch if there's anyone wants to challenge the bias prejudgment or personal interests. And this would be the time where if anyone had um a question or um interested in what the planning commissioner stated about their familiarity with the site, if anyone wanted to challenge their statements about not having any bias or prejudgment. anyone online? Okay, so now Steph will explain the procedural requirements of state law. Thanks. And please bear with me while I just read this. Make sure I get all the proper components of the law. So the city will rely on the staff report and staff presentation to list the applicable criteria for this proposal. All testimony, argument, and evidence must be directed to these criteria or other comprehensive plan or Ben development code criteria that you believe are applicable. The failure to raise an issue with sufficient specificity for the planning commission to understand and respond to the issue in its in its decision or with enough specificity for other parties to respond may preclude an appeal on that issue to the land use board of appeals. The failure of the applicant to raise a constitutional or other issue regarding a proposed condition of approval with sufficient specificity for the commission to respond to or for other parties to respond to may preclude a future civil action for damages in circuit court related to that condition. Thank you for that opportunity. Okay. So now we'll move on to the staff presentation. The city staff would you like me? Yeah, I guess so. Thanks, Aaron. I'll adjust on the fly here since the Apple kind of set up.

Stop sharing your presentation. I'll share mine. Thank you. Okay. So, Aaron Hudson, planner with the Bing. We're here tonight to review the application for waterway overlay zone review for the Columbia Park um river access and restoration project. Um, I'm sure most of you are familiar with Columbia Park on the east side of Columbia Street. Um, along the west bank of the river, just downstream from the Gilpress foot bridge that leads over to Riverfront Street. And this is downstream of Miller's Landing Park, which is just about finished up with somewhat similar river access project. This map here shows the three different subzones that we're dealing with tonight. Um, purple is the design review sub zone that extends 100 ft from the ordinary high watermark, the flood plane sub zone and the repairarian corridor boundary which in this location is 30 ft from the high high water mar.

You can look out the lark deal that's been on the upper area of the park and um the playground with the pirate ship and slide that is real fun for all the kids and the path that um leads down onto the area along the riverbank. The sections of the code that you need to review are u 2.7.610 610 regarding tree removal and state agency coordination. Um, 620 the repairing corridor, 640 the flood plane and 650 the design review sub zone. This map of the project area highlights in red the areas where the construction activity will take place. Um so stockpiles of materials up in the north half of the field area. Um construction reconstruction of the trail leads down to the riverbank and then work um uh along the bank and in the water uh from the bridge down uh little uh more than halfway of the along the frontage river frontage of the park. Couple of slides here, existing conditions. One, the top one is from October of 2022. Looking upstream, you can see a covert that sticks out there um from the city's storm water system and the temporary fencing that's been in place since 2020. Um on the lower slide there, that's June. Uh this June uh looking uh west and kind of downstream at the situation there a little closer. Um this is looking

upstream. We can see the white line is the approximate ordinary high water line and erosion that's incurred below that high water line. and looking downstream um the sections of old masonry wall and root wrap that has deteriorated over time. So, this first section on tree removal, um there's just this one elm tree that's kind of right as you cross the bridge um at the west end of the bridge that needs to be removed in order to accommodate this project. Um there was an earlier version of the project narrative mentioned four trees. It's it's just this one tree. It's got like four trunks. um fairly small for an elm tree. Not a not a native species, although these things do sprout up all over the place. Um and it's needed to be removed to accommodate an approved development activity in this case. So, um we recommend that you allow that one uh four trunk tree to be removed as part of this pilot. We notified all the relevant state agencies. We did not get any comments from any of them. We also notified the surrounding property owners within 500 ft and the neighborhood associations on both sides of the river. And um we did get a number of comments from both in favor and in opposition to this project. Um all with a lot of good reasons for and against this project um that you all need to take into consideration. The moving on to the next section is 620

the repairing corridor. Um these types of projects uh can be approved in the repairing board. Water related and water dependent uses including parks interpretive uh areas and viewpoints. This would kind of fall along there and that in that category as well as item six the restoration of the repair corridor. This project is doing some of both. The um approval criteria um include the requirement to get necessary state and federal permits. Um the park district um has applied for those and um that will uh be a condition of approval that they provide copies of those before they do any work. the um the development has to be designed to minimize intrusion into the repairing corridor. And so we look at things like erosion control, um control of uh storm water runoff, um minimizing the amount of vegetation that needs to get disturbed. All of those things have been considered. This slide shows the permanent and temporary impact areas. Uh the permanent would be the purple, the temporary is the blue which extends out a little further from the bank and then the green shaded areas are aquatic enhancement areas. So this is another look just downstream from the bridge um showing the approximate high water line and the streamside vegetation at the downstream and will remain intact.

The next section is the flood plane subzones 640. Uh this uh requires the uh the project to be designed um in a way that meets the uh federal emergency management uh FEMA uh requirements for aiding work in uh in a flood plane. So the um applicants project team had to do what's called a no- rise analysis to ensure that whatever they're doing there isn't going to adversely affect uh people uh downstream of the project. It's a pretty minimal amount of um fill that's going into the river and that's been studied and found to be satisfactory. the um project will be well anchored. There's nothing that's going to float away um under high water conditions or flooding conditions and the 80% of construction materials and methods meet the requirements of the code. Section 1650, the design review subzone. This is mostly what you're looking at when you're reviewing a new house or a new office building or something that's um on or near the river bank. But um we still look at uh things like colors of materials um and compatibility with the existing area conservation of natural features even when it's not a new building but something like this like um you know an enhancement to a park. You may establish increased setbacks, other limitations and conditions on a project. Um, that's within your authority if they're needed in order to satisfy the approval criteria. Um, I think the app probably has more uh

photos than I've got in my slide deck, but um this one is kind of from the drone perspective looking west of um that uh reconstructed trail from the bridge leading up to the main park. And you can see kind of in the right hand side um where that river access point will be constructed. Here's a little closer look at it. Um, looking upstream back toward the foot bridge. Um, you can see a handrail on some steps leading into the river. Um, some boulders that will be anchored into the bank and both sort of almost like, you know, stone steps and a more gradual path down to the um place where people can enter and exit the water. Um we are recommending approval subject to six conditions. The um first one pertains to um tree protection and and fencing the root zones of trees that are to be protected. The second one has to do with uh providing that copy of the permit from the Army Corps of Engineers and Department of State Lands before construction begins. Number three, um requires a grading permit from our engineering division to ensure all the same kind of things that those um state and federal agencies are looking at. We have our own perhaps redundant but creating um the permit requirements. Number four is any work on the storm water pipe um must be conducted under a what we call a rightaway permit. from the private development engineering division. And if there's not already an easement

for that pipe, uh we couldn't find one. Uh but uh if there is one, we just want evidence of that easement. and and if there's not uh it uh and if the pipe is realigned or relocated that um we want to get some kind of easement or agreement in place that allows the city to continue to maintain its storm water facilities. A little history on this park. You know, this was a park that was owned by the city. It was transferred to the park district um in, you know, the early years of the park district. along with many other parks. So, it used to be the cities and I think sometimes the city didn't always think, oh yeah, we need to keep an easement for our sewer water pipe. Um, but we sort these kinds of things out with the park district all the time when a project like this comes along. The last one is that um there's a little work where that path comes up and meets the sidewalk along Columbia Street. Same thing there. that work has to be performed under work in the rightway permit and those notes have to be to city standards. Um, that's all I've got. Um, and I can take questions now or questions later. It's up to you. Um, do any commissioners have any questions for city staff at this moment? Margot, I do not. I think we're good. Okay. Thank you. Stop sharing and back down. You launch the applicant presentation.

All right. Well, thank you. My name is Ian Isacson. I'm a landscape architect for Ben Park and Recreation District. And I'm Mason Lacy and I'm a professional engineer working for Environmental Science Associates ESA and we're contracted with BPRD for design this park. And just to kick things off, um, very similar to the Miller's Landing River Access Project that we talked about a year and a half ago now, uh, this project was also identified in the the park district's uh, river river access and habitat restoration plan, which included thousands and thousands of comments and public touch points. Um, and we're excited to see this project move through the next stage of this process. Like Aaron already alluded to, Columbia Park is downstream of Miller's Landing, the Whitewater Park, and McKay Park. And again, similar photos that Aaron showed earlier. I wanted to point out that uh Columbia is in the heart of neighborhood or in the heart of a neighborhood that's in Bend um flanked by the Dash River on its uh eastern boundary and this park has been used for river access at the location identified there uh original access location that was installed in 2011 during a park renovation project. Uh the proposed access location uh that we're speaking about here tonight is proposed downstream of that uh right there at the city's storm water outfall. And the original designated access point uh was built in 2011 uh by just placing large boulders on that steep bank. And since that time, uh, it's eroded so

badly under heavy use, uh, and river forces that BPRD had to close that off in the summer of 2020, uh, for for safety concerns of park users. So, this is again aerial that Aaron was able to show. Uh, this is before and this is the after. Um this is identifying the various features of of this particular project and this access point uh was approved by the BPD board of directors in 2011 and or 2023, excuse me. And the design includes both durable public river access and riverbank restoration. Engineered to provide an access point that withstand heavy use of swimming, waiting, and hanging out by the river and able to provide approximately 200 linear feet of habitat restoration and bank stability improvements. And here's two renderings. uh one of which Aaron already showed just of a closeup of what uh this access point specifically is intended to look like. Um again, we're going to propose to close the original access point, secure the bank, and reveate those areas. Uh close user created access points that have been created above uh upstream from the Gilchrest foot bridge and pave uh the accessible trail along the river. Currently, it's a gravel aggregate pathway that doesn't meet ADA standards. Um, the access point itself is going to have a concrete landing, a concrete steps, and ADA transfer system. Grouded boulder terracing like we've seen on other river projects that the park district has completed or is about

to complete, and cedar split rail fencing with welded wire mesh to help protect those restored riparian areas. Here's a photo of Riverbend South uh a before and after just to give you a sense of the type of prescriptions that we're talking about here tonight. You see grow boulder terracing cedar split rail fence. And here is Miller's Landing access point number two before and after. again, grouted boulder terracing, uh, cedar, uh, split rail fence. Um, and here at access point two, we have an example of what the the stairs and the the ADA transfer station looks like going into the river. Um, this for context, uh, the access point at Columbia that we're talking about here tonight is about, it's actually less than half the size of Miller's Landing access point number two, just for context. That's all I have. Ready to answer questions. Thank you. Uh, does anyone have anything? Yeah. Does Marggo, do you have any questions? No questions. Go. Yeah. Uh could you tell me a little more what you have planned for the habitat restoration areas? Yeah. So um the prescription that we've done just like at Miller's Landing um in Riverbin South, it is native plant phalllet. So, native riparian vegetation, um, shrubs, trees, and grasses. Um, and then some forbes and rushes and sages in the water.

