Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

The heat room feeling warmth wise. I have a coat.

I dressed appropriately. [laughter] Everyone ready? Okay. All right. We'll go ahead and call today's meeting to order. Today is Monday, October 27th. We will start with roll call. Aaron,

Aaron Le here. Nathan Nelson here. Suzan Anson. Marco Clinton. Scott Winters. Bob Gresens. John Le here. Great. Next, we'll move into the visitors section, and this is for visitors that would like to comment on something that is not on tonight's agenda. So, I do not have any slips in front of me. Um, if you need to fill one out, it's over there. And then, if you are attending online, you can go ahead and raise your hand. There's two people. Give them just a minute in case Okay, next we will move into our agenda item, quadly judicial public hearing. Um, I am not going to list all of the applications. I'll list the first one, PLWZ 20250412. Um, this is a waterway overlay zone application to demolish and reconstruct slashexpand an existing single unit dwelling in a thatch garage at 424 Northwest Columbia Street. So, I will I actually said this. I'm officially opening the hearing. We will start with a statement of prehering contacts, bias, prejudice, or personal interest. If you have any of these, please state them. Aaron, we'll start with you again. Done.

Done. None. None. None. None. I visited the site. I don't know if it's time for that or Okay. Now, we will allow those in attendance to challenge for the our statements of bias, prejudgment, or personal interest. Once again, if you are online, you can raise your hand for that. Okay. Next, we will have Renee explain the procedural requirements.

Great. Uh, thank you, commissioners and members of the public. I'll read a statement to explain the requirements of state law for the quasi judicial item you have before you today. 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 B development code criteria that you believe are applicable. The failure to raise an issue with sufficient specificity for the commission to understand and respond to the issue in its decision or 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 any proposed conditions of approval with sufficient specificity for the commission to respond to or for other parties to respond may preclude a future civil action for damages in circuit court related to that condition. Thank you.

Thanks Renee. Next we will move into the staff report. Alexa,

good evening everyone. So my name's Alexa. I don't know if I've met everyone on the new planning commission. Um I'm a associate planner in the current planning division. Um and tonight I will be presenting to the planning commission application numbers PL um 2025412 and the class B and class A associated variances um for this um new single unit detached dwellings. So here's the subject property. It's located at 424 Northwest Columbia Street. Uh it's further identified as tax lot 200 underutes county assessors map 171231 DD and lot 14 block 8 of Plat of Highland. It's within the residential standard density zone as well as the waterway overlay zone. Um the property is 6,573 square feet in size and located on the west side of the Dashuites River. Um it is currently developed with an existing single unit detached dwelling. Um and the subject property is surrounded by other properties that are developed with either single unit detached dwellings or duplexes for example. Um, here's a submitted site plan. As you can see, the applicant proposes to demolish most of the existing single unit detached dwelling um and rebuild it with an attached garage and covered porch in the front um and a covered deck in the back there. So, here is um the waterway overlay zone map. You can see that the subject properties within not only the waterway overlay zone but also um the flood plane and riparian corridor

and these are the applicable review criteria um including Ben development code 2.7.600 600 waterway overlay zone. Um, and these are some of the subsections we'll be reviewing tonight. The tree removal, riparian corridor subzone, blood flood plane subzone, and design review subzone. We'll start with tree removal. So, um, as you can see on the submitted landscape plan, which I will get to in just a sec, um, there are seven trees proposed for removal. Um, and they're all greater than 4 in in DVH. Um, so these trees include a dead crab apple and locust tree in the backyard, which don't know, I don't think you guys can see my mouse, but hopefully you can see them here in the landscape plan. Um, as well as a 6 and 8 in DBH tree within the building envelope along the northern property line. Um, and then a 6in DBH tree within the front bedroom. Um, a 10-in DBH tree within the building envelope along the western property line as well as a ponderosa pine within the driveway. Um, sorry, let me just go back just a sec. So, I just wanted to make clear that none of these trees um are within the riparian corridor and tree protection fencing for the preserved trees, including the large ponderosa tree um within the right of way. Um there is a tree protection fencing condition of approval recommended for the planning commission. Um here are the existing conditions. So you can see that this 28 in DBH ponderosa pine will be preserved and then the two smaller