Yeah. And just adding on that is a pretty steep bank, you know, and it's a pretty constrained between the river and the trail there. So, we're um the final grade um has it about a one one slope. And so what um vegetation we can establish there. And the bank toe is going to have um root wads embedded um into the bank there for stability um as well as some additional uh instream habitat. Okay. Isn't the when you're adding the vegetation, it will actually be a little resist erosion better than than just the rock that was there before and the wall. And it'll also absorb flood water a little bit better. That correct? Yeah. And there's, you know, a lot um that kind of goes into the slope stability and long-term stability of these things. And so but um especially for a relatively steep bank like one to one slope that we're proposing here is special especially lower down towards towards the river is doing um fabric encap encapsulated soil lifts where we have um a biodegradable um material wrapping these soil lifts that basically so when you because the main issue once vegetation gets established it can it's really good at holding the bank um together but it's it's it's having that slope survive to that point. So that's where we provide that temporary um erosion and erosion control and stability um through that vegetate it and then over the years as the vegetation grows in provides a solid bank and then that um material um biodegrades. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. um micro and macro question. The micro I think it's it's a double lap fence. So you got

the fence coming off where the kids are sliding down the slide and then the walk and then another fence. So the kids flying out of there aren't going to slip down into the to the new area. Is that correct? The Yeah, the exit in the fence at the bottom of the slide is about 70 or 80 feet from the uh first opening at the stairs. So the slide is here to the right. This first opening to the staircase is about 70 or 80 ft from there. Yeah. Okay, that's cool. And then uh knowing this doesn't include the bridge, but can you give us a 5-second status on what you know there's been discussion what's going on with the bridge? Yeah, so we're in the process of completing conceptual designs for that bridge and then at that point we'll continue conversations with city staff on next steps. Great. Yeah, follow up on the on the bridge. So, what's the timing on the bridge? So, right now there is no no timing in terms of replacement of the bridge. Um, we have an agreement with with the city to take designs through 30% conceptual design. That was from a grant that the park district received. Um, any conversations on next steps will have to be that decision will have to be made by the city. And I did a little bit of reading, but could you for the benefit of all of us or just educate me further? Um what are the uh drivers for uh upgrading or replacing the bridge? Yeah, there's a there's a couple. Um one is we want to if replaced bring it to a current standard width um for multimmoal transportation purposes. We know a lot of people walk and ride their bikes across that bridge. Right now it's pretty tight and confined. It's about 7 ft clear width. So, we're looking at taking that out to a 10 ft clear width. Um improving the the grades on either end. Um the the abutment on the east side currently doesn't meet ADA grades

and so we would extend that abutment out to hit ADA compliance. And then um with the with the new material, with the new bridge, being able to put jump deterrence on the railings like we see in some of the other BPRD bridges, um it's being proposed to be on this new bridge as well. And it's that third point, the the jump deterrence. Um I just visited the site um less than an hour ago. Yeah. And there were probably was jumping off the side. probably 30 kids, hot weather, having a great time. Mhm. Um, yep. Standing on the railing, doing back flips. So, yep. Um, every day. Every day. Doesn't surprise me. Um, the other uh question I have, could you um the history on this, so I'm new to the planning commission the last year, year and a half. understand there was quite a bit of discussion about this particular project pro and con um including the the former head of BPRD Don Horton weighing in. This is currently a neighborhood park. Correct. Correct. And could you clarify just simply the difference between a neighborhood park and a community park and a state park? Well, we're we're not in charge of state parks. So, I'll leave that one to OPRD. The reason I say that is there were a lot of out of state plates right around there. So, yeah. Um the distinction though between neighborhood parks and community parks more broadly. Uh community parks are generally larger in size. Um neighborhood parks are typically 3 to 5 acres where community parks are in upwards of 40 plus acres or they can be can be. Um, community parks

generally have the types of uses that require onsite parking. Um, I'll use Alpenlow as an example. There's a spray ground at Alpenlow. Beautiful. It requires a parking lot among other things. Um, neighborhood parks are generally on street parking. Um, neighborhood parks generally have uses that are intended to encourage people to walk and bike because they're at a higher density around around the city, whereas community parks are more dispersed and then those larger uses are are more amunable to to parking and and vehicle use. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. really quick. Um, in the one of the pictures that Aaron showed, there was the tree at the end or more bush tree. Yeah. And I think it was taken during the winter because I don't think it had leaves on it. Yeah. And I noticed before that it's kind of a sideline problem as you're coming toward along the river and then people are coming across the bridge either walking fast or riding their bike fast could potentially be. Yeah. Yeah. And not seeing what's going and maybe safety and seeing somebody. So, uh, my only thought would be once you get down to the detail on the landscape plan for the forestation, reforestation of the bank is just keep that corner and knowing we're going to eventually do the bridge connection, but keep that corner a little lower so you can see people coming along the bridge and vice versa, maintaining those sight lines. Just thought, yeah. Oh, how how deep is the river there? I mean, the deepest part of the channel. Yeah. Um well I we so we did you know as part of the um design you did a full survey and um several crosssections all the way across the river. So I I can't and it'll it varies obviously it's deeper in the summer um when they're releasing from Wiki up and lower in the winter. Um but the center channel

especially um you know under the Gilchrist bridge you know um when we did the baometric cross-sections I was actually swimming out with the rod doing that and uh um so it's quite deep especially through that constrained um spot under the bridge. Um and then the main channel kind of hugs the right bank as the the channel the banks open up a little bit as you head downstream from the bridge. Um and so um you know along the left bank one of the reasons and we could you know there's a lot that went into the design and there's a lot of um considerations in moving the access point downstream but one of them is that um the um down there it's the river bed doesn't quite drop doesn't drop off as fast as like that old where the um old access used to be. Um, it's also far enough that we can actually get ADA grades um down to the access point from the bridge um without changing the bridge landing. Um, and there's a little more space between the river and the trail there um to do work. Um, so so what is what is the channel depth? So the channel depth uh again it's it's at least at the deepest point I want to say like 15 feet deep. Yeah. So, so 15 at the deepest and you said um under the bridge, but the bridge crosses the entire river. I mean, it's not big because it's fairly narrow there. Mhm. But the deepest point is 15 and then the banks and the bridge goes over and I'm watching kids from one end of the bridge to the other on the railings. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that was I guess another the because the bridge the bridge jumping issue was one of the you know you know it's it's it's a it's a big issue and that's another reason with moving to access point downstream is that you know um you want someone

jumping in than running into somebody as they're trying to Yeah. And like if it you know right now they just you know it's easier to lap it and it's you know well I was looking the other way is they jump off the bridge and then they get carried down to this nice concrete steps and then It's a It's a perfect loop. Yeah. The the design we had all those conversations. Yep. And in terms of if you completely closing it off, people will still jump then there's no exit. It's a safe exit versus keeping any access point. Yeah. Then are you promoting it's Yeah. We looked at all of that delicate balance. Yeah. Yeah. And it's and yeah, just unfortunately looking at the current conditions, it's technically closed the entire park with fencing, you know, and uh there's still a lot of jumping going on, you know, it's it's also just looking at reality, you know, without, you know, you could maybe do a chain link enclosure, but then they railing. So, it's it's it's not it's a hard uh So, was there a discussion in terms of the sequencing of the redesign or redo of the bridge and this park? Cuz to me, I love the design of what you've proposed. But the fact that there's a bridge, that's a safety hazard because people are going to do stupid things and someone's going to someone could break their neck. Um I I think this design is going to encourage more of that activity. So my preference would be get the bridge fixed and then make the improvements. Yeah. So, um, again to to complicated already complicated topic, um, with the bridge being a city facility and the park being a park facility, there's that

distinction and that was one of the reasons why we went out and we got the grant or the the bridge redesign when we did to try to spur that conversation. Yeah. Y, thank you. Yeah. And from the design perspective, just, you know, from constructibility, we recommended if you're going to if you're going to be replacing the bridge, doing it at the same time, but the just the funding and timelines were just not um not aligning. The good news, you're doing the conceptual design right now. At the same time, you've got this going. So, at least design method. Yeah. And planning commission deliberation on the next. So the bridge will come under our review and is it it's going to come before the planning commission? I'm not aware, but I mean I would imagine it has to be and I mean I like the discussing it as it relates to this obviously because they're they're symbiotic but um I don't want to spend too much time on bridge stuff. Although I will say I'm going to offer a different approach and say that kids are going to jump off it no matter what. Be nice if there was a area where they could jump off it safely. We're 30 there today apparently. Yeah. Because no matter what you're going to put up there, they'll figure out a way. She's going to say seen a lot of adults jump off too. Yeah. And maybe some in this room. Um yeah, I will say also just with the bank erosion that's been seen and just you know with the the primary driver of the erosion is foot traffic and people you know it's um and so that you know when you have uncontrolled when people are using it and it's not designed for that's where you really get a lot more erosion when it's not when it's all over in riparian areas that are not designed

to handle that use. Um so that's one of the reasons the erosion has continued even though it's been fenced off. Okay. Yeah. I could see that. Yeah. Two questions. One h how has the work that you did on the south part of the river by the dily bridge uh where you did control the access. How has that affected? Has the riparian has there been less uh trespassing on other parts of it and trampling the vegetation? It's worked remarkably well. Yeah, we just went out and flew drone shots of it earlier last or later last week. Um and comparing the before and after photos. Um it's it's working out really well. people are using and sticking to primarily those access points and the riparian areas are responding really positively. Great. Yeah. And I guess one note on you know we've designed similar projects all over the country and there is you know um we've seen a lot with fencing works best to funnel users somewhere. If you have a public park and you're just trying to create a full barrier like there if if it's there's always a weak spot, you know, in the fencing is what we found. And if you know, but if you if you provide an easier play, people would rather take the easy route if one exists. And so that's where if you have to get over a fence and through vegetation, people would rather not do that if there's an alternative. And so that's where we see fencing work better when you have like kind of like riverbend south is a good example where a significant that was completely unfenced and a lot of fencing went in but then three access points and um yeah you really see that working where people are encouraged to uh and you know people