ponderosas along the front of the house will well are proposed for removal. Um and so now we'll get into the riparian corridor sub zone. There are actually no um activities within 2.7.620C 620C that are proposed within the riparian corridor. There's no development really proposed at all within the riparian corridor on this site. Um and we've notified all relevant state agencies per this section. Um and so since there's not any development really and there's no designated wetlands within the riparian corridor, we don't anticipate there needing to be any state permits. uh but they have been notified either way. And um the proposal does include landscaping but not within the riparian corridor. And that is one of the activities that are exempt but again not taking place within the riparian corridor. So next up is the flood plane sub zone. Um so while the boundaries of the property itself extend um you know what let me just go back and I'll show you. So you can see here the subject property itself isn't within the flood plane but the eastern portion of the site not you know the subject property property but the site adjacent to the river there is within the flood plane. We just wanted to include um that section as well, but there's no development taking place within the flood plane either. So these standards are not applicable.

Um and then design review subzone. So um the subject site is not located with any within any of the areas listed in BDC 2.7.650e. So the required building setback from the ordinary high watermark is 40 ft as C says there. So the subject site is within the Dashutes river corridor review sub zone. Um as such these criteria are applicable. The applicant's proposing to preserve significant trees and the rock ridge adjacent to the river. Um, the proposed residence is approximately 3,211 square feet between the primary and upper floor. Um, which is pretty standard for that neighborhood. Um, and the applicant hasn't proposed specific colors at this time, but they've indicated that they understand they need to be muted and earth tone, and that will be another recommended condition of approval for the planning commission. Um, as you can see here, the proposed roof is standing seam aluminum and it's muted and not reflective. um which complies with the criteria. Here are the west and south elevations. And now we'll get into the variances. So the first variance associated with this was review is a class A variance which is required for um 25% uh deviation from setback. So the class

A variance is to the eastern side setback. Um and I can show you all here. You can see there that the I keep forgetting my mouse doesn't show. So you can see along the eastern property line um in the RS zone the required sight setback is 5T but here it's about 3.75 which is a 25% um deviation from the requirement. Um and this is because the existing home the entrance and the unfinished basement they're trying to stay within that footprint um so they can utilize that and um so they that would require a bit of an encroachment. So that is the class A variance.

I had a question on that. Is the is is like the current what's the what's the distance between the building the existing building and the is it is it that three and a half or whatever feet like are they building on existing stem wall? I'm not 100% sure they're building on existing stem wall, but it would be the same set size. The footprint stays the same on that on that edge. So, this would be a variance to keep the set back the same as what it currently is. Yes. Okay.

And it's a variance because since it's over 50% of whatever it be, it wouldn't be considered an alteration or a remodel. It would be right. New construction. Yeah. Right. [clears throat]

Yeah. And then we're also looking at a oh sorry we're also looking at um a class B variance to the front setback because it exceeds the 25% deviation. Um so in RS the required front setback from a garage is 20 ft but what the applicant has proposed here is about five feet. Um, and so just a little bit of background, obviously I'm sure you guys are aware with this or you know have been to this neighborhood. Um, Northwest Columbia Street is classified as a local street per the TSP which requires about 60 ft in right away width, but there's actually 80 ft here. So, this has been a commonly um approved or applied for and approved variance in the neighborhood to the front setback so that folks um can, you know, use a bit more of their property since so much of it is within the right of way. Um so, again, this is something that's been commonly used in the neighborhood and um and I'll I'll go back to this slide for a second so we can go through some of these criteria. So um the proposed variance won't uh materially be detrimental to other properties because again other properties have requested the same variance. Um a hardship exists because the existing right of way is 20 ft almost greater in size. Um and it's not self-imposed because this area was subdivided in I believe I think it was plotted in 1916. So, not self-imposed there. Um, and the variance requested is a minimum that would alleviate the hardship because the use that's being proposed is just a single unit detached dwelling. So, um, if they were wanting to fit more than that, it

might be pretty difficult. So, can I just ask Yeah. some clarification? So, from when I was looking at it, cuz at first that was a little bit shocking to see, but then from my understanding, the current house has a reduced setback from a front yard setback or garage setback. Is that correct? Okay. No. Yeah. Because we've approved a couple along here. Yeah. Because it's a because it looks like the driveway The reason why I asked because it looks like the driveway right now is

almost entirely in the in the right way. Yeah. So the thing is what they have now they don't have an attached garage. So that's what's Yeah. In RS there's only a 10 foot front setback but you need 20 ft from a garage. So that's why there's um such a variance there. Okay. Yeah. That's it. That's one. Okay. Wish I had and then I just have the staff recommendation here to approve the three applications. But if you guys have any other questions or you want me to go back to any other slides, um, let me know. Yeah.

The depth of the circular driveway, so a car could still park in there outside. Yeah. And we um don't have minimum parking requirements at this time. And um Yeah. And we actually um had gone back and forth about that a bit because they had applied for a grading permit um to rearrange the driveway, but we were trying to preserve that big ponderosa pine. And so that's why we kind of ended up with the configuration that we have here from the garage door to the actual end of the driveway. Do you know what that dimension is? Um,

not not the little hook, but the actual car's part straight into the gr. I can't read it from here. Maybe the applicant can answer that. Yeah. Sorry. It's at least 18 plus. Yeah, it's at least 27 feet. Really? That long? Yeah. All right. The shape throws you off. Okay. Yeah, it is kind of funky. Just a question about the trees. You said the applicant proposed to preserve significant trees, but you also told us they were taking down some significant trees. So, can you clarify that for me? Are they preserving or are they

They're And I can go back to their landscape plan. They're preserving some and removing others. Um, if you can see here, like the large tree in the backyard's being preserved. The large ponderosa in the front is being preserved. And then the other smaller ones that are being removed, um, they are 4 in or greater in DBH, but they're within the building envelope. So, you said one was 10 in. And the one you just said was a ponderosa, but you didn't say how big. I think it's a 28 in. The one in the driveway. The one that's the one they're saving is a 28 in. Yeah. Oh, it looks according to the new Maybe. I'm just not understanding the

There's two in the front yard right now. So, I think they're saving this one and they're taking this one. Yeah, that's what it looks like. So, they're taking seven and they're saving three.

Um I see one, two, yeah, maybe three for per preservation. Yeah. Uh, one other question. You said that um the front setback uh was was proposed to go from 20 ft to 5T and that was consistent with other homes, but it doesn't look like any other homes are that close to the right away wouldn't on that.

Oh, sorry, just jumping in. I'm jumping in just because I was looking at dial. Um the the all of these homes have what have driveway in the rightway. So that's all we're talking about is driveway, not building. The building is still going to be the property. Thank you for that. So the building's 5T from the property line, but the driveway is almost entirely in the right of way. Okay. Thank you. Y I know it does look funky when you go out there. Any more questions? Okay, I think we'll go ahead and do the applicants have a presentation. Yeah.

Do you want me to pull anything up for you or did you I just want to show that the state had one that showed the the adjacent house to the south. It had about five or six of the

Is this the site now? That was it was one of your the it showed several of the houses photograph. Yeah. that one. Yep. And I can always click ahead if you want me to go to the site plan.