aren't always good at reading signs either so it's more just like trying to make the easiest path what you want them to do. My other question was just about the water pipe that's coming down. Do we did you find the easement? Are you still looking for the easement or gonna So no easement exists. Um like Aaron alluded to, that's a remnant from when the city had the park. Um because the the property has a LWCF grant encumbrance on it, actually three of them. Um, we had to verify with LWCF to make sure that we could even grant the city an easement because they don't want to. You can't take property that's encumbered with LWCF and then provide an easement that's nonrecreation rel related. But because this pipe was in existence prior to that first easement and because it's all subsurface and will have no impact to the recreational aspect of the park, um, National Park Service said that this should be a process that we we can do. So that's we're I'm actively working with the city with city staff on getting an easement language crafted. Great. Yeah. So we got National Park Service. All of them. All of them also. That's what we get. We get to work with all those agencies. ODFW, US Fish and Wildlife Service, City of Ben. Yeah. DEQ. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Any more questions? No, I think we're all right. So, we'll move on to uh public testimony and we'll start off with uh those who are in favor. So, we've got Dan Pitmer. Pil. Yes. Where? Yeah, you can come up there. I

will ruin everyone's name, by the way. help you at all. Um, that's a vendal looking thing. Can you hear me? Yeah. So, okay, perfect. Uh, thanks for taking the time and listening to all the testimony today. I'm Dan Pilver. I am one of the neighbors of Columbia Park and have been there for for quite a while now. And, um, as Ian had already mentioned, we have heard thousands and thousands of comments over the last years um about Columbia Park and the river access. And the most recent survey from Parks and Wreck um showed 75% of the public neighbor community uh were in favor of restoring river access there. Uh the river access also aligns with the city of Ben's planning direction and vision of creating more walkable neighborhoods that rely less on driving. So, if we have river access um for the neighbors, uh then we will not we will be able to walk our watercraft uh down to the park rather than having to drive to McKay or Miller's Landing and then forcing us out of our own neighborhoods and into others neighbors and communities and uh increasing those traffic issues. Um, I know some of the concerns brought up are about noise. Um, or one of the concerns, uh, about 250,000 people float the river each summer. Um, and so without removing those 200,000 people, um, I think that noise is is going to be a tough cell um, to to to fix that issue. Another thing I've been brought up with was bridge jumping. I think the only way to get rid of bridge jumping is to get rid of bridges and that's it for people. So, either you can put up uh giant barbed wire fence and walls to try to keep people out of the park. Um you get rid of the bridges, but uh otherwise, and as it's been brought up already, the bridge jumping has not deterred anybody at all. Um and instead, people are climbing

through the repairarian area, destroying it, climbing over fences, trespassing. So, I think the longer we wait, uh, the worse the situation will be as far as destroying the repairarian area and possibly neighbors property as well. Um, so I think creating the a safe river access along with restoring the repairarian habitat is the best thing we can do for conservation and for our neighborhood. So, uh, please follow the the wishes of 75% of people who gave input last time in, uh, bringing back the safe river access in Columbia Park. Thank you, Dan. Oh, and I forgot to mention we do have a handy little timer. You're good. Three minutes. Um, just helps people not kind of ramble on. Um, all right. So, we're going to continue. that we got a few last minute people wanting to speak in favor. So, we'll go with uh Lauren Mor. Is it Morc or Mark? Mor. Mor. Nice. That was the name of my first cat. Non. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um, I own a house in the um Columbia Park neighborhood. Um, the Columbia River access is really important for the local community. It's really important for connecting our community and the people who visit Columbia Park to the river. I'm an ecologist. I work with Upper Dashes Watershed Council. Um, I get a little bit emotional about these things. Um, I spent my childhood in a creek and because I was able to spend that time getting to know that ecosystem and

developing that sense of place and um, creating a connection to it. I chose to do work that protects our ecosystem. Um, I think it's really important for all of our human communities to have connections to wild places. And I think that preserving and reopening access at Columbia Park provides that opportunity for um visitors and locals alike to put their feet in the water and explore the riverbank and explore the riparian vegetation where it's not fenced off from an access that is um that allows the protection of that riparian vegetation. Um I h I regularly run along the trail that accesses the Columbia River foot bridge and I have seen um in the current condition where it's completely fenced off a kid fishing on the other side of the fence um on a on a winter evening and a couple who were walking by. we all saw a muskrat at the same time and stopped and just had this moment of connecting over um that wildlife but also over being part of that ecosystem and being part of that place. And so um I would reiterate Dan's comments that 75% of commenters previously have supported this river access. Um, I completely agree with the statements about um, fencing not being um, effective in eliminating river jumping. I go across that bridge almost every day. There are probably 20

kids there almost every day. I think the best thing we can do is make the egress safer um, as Mason discussed. And um I think that this is a really important opportunity to provide to again locals and tourists alike to access the river. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. And now we'll go with uh Oola Lung Lungren. Yes. So, I um own a home and live in it just a block from the Columbia Park and and River access. Um and I've been really missing having that access for the past few years. Um, I think it's safer to have more river access and to to not have people enter in Miller's Landing or McKay Park and then not have anywhere else before you get to Drake Park. There's a lot that happens to people's inner tubes or, you know, floating mattresses and and so it's good to have another way of getting out of there. um besides going through people's backyards and I went on the uh public comment page today for the city and I noticed that I think all the against emails and letters are coming from um people who own riverfront homes on riverfront street and I mean they're my neighbors so I really want to have good relationships with those people if you're here. Um,

you know, I I I honor you guys. Um, but I don't have a riverfront property, so it means a lot to me to have access like um sorry, hello. Hello. Um, so, so like I understand that it probably seems a little bit in excess to have that extra one when there's Miller's Landing and McKay, but I don't have one in my backyard. And that particular one, the Colombia Park one, is 3 minutes from my front door. So, like I can carry my paddle board there. my husband can take out there with his whitewater kayak and carry it home. Um without like you know his arms almost falling off. Um so it means a lot. Um and and you know like I really stand behind Dan's comments and Lauren's comments. We love this area. This is you know is our neighborhood and and we don't want to lose river access. So please keep it. Thank you. Is there anyone online? How many hands raised right now? Okay. So, now we'll go with uh Lev Strik. Yeah, Lev. Um, hi y'all. live. I bought a house in 2001 on Baltimore, which is the road that teases into Columbia Park there and raised a family and I would enjoy walk I enjoy walking down and jumping in the river after work or grabbing the paddle boards and walking down. So definitely that was very eloquent the way you put it and I really want to echo what she said is all our community comes and uses it as that local access. oftentimes I don't have time to load up in a car and go get somewhere else and I want to be

able to just run down to the my local park. My family grew up there. We watched that bank degrade. Um so sure sounds like this new project is going to be a little sturdier than that one than just boulders thrown in the river. So I'm very happy about that. Um yeah, so full support. Um thanks for supporting like community access. Thank you. Okay. And then one I don't know if you're in favor, neutral, opposed. Oh, also we do have a sign code um agenda after this. So if you happen to be doing sign code, just you don't have to come up talk about that right now. Uh but Michael Rosac [Music] Oh, I don't have anything to say. I handed that in just in case some questions came up. Oh, awesome. All right. Uh, now we'll go with uh Janice Janice. Schmidt. Schmidt. It's Janice. Janice, are you on to? Yes. Okay. No. Hey, don't let your wife go first. Get over it. My name is Janice. longtime resident, lived on Riverfront Street. Um, we are on the water. This particular project will directly impact us because it's literally right across the river from us. We've struggled for years with the people that before the fence went up with people that take the challenge to swim across the river, not realizing how swift that water moves and how deep it is. They take the challenge to swim across the river. They end up on our dock and then they ask permission to please exit through our yard, which that's our front yard. Sorry, we face

the river. That's our front yard. And um exit there because they can't swim back across because the river moves too quickly. So for the people saying that they take their kids down there to learn to swim, I don't see how they could do that. That water moves too fast. is too quick. This intrusion into the river, I'm concerned about the erosion on our side of the stream. And we currently have to tolerate the drunk, alcoholic, high individuals at all hours of the day and night. We call the non-emergency line. Um, and by the time they get there, there's nobody there. If we reopen this fencing and reopen this access, the hanging out area that you excuse me, have identified with this new river access. It's going to get worse at night. We already don't have the peace and quiet and tranquility that we should have with our property. And it's going to get worse. And the river jumpers, we can all say that, oh, we don't need to do it concurrently, but there's already been a number of injuries. There's always already been a broken neck. I was there when the person jumped in and had the heart attack. I was there when the person jumped in and ripped open the back of her butt cheek and nearly bled out. So, I'm an ER nurse for 44 years. And watching these things occur, it scares me. And the fact that they currently climb the wall, go back up and do the loop and come back down. If you open up the access, they're not going to coast downstream in the cold water and go up the steps. They're going to get off the bank, go through the riperian area that you're replanting, go back and do their loop and go back up or just go over the fence. So, I don't see the barriers

to ruining the Riperian area. And for me, I understand that people want access to the river, but we live it every day and we have to tolerate it. And for you to ask us to take on more of this, it seems to me that it's not fair. When the fences went up, things got better. And I'm hoping that we can reconsider. Um, I am not for this project because of many reasons. My time is up. Thank you. All right. Next up is Ron Thomasson. Well, thank you for having me tonight. Um, I didn't realize I only had three minutes, so um going to rely on my comments that I submitted to come up with the specificity that you desire. Uh, but I I do want to comment on uh one thing particular in particular. I've been a water resources engineer for over 30 years and I know the WS uh is intended to prevent erosion throughout the riparian corridor. We've heard about how they're going to prevent erosion on the the west bank but not on our side of the river. We're already experiencing erosion. Going to put in a coffer dam during construction that's going to push the river over and erode us in the short term. when you start to armor the channel or put anything in the channel, it's going to push the river to our side and it's going to erode our property, degrading our property value because we have less property. Um, so that's one thing I'm very concerned about and I hope if you approve this that you put some conditioning in there that protects our property.

Um, secondly, my wife spoke eloquently about the noise issue, and I know the comment here is that it's bad. So, what's a little a little more? Um, I I take offense to that actually. Um, what we're going to do by putting this access in is we're going to we're going to make a neighborhood park a community park, and all of those problems that go with that community park are going to move down to McKay. So, we're going to have a whole bunch of parters hanging out by the river. So, right now, the floaters come by and all this offensive language that they're screaming at us and the blaring music, it's gone in a couple minutes. You're going to put in something that that is going to attract them to this area and that noise is going to be constant and the profanity is going to be constant. I'd like you guys to each of you think about if that were across the street from where you were when you make this decision. And this the other thing that really bothers me is this. We are woken up almost every night at two o'clock because there are kids partying down there in the park and they're gonna move down to the river because they already climb over the fence at night, go skinny dipping in there, yelling and screaming, drinking beer, and by opening up the access, it's just going to get that much worse at 2 a.m. And if anybody would like to uh get a call from me at 2 am to go down there and chase these kids away because I'm awfully tired of yelling at them. So if we can do something about that, put your access in, do some night patrols or something. But this has been very frustrating for us. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we have uh uh David Marky. Marky. Mark. All right, I'm a New Englander. We usually talk fast and try to say a lot. I'm going to have to wheel it back a little bit. Um I sent through my comments and y'all have had a chance to read them. Um but I just want to kind of encapsulate a little bit of my opposition. I think that we're here to talk about laws and we're not here to talk about votes and what percentage of votes were. So recognizing and respecting the unusual natural broody I I don't think so that the people in that built building are going to be negative conserving and restoring habitat. Not really. It's not going to do anything to help um improving conditions. I I really I appreciate the fact that parks and wreck is here and that you all are here. I really appreciate the city and um other agencies working to put together solutions that work for people and respect people's you know you know properties and and German of life. Um I'm not sure that everything is compatible with laws um in in what's going on here um preservation and res restoration of native riparian vegetation. I vote let's just replant that vegetation and and move on. I think that that would that would be a very reasonable thing to do. Um and talks there was one about um reasonable public access. This is not reasonable public access. This thing is in our backyard. And I don't think that there's anybody in this room that would want to have something this loud in their backyard that perhaps the noise is going to go on until 2:00 in the morning. So, I I ask that you consider

that in in making your decision. And of course, the property values thing is is a major thing. Jodell Borne is a realtor that lives near me and she sent through some comments and it's I think undeniable that if it impacts the quality of our life and then 5 years from now I have someone looking at my house and they're in my backyard and there's this new obtrusion in the river so it's not natural. There's all these people hanging out. That's that there's no way that's going to make my house work more. So, I just ask you also to please consider that. Um, and so I'll go to my closing stuff. You know, I think for all intents and purposes, know the pro playground area of the park is now going to be our backyard. Um, I'm sure that no one would want to have that in their backyard. I think Miller's Landing is an easy walk across the bridge. So, with all due respect to the people that live in that neighborhood, it's it's a three and a half minute walk to Miller's Landing. Um, I saw that the Oregon State Marine Board said you shouldn't do this because the the stairway is too narrow. They would recommend going other places than Columbia Park. They said that that was ignored. Um, city of Lake Asiggo blew out some um some pickle ball courts and I'm sure that was not a a happy thing. I'm sorry. Was not a happy thing because you can finish this up. Pickle ball's so big. I can't imagine the feedback they got on that. They said no to that. So, I just ask that you respectfully think about this intrusion into our neighborhood. And it's not just us being greedy people that want to only be be the only people on the river. That's not it. I love the floaters and I say hi to all of them when they go by. And I wish I'd toss them all beer. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry that I

uh anyone else online? No hands. No hands raised. All right, so this might be the last Kevin Porterfield. I guess um I live on the river. I live directly across from the old access point and uh I've been a Ben resident since 1992. I haven't lived on the river uh since 2017 and uh I care very very deeply about this. Um we love the river. I pick up trash. Spend my weekends pretty much sitting in my backyard with my paddle board picking up every beer can sandal, everything. Um I've had plenty of people swim to cross before. Um try to come through our yards. I come home at lunch. There's people sitting on my dock in the old days. Um they're just drinking beers out there and you're like, "Hey, we live here." You know? Um, and so there's a lot of this access that um, opening up. It opens with a lot of canned worms. Um, like these guys were saying, the kids are partying. Um, it's if the access was only open during the daytime hours, it would be great. But unfortunately, if you go up on the rock there and you can pull every police report and uh, the kids party up on that rock and the park non-stop all summer long. They move their way down and uh, to the river. Um, the old access point. You know, the freedom ride used to end there. There would be 3,000 kids hanging out there on the river partying since we put the fence up. They don't come down there anymore. The freedom ride, I mean, I know they've cut it down a whole bunch, but uh it it stopped the kids from coming down there and partying, overflowing the bridge where the cops would stand there and try to like so people could still get through it. Um there's just been this having the fence up has been amazing to see. Like at first, you know, I was like, ah, you know, it sucks to lose it for the park, but uh um but having this access point just it stopped a lot of the chaos, especially late night. Um it stopped the

old guys that showed up at 6:00 in the morning to throw the ball for their dog that you wake up to as they're barking non-stop. Um late nights, you can see it just on the south side of the bridge that has been eroded because of people just throwing the ball for the dogs. They can't cross it, but their dogs can. Um, the other point I always have with it is there's no other park that um that's a playground park that has water access so close to it. And the way that park is designed, the parents are at the top. There's a staircase over here. Um, just Thursday, I saw a mom running after her kid, little teeny kid, and they were running full speed, screaming for their kid with another one behind them. If that was open, that kid would have made it to the water. And you see that every week of parents chasing their kids. They're probably on vacation. They're not familiar with the setup. Um, and so when the kids go on the slide, sometimes they just take off. They go right around the fence and they just truck it all the way down. Um, I've seen little kids make it up to onto the bridge with parents running after them screaming cuz they've got multiple kids. And uh, the kids are like at the railing putting their heads through it like and I mean I'm afraid that somebody's going to die like there some little kid. I mean, there's no other park where we let them. The other parks um up by Bill Healey, they're not accessed from the playground to the water that close. Um and as a parent, I I really feel that, you know, it it hurts us like when we see it, we're like, "Oh my god." Okay, get the boards ready. Are we going to have to rescue somebody? Cuz we've rescued people jumping off the bridge that have went under, surfaced down river. Um we've rescued dogs. So, we've rescued a lot of people in the river. and uh our our side of the river we that's we kind of take it on as our responsibility. So yeah, just um consider it being closed. Yeah, it's like for just the safety and the kids can look at the animals through the fence and it's Yeah. So yeah, thank you

guys. We have one hand raised on Oh, okay. Who's their name? Ron Jones. Ron Jones. Yeah. Uh can you hear me? Uh, hold on just a second. Try it again. Try it again. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. Um, my name is Ron Jones. I don't live on riverfront, but I live on the other side of the river and I am the property that literally is against the, uh, bridge. Uh, probably about 15 feet from the rock that was just referenced. Uh, and I really only have two comments, uh, in consideration of what you guys are going to all do. Uh, I guess from my lens, uh, before the fence went up, there were quite a few of those kids every day of every week, all day, all night, two in the morning, four in the morning, doesn't matter what time it is, on that rock partying. And then also on that bridge like everybody said uh and u since the fence was gone up it's kind of a double-edged sword for us anyway in that uh they're not on the rock anymore. That's a good thing. I really don't have many of those kids on the rock too much. There's some of them uh but they're generally there during the day. They're not generally there in the middle of the night like they used to be uh because the fence has gone up. So they find other places to be to get in the river. The other side of that that sword is is that uh they jump off that bridge. There was comet of 20 there today. There were probably 40 or 50 there today. I'm I'm literally 10 feet from it. Um that's every day of every week, folks. U not when it's 70 degrees, but when it's 80 or 90 degrees. Absolutely. And that'll be uh the case again. Uh, I guess my general concern is is that after they

have fenced what up, they now exit, you know, literally upstream from the river on my side. And it is what it is. Uh, but and as many have said, they're going to continue to find those ways to exit and perhaps they'd float down. I don't actually agree with that. I actually think that they will they will recreate the path that is there now which is upstream from the river unless you find a way to create a barrier in that uh in exiting the river. So that's the only comment on that side of it. Uh you know I think in general that you have the order wrong. You know, I get the whole point of uh the bridges the city and the parks and recreation owns the park, but uh the order is wrong. Uh I think you all know that, but you're going forward anyway with this. And you have got to do something about that bridge before you do something about that park if you're going to do this anyway. I'm not sure I'm in favor of it or against it. probably more against it, but at the end of the day, what I'm absolutely having for is you have to get the order right and you currently have it wrong. Thank you. Thank you, so now we'll move on to the applicants uh rebuttal. Seems like there's pretty consistent theme partying people want to do at the park and then there was the I didn't the copper dam impact I wanted to go noticed um I'll just just one thing I'll address

first and then I'll let Mason address the the rerouting of the river the copper dam um regarding um OSMBB's comments. Um so OSNB was providing comments based on um watercraft launching specifically. What does OSMBB stand? Oh, sorry. Oregon State Marine Board. Yeah. Uh so they they we got two different grants from them for this project, both during design and for construction. So, the comments that they've submitted um and that have been referenced tonight and in the record, those are all based on from their standpoint as a boating facility organization, not river access in general. I just want to make that clarification. Um whether it matters or not, I don't know, but that's their comments were in reference to watercraft launching specifically. And that's when we were looking at McKay, Millers, and Colombia in terms of watercraft launching. And that's why you see the designs at Miller's Landing access point are focused primarily on watercraft launching. The designs at Colombia are not focused and do not prioritize watercraft launching. Now, folks will still use it for that, but that's not the focus of the design. So, the smaller much smaller. Yeah. Um yeah, I can speak as the um licensed professional engineer for this and as you know there's a number of analyses that were required due to um per regulation as well as analyses we do you know as the professional engineer designing something and um uh we want to you know want to take the concerns on uh you know erosion we take that very seriously and that's something that

looks it gets looked at very closely mostly through design. And so as part of the design of the project, we um do hydraulic modeling um and it's you know focused on the flood plane um and regulatory flood flows, but we also model the full range of design flows. Um and then there's a number of ways. So erosion is generally from river erosion is caused by you know swift moving water and um depth and so looking at shear stress along the bank and so you can look at and then it depends on that's the power of that's the erosive force of the water and then depends what material is against there and the sheer stress is um a lot so they're they're um relatively low in this stretch compared to um a lot of rivers just with the impoundment from uh Mir Pond and um and so looking at it at the range of design flows pre and post conditions the shear stresses uh do not change and they're still low. So the um basically there won't be any change um along the river right um due to the due to the project um and the the coffer dams. So the projects um and all these along the river here is in the winter are lower that we do it reconstruction during the low river flows. I was going to ask. Yeah. Yeah. Um and so you know that's um and um like at Miller's Landing those when we were building that if the like summer water flows would have over top the coffer dam. Um so it's really um you know because the river will be more constrained when that coffer dam is in place. Um but still um even with the coffer dam in place during the winter flows the river is lower and uh not