Uh my name is Joey Shaw with Homeland Design and I am the applicant. Um I don't have a lot I mean you presented our our case I think very well and you can see just in this image right here uh the other the two houses to the south and how far they are out and we're basically asking to come out to that same point. Um, and mostly that is to keep from going further to the east and getting closer to the river and blocking the view from the neighbor to the either one of the neighbors. And really I just if you guys have any questions happy to answer but um the application really speaks for itself. Oh, two of the trees in the front yard. Uh, the one that's in the living that was in the bedroom has already been removed by the power company. And then there was another one that they removed that was underneath the line that the one that is just south of that.

You won't ever click on anything. Okay. Yes, two of the trees have already been rebooted. They were two of the dead that were under power line. I can zoom in here, too. Sorry, my it always looks bigger on my big monitors. And then here I am. Great. Yes. The tree just to the left of your cursor, that one has already been removed.

Yep. And then just to the left of that, it's in the in the patio in the uh walkway to the front door. That tree has been removed. And those are both fairly small, right? This is in it says, and this one's 10 in pan up to the garage. In the garage, there's one more. And then this is the This hasn't been removed or No, that one has been removed. This one is the one that stayed out of the driveway, right? And are any trees being added? Yes. Yeah. This is all new landscaping.

Yeah. Also, yeah. And then over here, roughly how many trees are being added? Five. Five. Yeah. and refresh my memory. What were the the trees that are being added? What kind of trees are this? Um, it looks like

Is that a legal term? I'd have to look it up. Blaze Naple. from the city of Ben that proves the list the tree list. Any more questions for the applicant? Anybody touch on something? Y

uh Craig Chennow with um as part of the applicant team here. I just want to touch we have had a few variances up in the area along the other properties. The nearest one just to the south the immediate we did go through a variance process with that. Each one's unique, I think, what we have here. You don't just get the standard cookie cutter house, and a lot of them are backed up to a rock outcrop that's on the backside. So, it really starts to constrain that site. This one's a little unique, too. They wanted to take advantage and utilize kind of that historic um basement that they had there. So, that kind of brought up the other uh reason for the variance where they could maintain one of the walls, which is less than five feet. But the variance is really because they're removing one of the because you can maintain a wall and even though it's non-conforming, it can remain there. They're removing one of the posts and adding a another post which is within that 5 foot setback 3.75.

That's why the variance for the type one or the class A I guess you could say. And uh the other one is for that front yard setback. Very unique situation where it doesn't apply to many properties in city where have an 80ft rideway. So, it allows you to kind of utilize those driveways within the rideway and move those house forward to kind of get some more interaction with street play there, which if you're ever along there, I mean, the amount of pedestrians that are in that area, kind of interacting with the environment is is huge. So, it's actually a value ad compared to pushing it back, raising up speeds, um, all that sort of thing. So, this really helps kind of assist what we're after for down in this area. I think the city is trying to get after slow traffic as you can see by the speed bumps and that sort of things. I just wanted to touch base on that and uh but if you guys have any questions feel

I do have questions. So on the um what is it the south side the south side where we're we're doing the you're requesting the the the smaller variance. How far apart are the buildings there? Uh I believe that's other one on the other side is five feet and we're down to three. So we're down to eight eight feet between the two. Okay.

So and that's the existing wall. Like I said the post it's kind of a little different matter. So you'll have you'll have that part that'll be within 8.75 I guess. But we did it so that we can make make sure we maintain like fire separation and that sort of thing. Any more questions? Um, on the final, so the facade of the the house, where will that how will that line up with the neighboring houses uh to the one to the south that should be uh equal with that house to the south?

So, because that was a five foot setback. They applied for a variance a few years ago and there's several of them along there that kind of have that same uh setback that applied for that just given the right away. You'll probably see I guess we'll probably see more as as more agree develops out there anymore. Okay, I think we're good. Thank you.