moving as swiftly as during summer flows and construction is estimated to start when for if this goes through. Um yeah yeah if if every if everything lines up from permitting standpoint our goal is to start construction this fall the winter condition without 50,000 people slowly. Yeah. And that and how long would it take? Uh we would be we would be if we start if we start this fall it would be open for next summer just like mil it's the sign it would be the same timeline as Miller's Landing. So the construction duration should be a bit shorter since it is a lot faster though you know um there you know always ends up being construction delay. Comment on the fencing. So when that went in and how long it's been around the temporary fencing that so that went in in the summer of 2020. Yeah. So for five years it's temporary keep people off that degrading banks. Correct. And that's what some are commenting that the kids especially can't get down that bank now or swim back up the bank or get back up the bank. So that's been a deterrent if I got this right somewhat. But I I I believe some people have found ways to come up from the river and get over that fencing. So with or without the fencing, all these people are going down through a messed up embankment that's degrading. And then can you comment also on the degradation? Is it going towards the walk? Isn't it start here's how they climb up? Yeah. Um, pardon the the uh one of my concerns would be the you know the degradation of the bank going closer to the walk and then the walk is not usable. But also anybody in there where it's you know rip

raft that's broken and stuff is draining down and vegetation sticking up. It doesn't sound like a good situation whether you're in or out of the fence. So can you comment a little bit more on the condition? The the current condition. Yeah. it it um like Mason alluded to, it continues to erode even with that fence and and that's primarily from river use users coming from the riverside, not from the the trail side. Yeah. Yeah. And there was like a rock, you know, you can see like downstream there's the the stone masonry wall and there's kind of some segments that are still there. And so there's a number of spots where it's, you know, there's a chunk leaning over and there's so and there's, you know, there's a um, you know, there's a fence closer to the bridge that's now um there's a lot of different old segments of fences, but it's flowing into the river. So there's um you know that's a big part of the the restoration port portion of the um project would be just taking out all that old junk and you know safety hazards and regrading all that um to a stable slope that can um be stable long term and it do you know through the design we've looked at we looked at a number of alternatives and the the final design that BPD is moving forward with really has the smallest access, you know, it's even gotten paired down from the um conceptual designs um that were shown. So, it's it's it's going to be quite small. And part of that point is to keep it just to allow that access to the river, but then the rest is all fenced off. Be more, if I get this right, correct if I'm wrong, be more of a local access for some of these folks that use it or emergency access if somebody had to get off the board and get up on the land. I mean whether whether it's it's local folks or visitors. I mean everyone's going to be allowed to use it. It's a public park. Yeah. But in terms of size and scale open. Let's all start there and come back out or come back out there. If I I'm looking at the width like you showed

it and it's not big. Is that correct? It's that's correct. Yeah. Um it's it's half the size of what access point 2 is at Miller's Landing. And then how would the landscaping be protected after you guys put all this great stuff in it? And because I've seen other landscapes go in and then they get degraded by all these crazy people going up and down and jumping in the river. Yeah. How did how did you do it in other areas? You just keep the bigger temporary fence up till they rotated or Yeah. So it's it's multiaceted. So um what we're doing at Miller going to be doing at Miller's Landing like we did at at Riverbin South is on the the upstream side is the the cedar split rail fencing with welded wire mesh. um left up 9 to 12 in on the bottom to allow wildlife to cross underneath which we've seen that to be successful um from the river side. uh what we're going to be doing at Miller's Landing and what we're prop going to be proposing to do here would be temporary fencing on the river side to allow vegetation to establish and grow in because what we've seen is unless we give that stuff an opportunity to to take hold um then yeah geese people will you know kind of hero it at that. Yeah, and I think there's been a lot of lessons learned doing these uh river projects. also the you know like getting that a temporary fence in along the river as we've noticed some of the beaver activity really they really enjoy the freshly planted planted saplings and uh um yeah and so um you know and I do you know based on our experience doing similar projects the the human access and erosion and foot traffic um allow having a small access point where people can actually get to the river makes the exclusion fencing much more effective. My last questions then were the safety and park hours. What are what are the

hours that you can't be in the park? Is it 10:00 or 9:00 or? So park hours I believe at Columbia it's 6:00 a.m. to 1000 p.m. I believe some other parks are dawn to dusk but most are 6 to 10 I believe. Yeah. Uh there seems to as we all know not just we learned tonight it's a bigger global safety issue going on there enforcement etc etc so y okay thank you all right anything else or should I close the public hearing let's go all right Marggo anything no I don't have anything okay so thank you very much we're going to close the public hearing and then if staff has anything they wanted to add before we start deliberation. I will just um commissioners um you've heard some public comment and read some I just as you begin your del deliberations to please um keep in mind the approval criteria for waterway overlay zone applications and what's within the planning commission's perview for this type of application and please feel free to ask Ian or myself if you have any questions about that. Okay. Thanks. All right. So, we'll move on to deliberation. So, maybe we'll start with uh Margot and then go on down the line again. And um I think I mean I'm I'm in favor for this. I think it's better to channel foot traffic to a builtout area for the ripar to avoid damage to the riparian corridor. I think people are going to be there whether or not um it's there and so I would rather see them use a built surface to go in and I think it'll just improve the overall area but I don't have much to say. Okay.

I think uh for me number one it's a city and park maintenance issue. It's not going to go away. It's going to get worse. It's deteriorate worse quickly. And uh like anywhere else in the city, whether it's river or roads or parks or hills or whatever that we're involved in, uh we got to do maintenance. I think it's a safety issue and we got to deal with it. And it's also an aesthetic issue. I mean, who wants to see broken up stuff down at the base of the river when we're enjoying our river and so many people come here for our river? So, I think it's a three-way improvement. I'm for it. I'm I'm for it. Uh, I'd like to encourage the city and BPRD to fasttrack um how the bridge can be addressed and also um the disturbances outside park hours. Yeah, I think Rene stole my thunder here. I was just going to say as far as the planning commission's role in this, it I think it meets the criteria. I think it'll be a great place. Um, the issue that we keep hearing about is that when you make these great public places, sometimes people use them till 2 in the morning and that's more of a municipal issue and you know, Ben, please should be going there more often. Well, I mean, we can't just shut down a river and have nobody enjoy it, right? Um, so I'm I'm I'm all for this. And I just want to say uh for the for the bridge, I do want to reiterate that I think that there should be I think that if you have a a bridge that's that's consistent all the way across, people are going to jump off whatever part of the bridge. Uh there is if there's an area where it might be easier to jump off that happens to be. So I I'm going to I'm going to challenge that because coming from San Francisco where for decades lots of different Golden Gate Bridge,

believe me, I'm I'm not a bridge engineer, but there are ways to not prevent everybody, but dramatically reduce that the hazard that just wide open presents. I'm asking the city to look into it. I mean, we're a city that I mean, we we bomb down black diamonds, mountain bike, rock climb, all these things. And then you tell someone, "Oh, don't jump off a a low bridge." It's I mean, you can ask all you want, but they're going to do it. Um, anyways, that's my take. Uh, I had one question for staff. Some of the comments made were that we were allowing something that we wouldn't allow anybody else to do in the walls and that that was um the criteria that we're required to use in terms of the um approvals. There aren't a separate set of approvals. So, we are making an exception because it's a public park with public access. Yeah, I can point you to page 17 of the staff report that um there are certain things that you may approve when they support public use. That's the exception that's in the code. Um, and it's why things like this enhanced river access are allowed on Columbia in Columbia Park versus, you know, someone cannot do a river access of this kind of magnitude on private property. Private property. Thank you. Thank you, Erin. I I did note that in your in the material you presented that this this is like it this is a public access to the river is the stated

goal. Um I I think aesthetically this is going to be a huge improvement to that to that that piece of the river. Um it'll be a nice improvement to the park. It'll be a lot safer. It looks like it'll be a lot better um native vegetation actually supporting the river and long term I would it it looks like it would be a an improvement to the erosion issues. Um when someone figures out how to get teenagers to stop partying, please let me know. You know um that you don't need to find more places. Yeah. is is it's true. They're they're they're just going to move from one spot to another. Yeah, I'm sure a place like this when I was a kid. I'm not going to tell you where I used where where I used to go. It wasn't this nice. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think this looks like a this looks like a nice improvement to the neighborhood overall and to the city and more act more local small access points will take a lot of the pressure off of um everybody to go up to the the the two big ones, especially since we're going to lose all the parking there, almost all the parking there. Um, just got one other quick quick thing. Yes. Uh, I would recommend that uh to support what B was saying about trying to get the two projects a little more synced up and I'm sure you work with the police department on things, but they do have folks that have been trained in that crime prevention environmental design and they may be helpful again once you get your fencing connected projects that may they they may give you a tip. I don't know if you already work with them, great. If you don't, I'd give them a call. And then the hours is Yeah. I I I it I mean because the kids are jumping off the bridge

and that's definitely I think a one that needs to be monitored pretty closely compared maybe to some of the other locations. But that that's not a planning commission right issue. So yeah, and I think for those of you who have um I mean there's a lot of you that talk about the partying and the up all night and that kind of stuff. City Council go to city council um planning commission this is you know it's a little different jurisdictional yeah so just just wanted to point out I mean I sympathize with the with the issue it's just not an issue that is under it's not our particular issue to deal with unreasonable river public hearing is closed all right um are we ready to do a vote Mhm. Yes. Anyone want to um I'll move to approve the waterway overlay zone application PLC20250148 [Music] for Columbia Park River access and restoration project based on findings and subject to the conditions recommended by staff. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. I. Uh all opposed. And Marggo, did you say I? I did. Thank you for asking. Passes. All right. Uh, now we're going to move on to uh agenda item three. Sign code PL text 2025 0226. Th code amendments are murals, perfect signs, electronic signs, wall signs, another minor code cleanup amendments. Um, does anyone want to take a just three minute, please?

All right. Yep. Thank you. Five minute recess. Yeah.