Thanks. Okay, I think we will go ahead and move into testimony and I'm going to put a lump because there's fewer people here in attendance just all the testimony together. So, if you are online, you can go ahead and raise your hand if you'd like to provide testimony. And then in person, if you would like to provide testimony, you can fill out a form over there and they will pass it over to me and I will read off your name. It looks like we have one person online that would like to and that is I apologize if I mispronounce your name. KeiLa Glass. Um, so I think that's the only thing I have so far, only person. Um, so if you want to go ahead and unmute them, we'll move into your testimony. Go ahead, Kanti. See if they can hear us. They've got their hand raised. Um, if you can hear us. Not sure.

Looks like maybe you are muted is what they're saying. So if you can unmute yourself. If you do not have any comments, you can remove the raise hand.

Okay. Okay. Um that will be no testimony. Does the applica I mean does the applicant have any rebuttal? [laughter]

Um okay we will go ahead and close the public hearing and then staff do you have any comments you'd like to make any decisions? Okay deliberation what are everyone's thoughts I mean um we'll start with you and I don't I I I like the idea of moving the house farther toward the street to keep it farther from the river. Um that seems like a good tradeoff to me and don't have a lot of other comments. Yeah, I think that the the purpose of doing these um applications is to make sure that we're not harming a repairarian zone and there's no proposed development happening in that area, which is I think it's really important. I do appreciate that they're uh preserving the largest tree on on site. Um I think that the variances make sense. Uh the side variances are especially fine to me and the class A variance for moving it forward makes sense as well especially since it further incentivizes not developing in the varian zone. So I'm supportive and agree with stat findings.

Yeah, I uh I don't know that the house is moving any further away from the river and it was more the driveway and the rideway which I didn't understand from the stuff. I appreciate that and I have no it looks like it meets all of our criteria. I am concerned about trees, but I appreciate they're going to plant some some new trees that eventually will become large and it's pretty hard to plant. I mean, it's pretty hard to build in an area that has a lot of trees with without having to impact some of the trees. I appreciate that they're holding on to the biggest one and hopefully the preservation stuff for a ponderosa is big enough that it'll actually preserve it and it won't get killed during the construction process. That's my only I I have no issue.

I have no comments. Um I think it's meeting the intent of the W zone and staying away from the river. So think that's great.

Uh yeah. Um, I've proved at least one other of these with the um, front yard setback, and I think it makes sense. I think it helps keep the street local and small, and you don't want it to be a large zoomed through street. And so, um, yeah, moving the moving the house close to the street's fine. the sideyard setback I was a little bit kind of curious about. But if you know if it's existing and doesn't create any uh fire separating separation hardship on the adjacent property, which it doesn't. Um yeah, I think it's great.

Uh I'm supportive all all the reasons for such my colleagues have brought up. Same with behav good plan and ready to vote. Okay. Would anyone like to make a motion? I can do it.

I move to approve the proposed waterway overlay zone application at 424 Northwest Columbia Street to demolish and reconstruct slashexpand an existing single unit dwelling with class B variance to reduce the required front setback and a class A variance to reduce the required side setback with the findings and conditions recommended by staff. Second. Okay. All those in favor? I All those opposed? Okay. Moved.

Okay. We'll move into the next agenda item, which is approval of minutes for both August 11th and August 25th. If you have any issues with it, please speak up. We can kind of run down the line. None. None. None. Okay, great. Next, we'll do communications reports from planning commissioners. Aaron, I don't have anything to report. Thank

I have a couple of things. One is um there is a lecture tomorrow night uh from the group called building a better bend on fire resiliency. And I know that's been a topic that we've had some conversation about. I'm not able to attend, but if anyone else is able to attend, I brought copies of the email if you needed it to be able to go, I think it would be helpful. Sounds like maybe it's a little bigger than what uh we have talked about, but maybe we' get some good ideas. So, tickets are still available. Yep. That's I got an email today saying there was still room and they're doing that at the OSU Cascades campus. So