Margot, you there? I'm here. Awesome. Thanks. Okay, so sign code amendment. Um, this is Oh, this is a public hearing, right? Yes. Okay. So, wait. We don't have to do the No, this is a legislative public hearing. So, we'll bring it up and straight into the staff report. We scraed the item. Oh, yeah. I did right before. Okay. So, PL text 20250226 sign code amendment for murals, portable signs, electronic signs, wall sign height, and other minor code cleanup amendments. Do we have anything else we need to read? No. So, all right. Good evening, commissioners. I'm Amy Barry. I'm the principal planner with the binding planning division. And with me is Loose. Kim's been kind of our go-to sign person for quite a number of years. um she helped draft the sign code the way it is today and has done a lot of a lot of work on it over the years, but we had council direct us to take a look at a couple of areas of the sign code this past winter. um primarily murals and label signs were the two things that they specifically wanted us to look at, but also to since we're opening up sign code to kind of look and see if there was some other cleanup that we could do. Um, so Kim put together most of the rest of the little bits and pieces that are in this based off of input that she has heard from the community and the sign companies and just um the types of things that we tend to get requests for adjustments over like wall sign height. So things that she's

been wanting to kind of make some changes to over the years. And so that's the package that we have before you. So, um, now this was kind of the timeline of of how we got here is back in February. We did a scoping with the council. Um, they asked us to to look into those portable signs and mural options. We did some research, worked on dropping the code. Um, sent that out to sign companies and the um, neighborhood district land use chairs. Didn't really get much feedback. Um, you had a couple of minor comments from sign companies. I think I Everything was a thumbs up from the sign companies. So, nothing formally written, so we couldn't include that here. Chair did not hear anything from them either. Um, the the public comments that we did get um were from a couple of parties, mostly related to the mural options that are getting proposed. Um those are in the record. Um so let's see where are we at? Um so kind of high level what what was brought up for the portable signs was to look at allowing portable signs and mostly these are the A-frame style signs that you see downtown for all businesses and to maybe have a one-time simple registration process for those something that we didn't have to renew every year. Um and similar to what's been allowed in the downtown, but allowed throughout um throughout the city for all commercial or basically non-residential businesses would be able to get these. Um so there was a few criteria and mostly we modeled this again after what we already had in place downtown. We would be requiring a 6ft spacing between the signs. They wouldn't be allowed to impede pedestrian routes. So

you could put it like in a landscape strip provided that um it's not blocking bicycle parking or other other um width, right? Um we didn't go with a with a width around that. We basically just said keep it out of that pedestrian pathway. So if you have a landscape strip that's wide enough to accommodate the sign like or if there's like downtown where we have street tree wells between the tree wells so you're out of the travel part portion of the sidewalk. And the reason we did that was it's really hard to um to navigate that. You know sidewalks are all different width all over town widths. You have different things in the sidewalk. Um, technically you really should have a six-foot path clear for passing, you know, people that are passing back and forth. Um, in fact, our standards and specs recently were amended to make the minimum width of a sidewalk 6 feet. So to have them in that pedestrian width, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense. And and then the areas where we have wider sidewalks, we have wider sidewalks for a reason. And that reason being people people using them. So we we kept that to the the between the street tree wells or in that landscape strip. Um they can't be in in medians. They can't be in roundabouts. Um they're only allowed to be displayed during business hours. So this is something that has to be portable. Has to be put out in the morning, brought in close of business, not left out overnight. Um they can't be attached to other objects. They can't be in the rightway other than in that planter strip area. They also can't be in like clear vision areas or like I said around bike racks, um, ADA ramps, nothing like that. Um, so that was where we landed for portable signs.

And then um, my my sharing screen, you guys don't see I've got it stuff that's making it hard to read my own slides. Um, so for the murals, what we were looking at was ways to allow, currently the code requires that a mural be painted directly on the wall surface. So the request from the community or some members of the community was that we allow a mural to be painted on something else that could then be mounted on the building. Uh so that's what we were looking at and where we landed was to allow up to u 3 in thickness. Um and then that would be able to be attached to the building. Now it still would have to meet structural codes. So to the extent that there are any you know the material there might be restrictions on material depending on how close that is to a property line um based on fire codes and things like that and just how the sign is attached. That's all building code. So, we're just looking at would we allow them in the same places that we would otherwise allow a mural and buildings would take the anchoring and all that kind of stuff into consideration. Yes. Yes. They would still have to get a permit to physically attach it. Um, and the permit for the mural itself. Um, the other thing that council had asked us to look at was um to explore some kind of a like a graffiti wall or something like that. and we couldn't really land on something that we thought would work to just be, you know, free-for-all type graffiti wall. But what we did do was build in the ability for a property owner. Um, currently you have to leave a mural for at least 12 months before it can be changed out. So, at the time that a mural is being applied for, the property owner and the artists could agree to allow it to be changed out more frequently. So that way, you know, if a property owner does want to open up

their wall to be changed more often, you know, maybe they want to invite different groups to do fun murals or something, it would allow a path to be able to do that and be able to change those out on a more regular basis. Uh, I think that was pretty much all the optals for the murals. Um, some other things that we looked at doing were allowing electronic components for drive-through menu boards and for portions of freestanding signs. And this is just to try to kind of modernize. This has become more and more common with LED type screens and the ability to change things out that way. you know, our our freestanding signs allow the physical changing of of the content like the little, you know, you see on a McDonald's or something like that, but that that becomes really cumbersome and and difficult for businesses to do that. And when we've got technology that allows them to do that electronically remotely, you know, it seems like a good idea at this point in time to allow businesses to do that, but we still wanted to restrict that to some we don't want like full signs to be electronic. So, um, where do we land on that? 25% or 30% 25% of, so whatever their allowable freestanding sign faces, they could have up to 25% of that. U, this would also allow like gas stations still currently around town still have to use the manual numbers, numbers, and this would allow them to have that portion of their signage to be electronic. And then we have for a number of years allowed um some of the menu board um and drive or drive-through signage to be electronic and um the community development director had put together kind of a an SOP on, you know, what we would allow for those scenarios and we basically took that and cod put that into the code to codify that. And then in our illumination

section, it has restrictions on how that illuminate that type of illumination can be used. So we would only allow people to change them out, I think it was three times a day and otherwise it has to be static. Um, so some of those those type of restrictions. So it's not going to look like Las Vegas. Trying to just allow the convenience of that um without the look of it. And then I think we even had some uh brightness. There was some language in there about brightness. Right. You got that? We have it in two sections. Yeah. Um and then wall signs. We um also looked at our wall sign criteria. For a number of years, we've been getting more and more requests for adjustments to standards for the height that the wall signs can be put on buildings. And thank you. What was the issue? The Kim committee is a little bit better. So we had um we have a height limit for wall signage. It's required to be on the first story of a building. As Bend is developing, we're getting taller buildings and the desire to move those signs higher on the building has presented itself and we have an adjustment to standards process to apply to increase that height by 25%. That puts your sign at a height limit of 30 feet and we had seen several applications come through and it makes sense. we approve them. So if you have that many applications that keep coming in and you're approving them, it makes sense to to, you know, modify the codes so that that becomes a standard. Thanks. So that's where we came up with the 30 foot, we went from 24 feet to 30 feet. And then for buildings that are

taller than 30 feet in height or three more than three stories, three, I guess. Yes. um they would be able to go up to a maximum height of 38 feet. So kind of taking that same example right there. That one is actually would have been the adjustment that get got them to 30 ft. Gotcha. So if they were a bigger showroom or something then it works that way. Cool. Yeah. So theoretically a taller build another story on that would maybe let that go up another 8 ftish. Yeah. Yeah. for a second. Um, let's see. Which I'm sorry, I'm looking for I was looking I actually wanted to read how how you defined the wall signs and I'm looking for the sorry I'm looking I'm looking for that in the proposed text. Oh, here I think it's on page 10 the draft code amendments that talks about some standards about wall science. um page 10. Okay. Did you have any other questions on that? Oh, okay. So, I guess my my question is on like the Okay, go back one slide. The the the wall signs. Um like I mean just for example that the Kendall sign. I mean it looks like it belongs there on the building. So what how how are we calculating the where it goes on the building like how how big it is placement placement it's based on um the code has basically kind of a tiered process where we start off saying signage is required to be on your sign band and we define what a sign band is and that's on your first story of a multiplestory building would both of

those be considered sign bands Yes. So, if you have if your sign band um does not exist or it's has glass uh where it prevents you from putting that sign, you can move that sign up. The cap that there's a height limit of either if you have upper level um second story windows, the the opening of that second level window would be a cap. Okay. Not to exceed 24 ft. So in no case would a sign go above 24t above grade below the sign. Okay. But the new now it's going to be 30 38. Now it's going to go up from 24 feet up to 30 and then the 38 is 38 is for the taller threetory or higher buildings. Okay. And the reason it as Kim is explaining and then the Kendall example. So that sign is at 30 ft and that applicant made a request to staff to make an adjustment to standards. It's a type two administrative review process, public notice, um several weeks of staff review and um written decision to do that and we have so just regularly found them to be justified that it's worthwhile just putting in the code. Let's start at 30 ft now on standardiz buildings with an acknowledgement that there are some taller buildings. We still want to have some type of limit on the height of wall signs so they're not all just at the very top of fivetory buildings. Um so this is the kind of compromise towards moving towards higher wall signs and recognition of some taller buildings but still trying to keep them in, you know, at a pedestrian scale. Okay. Is there anything else that we had in

there that we've missed talking about? We had a few definition changes, too. Oh, it's funny. There's some other effects of that. Can you guess you're looking for that? Uh, calculating wall sign square footage. That's a good question. Just remind us. So, we did have some clarifications on that as well. Um especially for buildings that have like multiple are able to have multiple signs or like a multi-tenant building. Uh there's a table on the code that had a maximum total maximum square footage of 200 ft. And otherwise the sign area is based on it's one square foot one and a half square feet of sign area per lineal foot of buildage. Correct. Primary facade for the of the primary facade. So if you have a really really big building like one of the malls where we have multiple tenants and that facade would allow more than 200 square ft of sign area because there's so many tenants. It was still capping at 200 square ft. So what we changed in there was that we still have that calculation for that whole facade that stays the same the 1 and a half square feet per lineal foot. But the the the maximum is a per sign rather than per the whole facade. So it you know you have to divvy that up between all the signs. You know if if one building wants or one tenant gets a bigger sign it might reduce the amount based on the linear footage that the rest of the signs get. But if you have a great big tenant like a Costco, it allows for a little bit bigger sign and it's more proportional to the building then too because a 200 square foot sign sounds really big or especially if you have two of them, but if you have a really big