right

uh last meeting I had talked about um when we have meetings that are cancelled that instead of cancing them that we use that opportunity to actually meet as a planning commission to talk about planning. Uh and it when I spoke I talked about getting ready for when we have to give input to the city council and I was told that we don't actually have to do that for two years. So, we don't need that meeting right now. But beyond that, Ian sent me the the city's guidelines for what the planning commission should do. And one of those is that we act as a citizen involvement committee. And I feel like we aren't really we do a lot of like this. We do a we do a different uh code updates and amendments, but we don't actually talk about the the plan. And a lot of times in our meetings, in the hearings, we'll identify issues that we'll think, "Oh, we should talk about that at some time." But we never have a chance to talk about those in the meeting. So that's my thought is to use some of those. I mean, we're canceling I don't know what the percentage is, but maybe 20%, you know, uh quite a few meetings every year. So uh not to make it a big issue for the staff but just to give us a chance to talk about things that relate to land use planning in bend. To that I thought one thing that might be helpful is that if we as a planning commission communicated with the land use chairs of the various neighborhood associations. There are seven of us and there are 13 neighborhood associations. So if each of us took two neighborhood associations and reached out to the land use chairs, one of the things that happens is we wherever we live in our however big our neighborhood bubble is, we know the issues around us and but we don't necessarily know the rest of the issues

and I thought there might it might be helpful to have some dialogue with the neighborhood association land use chairs. So those are my things for planning commission report. Yeah, great. Um, I do not have anything. I just found out I'm on here for another year. So,

it's his report. Thank you for stop dancing. Thank you. And I the same.

Yeah. Yeah. Um I I yeah I I I want to second um that approach of of something. I mean even if it was to invite public and to just not about a specific um application but just kind of in general I don't know if there's an appetite for that. that's sometimes hard to get people to come to plan commission meetings. But um but yeah, I think you know just expanding maybe a little bit of what we do in those during those times especially when we have uh meetings canled which a lot of times in the summer we'll have we'll go for a stretch.

Um so I I made a list of topics that we had brought up in previous planning commissions just from the top of my head. uh industrial lands because we removed some industrial lands from the comprehensive plan at one point and I don't know that they ever got replaced. So u the second one is um fire resiliency. So, we've had some discussions here and I think we probably should have more tree preservation of the land use notice and signages and how that gets done uh neighborhood commercial and how we advocate advocate maybe I don't know what the but uh encourage neighborhood commercial uh the just the comprehensive plan in general there are sections that need to be reviewed and re uh updated because their city is growing and and housing needs. I think the last time we did a housing needs analysis was in 2016 and um not sure that we really we probably should have a new one. I know Colin keeps saying it's coming, it's coming, but I don't have something in my report to share.

Seven years. So, yeah. And I I think that neighborhood commercial aspect and I'm thinking about the master plans that Right. I mean, community involvement, years of studies and analysis and figuring everything out, and then the state comes out with a thing that says, uh,

yeah, you can't restrict housing. And I think it's more than just having a, you know, like a lot of times when we think of it, it's like, oh, it'd be cool to have like a coffee shop or a pizza place or an ice cream place or something like that could walk to from the house. But it's it's it's about sense of place. It's about uh environmental issues. There's transportation. It's a way easier to have a viable functioning transportation system when there's urban hubs and centers and things like that. And so, um even if it's just the planning commission kind of complaining upwards or saying, "Hey, here's something we're noticing. Boots on the ground." Um you know, even if it doesn't have teeth, it's something. And I think more of that is is something that could be beneficial

to me. That's part of our job as being the citizen involvement committee, right? is to give input when we see things that like that the neighborhood commercial thing just floored me that that the state passed a law that made it so that you could put residential instead of commercial and that these brand new neighborhoods that are they're on the outskirts of the community. So to get rid of the commercial or reduce the commercial and put housing which we need but especially in locations where you know it's going to work like Yeah, we get road in 15