building, it can look really puny and tiny. So this we feel like this is going to accomplish what the intent was better than what we had. So pedal size probably 200 ft. We got two by 10 It could be, but it also got the other logo in the middle, too. Well, this is what why I was asking about the square footage of the sign. So, if those same letters were spaced out twice as far, then that sign would get twice as big, right? The way we measure sign area is using eight straight right angled lines around the outer perimeter of the sign. So, well, the last time we did a sign cut up, Dan, I remember it was uh I had a question because I think the old mill signs had just been monument signs had just been put up and it was like, well, what's the square footage of that sign? And it was determined that it was just it was the the text and then the image. Right. Freestanding signs are measured different from signage on the building. So a wall sign has that eight straight right angle lines around it allowing you to go up around a you know some sort of element of a sign or logo and carve it out or something like that. You Yes. bra and signs. What we're not including in the sign area are the 12-in tall sign base, um support columns or support posts. Those are not included. Caps if they're they're decorative and minor, but we are calculating the actual cabinets or panels for um a panel type sign or monument. So it's it with the freestanding sign we're also only

calculating one side if it's double-sided. So um of of all this stuff what what kept you up at night like what's the right thing to do or that you think might get pushed back from the community once this is approved? I of all of these Yeah. Oh. Um I mean the the biggest change is the portable signs, honestly. Um and it's just hard to tell what that's going to wind up looking like, but if you have a bigger complex with a lot of tenants, that frontage could wind up with a lot of portable sides potentially. Yeah. I was I was talking with uh Pauline the other day uh so I thought she was going to be here, but guess she didn't want to be here. Uh, and she used to work at a sisters and apparently that was a big problem cuz I had some questions and I just she was there so I asked her about it and um and one of them was the must remain portable and not attached to anything and I thought well you might want to make sure it's attached to something so that someone doesn't steal it. But the problem was that that they experienced the sisters was that they would just leave the signs out and then the city couldn't or if it was non-compliant the city couldn't do anything about it. They'd have to go out there with bolt guys or something. So, I thought that was kind of interesting. And then the balloons, I don't know why balloons are fun, but they are, but but yeah, I could see. And then they blow and they boulder walking in the sidewalk and they only look good for a few hours and then they look and then and she said people are going to do it anyway. I heard that before. Just curious on the portable sign. So, it says they can't be attached to anything. Uh, get people, how do they block them from

the wind? Like, have to wait them weight them sandbags or or go to get the little CMU block or something like that. That's a got a nice hole in it. Okay. Wrap your chain around that and attach it to your sign. All right. Sounds good. Fascinating. So, and I was gonna bring up one thing about I guess I guess yeah, we're in this. Um, I talked with Gina about the and I think it was in response to the Worthy sign that this mural code might be updated. We were looking at different sign codes and one of the things I was looking at Portland's and one thing that they had in theirs that I really liked was that it had to be an original artwork and I don't think that was in here. We didn't say it had to be original, but we did say it have has to be hand painted. Hand painted. You can't like go to a print shop and have some Yeah. Especially with the sheets that are allowed to be put on, right? And I think that's a better way to get at the issue than something that could be construed as going towards content. Uhhuh. So application method. Okay. And it's a constitutionally safe. Yeah. I like the fact that it I mean if you have a building and if it requires scaffolding in a very tricky area to get up there to paint it then kind of you're restricted but if someone could do it in a shop or something studio somewhere and panelize it and put it up I think that would be I think that's a great great ad um that you like the hand the hand painted I I like the fact that now murals can be done on something and then attach attach as opposed to I mean it's it looks better when it's on a building but I think it just opens up more the welcome sign it's awesome and uh you

know or the and as long as it's done by the building department as far as bolting on it and anchoring but it's it's awesome I mean tin pan alley it's you talking about the one down the old mill district yeah I'm sorry yeah painting on a brick building would be really hard to make it look good There is an exception in that um murals code update where allowing a mural to be painted over continuously is not allowed on historic buildings. So, I think that's that's important because as you paint brick, you get water moisture behind that. It starts to kind of make its way down and pop those the face off of the bricks and and cause damage. And it's not one that we want to recommend allowing. They still can get a permit to paint a historic building, but they're getting a permit from the building from planning department as well as a historic sign permit for. So, there's two different codes that are being looked at, but at least there's a little bit more oversight to to look at these historic buildings. Do we have more uh to present or are we open for general? I've got a couple general sign questions. I think why is this in I think that was it. I just had the criteria up there. This is legislative. So um basically consistency with state land use law bend comprehensive policies uh goals and policies and the public need demonstrating a public need or benefit. um not necessarily a public need, but definitely a public benefit, especially since this was um at least part portions of it were requested by the community to council. Um so that

yeah, no, that's all we have. Uh horizontal blade signs, which many many cities have gotten rid of and now they're coming back because you got to live in a street up and drivers got to see what's coming up or walk. So instead of a flat sign like you saw the sign on the left where it's flat on the building and you can't see it as you're driving or you can't see it as you're walking and the street doesn't look lively. Yeah. A horizontal or blade sign that typically in main street angled. Okay. Yeah. As long as it's controlled. I mean I'm from hangs and stuff in a photo sticking sticking over the cars and stuff. So we h we have that under control as square footage. Yep. And then I think a three-foot max there. Um, it's not in there. I'm sorry. So, we allow them. Yes. But just to clarify, we allow them all over any commercial district. Is that correct? So, we're we're encouraging a lot of commercial inside our neighborhood developments, but if they want to put a little Blade Sign coffee shop on there or something, they can do that. Yes. The next thing is good old Neon. Neon was a no no. Now, it's come back when it's creative and artistic. Do we allow Neon? Yes, we do. The exception is in um side district four and five which four would be Galveastston Newport um and then residential areas. We do not allow illuminated signs which includes neon in sign district 4 or five. Okay. So illuminated in any way, shape or form. Either neon or back lit or uplit or Okay, that's correct. That's a good idea. Next one is icon signs. So if the dentist wanted a toothbrush or coffee shop wanted a cup with steam coming out be a lot icon size. Yes we do see we are cutting edge. Uh next question is the sightelines on the monument sides. So uh every city I've been into is one is crept out to the rightway and there's a car behind it trying to pull out and it's a bad

situation but you got to give visibility to that sign. So do we set set back from the building? Are we set back from the road or the rightway or how do we property line property line property line so property line is our measurement except for our driveways. Um so you'll go down the pavement of a driveway but you're basically creating either a 10 or 15 foot setback triangular setback area based off property line and that so the cars can come out of the parking lot and have 10 or 15 feet to see down the street. Okay. And that's our clear vision triangle. And that actually applies whatever the structure is. It can sign and it even applies to landscaping. Yeah. Right. So every everything and multi-tenants now I've been involved where you know a race sign and elevated sign with multi-tenants on there and you start to get a headache when you're driving because you're seeing all the logos and colors versus Walmart I mean not Walmart Home Depot just the name of the build building uh pet. Do we allow all the logos and colors? We do. Unfortunately, we can't regulate content. So, well, no, they have the name Lowe's or whatever or Bob's Profit Shop. They couldn't put all the crazy logos and stuff on there, but we don't do that. We do not um have anything in the code to to promote design of a sign. We give them outer perimeter and placement and hiding. Think about I'll try and dig it out of my files because it really is also good for traffic so they're not looking and confused. is where things are. And then the last thing is my favorite subject is billboards. We have 43 signs max if we ever considered getting rid of them. City attorney. Yes, we have. We have I don't know if we've considered getting rid of it might have been before my time. Not not recently

that I know of. legally, nationally, are we able to pull that off someday or uh what would the what would the hypothetical proposal be to ban all billboards throughout the city, especially when they impede traffic safety, etc., etc., etc. Uh it's complicated. Um people have billboards. We have um I'd say there are potentially property rights issues if we try to make things go away that already exist. So, I don't know when it was. It was before my time here, but I think the city did probably at the time what it could do and essentially saying there's sort of a one in one out one in and we're not going to have any proliferation. That's why we still have 43. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a much bigger and I'd say more fraught question to try to make existing ones go away. Where's Lady Bird Johnson when we need her? Yeah. I mean, come on. That's all for me. Thank I always crane shed the billboards. There you go. Middle of the night. Bob, do you have anything? No, I'm good. Thank you. Okay. I had a couple I had some nitpicky ones and some just questions. Uh so the where it says for multif family developments of 10 units or more. How was 10 decided on? That is in the existing code. um the concept being that you're not allowing all these monument signs for small developments. So 10 was landed on I think in the 90s. It depends on what we're Yeah. subdivision. You have to have subdivision or a multi multi-tenant was the question was that what page are we on? I just need to look at that. That was page 12. It's a primary freestanding. No move landing. I was more just curious because it

that's where the 10 units came from. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's just something that we we did not change that, but it's Yeah. I mean, I don't know if a monument sign's going to be for a six-unit apartment building or whatnot, but um it just seems a little high. I mean, it's one of those like regulations that it almost doesn't need to be there because it doesn't regulate anything. And then, but I could kind of see maybe if we have some of this more smaller infill development, if we can have a couple of forplexes or something like that that popped up somewhere, maybe they would want a little monument sign. Um, if a two forplexes came up with like a little courtyard, something, they wouldn't be able to have one. Would they still be able to have the residential statement? I think that's a good question. Um, I would say right now they could have a monument sign where they whether they would be permitted a second would be a question I would have to look at in the code like a little garden development or something. Yeah. You know, I think just I think it's kind of easy when you give a little apartment complex or a little business park a name because it's just so easy to refer to it. So, having a sign kind of just I kind of like it. Within the code, there is currently an exemption to allow a six square foot sign at the entrance um of this type of development. So they would be able to do a six square foot sign non- illuminated at their entrance. So I believe that would be the sign that they could have. But if they're at 10 units or more, then they can have the

larger sign which is 32 square 32 square feet and 5t in height. Okay. A sheet of plywood is 4 by 8. Okay. That would be a visual. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then a 12inch tall base underneath that would give you your five foot height. It's a pretty big sign. Yeah. For a little thing. Okay. So, so but that would be for more than 10 units or more. Correct. Right. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. I don't guess I don't really see a little more forlex having maybe that big of a sign. Not that big. They could have like a 2 by3. Yeah. Yeah. Just a little one like the address and name of the complex which I'm thinking. Okay. All right. As long as we're not removing that possibility. Um I was wondering about the minimum sign area. What's what's that about? If you have a very narrow, we're talking about building signage. So if you have a very very narrow storefront, it's only 10 ft wide in your downtown. You have a minimum signage that you can work with rather than that one and a half square feet per one. Oh, okay. So, gotcha. I Okay, you have a little Okay, I read that completely wrong. We used to have some kind of I was like, you have to have a sign that's at least 30 square feet, not just a postage thing. Um, okay, last nitpicky question. Um, it's for the multiple entities or tenants and the verbiage was changed from entities to tenants. I was just wondering about that. because this actually came up are you on just page nine I I was working on a project once did that just because that the the term that we typically use throughout whether it's development code

or building code I didn't know so it was wasn't anything specific it was just consistent language yeah yeah I didn't know if that was more restrictive or something if there was if it was the same let's say same owner but they had like a different thing that they were doing on there. So we're we're not regulating content. Okay. So I mean theoretically somebody across town could get a sign on somebody else's building if everybody agreed to it. It's going to use up their sign area but we can't regulate what the content of the sign is. Yep. So I think a common proviso for doing sort of a sniff test of a sign code is to say if you have to read the sign to know whether it's compliant under your sign code you probably have a problem with your shape size but criteria that go to the message the content the the way something is expressed really really tough really really tough constitutionally and that actually brings me I I'd be remiss this if my uh a coworker that sits right next to me has had a big thing. Uh she did the uh Trinity project and there was an issue because the cross was considered a sign. Correct. Um and I guess the question is when do architectural features become signs? When a tree falls in the forest. There's no architect there to hear it. I mean, good question. We do have it. I knows it better than I do, but we do have a definition of sign in the code. Um, it's fairly expansive, I think. Yes.

symbols, emblems, all those types of uh content related um issues are we try to get that out of the code and just really say if that's that looks like a cross but that one looks like a plus sign over here or it's a Nike swish but no that's a check mark we can't go there with the sign code so it's it's very um broad and based on on our constitution and what what um board has made decisions on. So would someone put a sign up that meets all the code and have something just Yes. used for Yes. but not if it's pornography or hate speech, right? Or hate hate speech is protected by the constitution. So someone put a swastika on their building. Uh, I'm going to be very cautious about getting into hypothesis, but but um it is and this is this is different than the sign code issue, but I think it's probably worth talking about just to illustrate what the constitution means. Hate speech is generally considered protected speech. Yeah. Sad to say, and it's it's complic it's complicated. It's sort of counterintuitive. It's a it's a kind of an unpleasant concept sometimes, but um expression by and large is expression meaning it's protective. So putting that yes highly charged uh topic aside. So you could put up like FU and there's nothing. So someone could put that up and there's nothing the city could do. No, not based on the content or the viewpoint of the message. Now if there are other things happening or it leads to other things those things depending on what they are conduct actionable impacts can potentially be actionable through regulation if there's one applies but not not solely directed at the content where the viewpoint express I mean this thing would probably get that thick if you were trying to do all

that but I just think of something like if you were doing trying to think of an example like a bowling alley and there's an architectural feature on the front door that's like a big circle like a different material than the rest of the building that would could be considered a sign, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, could it be considered a sign if it's got lettering? It's just arch. Well, that's that was the cross thing because there was there was the sign for the uh school and then there was and then that was probably maxing out square foot. I don't know. I didn't work on the project, but but then there was a cross and then that cross kicked him over the square foot. H I believe the cross was also quite high on the building above the 24 foot light hand illuminated. So I think there was several factors blinking neon. All right, let's get out of here. I had a couple of question. I don't want you to forget that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Oh, so we should be back before we deliver it. Well, is there any uh Margot, did you have any questions for staff on this? I don't. Okay. Can I clarify the illumination rules then? Yeah. Okay. So, if I'm understanding this, most signs can be illuminated whether from inside. So from inside or from light shining on them except in zones four and five. Yeah. Sign districts four and five which would be like your residential areas. Correct. Okay. Um and and then u question is this the sign height for like the monument signs. Is

there any exceptions if there's like uh landscaping or vegetation trees or something that need to be worked around to so that we're making sure signs are easy to read and and we're keeping their trees. We do have further in the code um that wasn't touched in this amendment um how you measure the height of a sign and let's say for instance you're on the north end of town um by the cemetery where you're below grade street grade that street grade becomes your your height that you measure your sign from. So you can elevate it and then if you can have a sign that's um 10 feet tall, you're not starting at the ground going up 10 feet. You're starting at the street grade and going 10 feet above that. So we do have provisions in the code for that. If you are elevated from the street, you you know, you get a bonus. You're not coming down. We're not making you lower the height of your sign. So if you create some sort of a burm around your sign to kind of elevate it artificially, we are going to look at that. So we do see that occasionally where they will create kind of a burm and put and want to put a sign on top of that, but the rest of the grade is pretty flat. We're going to be looking at that burm and that's that's within the Okay. So they're considering that burm is kind of like the stand the mount for the sign. That's correct. base and also the sight lining requirements too to help clean up so you can see coming out of the driveway but also going down the street. Yeah, I mean that is really important whether it's a sign or or bushes or something like primary concern is it can see and then and then when I'm looking for a business like I I want to be able to read the sign easily too. So,

so is there any I guess my question was is there an intersection between where sign sign and vegetation meet sign and trees code or something meet? I have to work around like like if they're bushes that you want to get above if they're overgrown. Yeah. You have to put them just have to redo. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to be putting them on side up, you're probably scrubs. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it's maybe this is on the owner if they go up above a sign. It's not a city required. They probably want them to be up front. Not necessarily. City one is the stop signs. That's my pet peeve because so many overgrown in front of stop signs. Yeah. I think maybe to to answer your question if there's three types of sign designs for free signs. One is a monument and that's a base and then your cabinet that sits on top of that. So there's really no visual space underneath it. And then a ground mounted sign which which is elevated above the ground without that base. It could be a single support post or two support post. Okay. And that that distance from the ground to the sign cabinet can be up to 8 feet and still be okay a ground mounted sign. Okay. When you get at 8 feet and higher above the ground, now it is a pull sign. And the city of Ben does not allow pull signs unless you have a a parcel that you you have no place to put you you cannot put a monument or grounded sign on that property. older parts of town maybe on Third Street might be an example where the only thing you can do is a pole sign to be clear vision and get visibility. Yeah. I mean, when you branch, you look down into that industrial area, you got to So,

circumstances of the site. Yeah. Correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. Are we are we all good? Yeah. Yep. Okay. Uh let's see. Uh public testimony. Do we have anyone on There's no attendees online. Okay, that was easy. Staff, do you want to comment on that? Open and close public. All right. Close the public testimony portion of the hearing. Deliberation. Uh, anything to deliberate, Margot? None from my end. Nothing. No. Um, sound I mean, sounds to me like they're this was thoughtfully done. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I I appreciate I appreciate the updates and we're, you know, letting allowing people to use electronic signs more. I I think that's great. Yeah. I think for like schools, too, because then they don't have to go out there and change the letters every time there's those letters are never right. Right. Or they fall off or they blow. Yes. Okay. Make a motion. I'll make the motion. Uh, I move to recommend that the city council approve PLT XT 20240451 legislative amendments to Ben Code chapter 950 signs or murals, portable signs, electronic signs, wall sign height, and other minor code cleanup amendments as contained in exhibit A and based on the findings as recommended by staff. It looks like we had a typo in there. Yeah, because 2025 2025 0226. Okay. 2025 amended my motion and I think it's understood well enough to proceed. Yeah.

Second. Second by. All right. All in favor say I. I. I. Uh it's unanimous. Awesome. That was wonderful. Um all right. So, is anyone uh wish to point out any errors of omission for the meeting? Any Sorry, back up to the sign code. This will be presented to city council next Wednesday, June 18th. Is there a planning commissioner who's willing to attend the hearing and represent commission's recommendation and discussion? I would love to, but I'm out of town. I I would now that I know what I'm supposed to be doing. I luckily the mayor caught it. I didn't know what to do as far as sequencing, so I'll do it if now that I know what to do if you want. Okay, cool. All right. Okay. Thank you, John. Um, all right. Any errors or emissions from the April 14th, 2025 meeting minutes? I hear none. Perfect. Communications reports from planning commissioners. Marggo, I do not have any. No, sorry. Not for me. Uh, none. Thank you. Um, so I went to the last city council meeting and with the ADUs and the uh kitchen and the uh house row house you love so much. I know. I couldn't I'm disappointed in myself. I didn't think of anything. Um, so yeah uh it it all passed. There's there was conversation about possibly going from the uh what is it 500 to 800 ft and and um there were three counselors that would that were thinking that just to make them both 800 uh but it was like a 34 split and so so it was pretty close to actually going uh above that and then what was it what were the

sizes for the different things the size you can have two ADUs for a property as long as one is maxed out at 800 00 and the other one maxes out at 500. And so there was talk about just saying 800 for both. Got it. And then and then as far as having that one attached to the primary house, uh they agreed with us and they're not requiring it. Did they go to 800 for both or No, they they they they just did a straw poll and three people raised their hands out of seven. So but yeah, uh that's what happened there. Great. Nothing for me. Nothing nothing new for me. Renee, you said June 18th is what we're gonna All right, Renee, anything? Um, just that it looks like we don't have any agenda items queuing up for your June 23rd meeting. So, likely cancel that. I was just waiting to make sure that things on tonight's agenda were that you took action. You did need a continued hearing. So, um, seeing that that didn't happen, we will most likely cancel that meeting. Shift to July after the and then it's, yeah, July. Sorry, I don't have my calendar open. Regular. Yeah, returning back to regular first meeting in July. I do believe we have some items for that agenda. Um, that would be July 14th. Yes, we have a couple items for that meeting already. Okay. Oh, I should uh add that I will be gone August 25th. Okay, thank you. That's it for me. One last question, Renee, and you can tell me afterwards. Are my emails coming through? I'm getting them. So, Bob and I both got our laptops cleaned up by Chad from it. And that is very helpful. Very helpful. So, I just want to make sure they are

getting through to you. Yes, getting them. Yes, I did that signature thing a while back and it just comes up question marks or Oh, you're just getting the weird icons and it's not H I don't know why that's happening. Whatever. All right, Ian, nothing for me. Okay, awesome. Move we journ second. Thank