and all those people are going to have to drive to get to basically that the goal of housing is great, but housing needs support. Right. Right. In addition, and if you're if you only put houses, then you're going to end up with drivable only communities. Exactly. Because there's no place to walk to. Right. Yeah. And a lot of these are were the intent was mixed use. It was housing above commercial. And so you just take the commercial out and the housing comes down. Still going to have the same amount of housing, but you're going to have the less commercial. And then fast forward 20 years from now and we're out of a housing crisis. Now we're in like a complete neighborhood crisis and transport

transportation crisis building. Hey folks, Renee did telegraph um something she's going to address in her report and I think it'll point towards some to good opportunities to have some of the policy discussions if if you're willing to pause a little bit. Yeah, we'll give the time. We can quickly finish commissioner reports. I just want to make sure we're staying on the topic of reports. Yeah, just reporting out what you've done that you wanted the commission to be aware of. So, so I'll be succinct think No, I'm done. I've been told that.

Um, so I'm supportive of everything that's been said thus far. Uh last meeting I um let uh let you all know that I'd been um invited to attend a land use chair meeting where my little section was to speak about commercial residential. I think it's the Easton project. It's feels like it's been a million years ago. Um and um there were probably a half dozen land use chairs and they were just flabbergasted because I tried to give them you know the the net net which is basically it's beyond the city's powers as it currently stands and they they're just like this is this is crazy. Um so and and then the the topic of um uh notice and you know uh distance per scale came up. So they were um oh and then I also floated the idea of um getting the the land use chairs to attend these meetings and they were very supportive of that. And then I furthered it say and maybe even uh partnering up so seven of us 13 get a dialogue going and I thought that was that was fantastic idea. Um so that's where it stood

and I would echo not only what Suzanne said tonight but her email where you kind of outline things we're doing or not doing and how we need to do better. So I think that's a good start for all of us to flush out what we're doing. uh the lany chairs when I talk to them they are feeling they're in the dark and they would like more input and more flow and not just host the meeting and check the box. Um, I think the idea of getting all of us in one room, seven and 13 is 20 and it might not be this room, but maybe the police department's room or somewhere we can just sit around the table and talk. What's your issue? What's going on? Some of them has expressed interest. They don't know what the follow-up has been with that consultant RFP for coordinating the land use chairs. I think this staff I don't know if it was our department but somebody sent out

to replace Michaela consultants for halftime to oh I'm vaguely familiar with what you're referring to yet it's not coming out of our department. Yeah they they haven't heard from anything and so they their dialogue in their pipeline with city is non-existent in their minds and these are all good people that are volunteering their time with land. So I think the more we have a dialogue with them and as we all know from the state in my other experiences in the state we are the citizen involvement committee commission as well as planning. So I think getting us all in one room and having a round table if not then the two or three at a time you know is fine or both but or both they they just want dialogue they want to know what's going on just like what we expressed in the beginning of the year to the city council

finding out more of what's going on city council and the counselors don't have to come every time but if they came and said hey here's what we're doing here's what the linkage is with our goals and with you guys meeting us I think that's great and then uh I saw that you did or going to be doing a tree code update to council is that I'll do a report on. Okay. So, I would be very interested in that because that's planning commission thing. Okay.

Great. Um, so thank you. So, yes, I did want to address a lot of what came up and what came up at a some of our more recent meetings as well. So, first I'll talk about tree code updates. So, at city council's work session last week on the 22nd, it was our first annual update to council after working with the updated tree preservation standards for just over a year. So we um provided to them just a refresher on the background of how we came to develop the standards we have in place um and a quick overview of the standards today in the code and then highle summary of the data of essentially 41 applications. There was 55 site plan review land development or sorry site plan review land division applications and one building permit application that was subject to the tree preservation standards. Of the 55, 14 had no regulated trees on the site at all. It had been cleared for some time in preparation of development. So there's really only 41 applications that we had to study of of those. what options did the developers choose to comply with the code? Because there's a couple different paths they can take. Um, all that is on the city council's website um for last week's meeting. The presentation slides are posted on there if you want to look at it. Um, but ultimately what we recommended to council is it's too early to make significant changes to the code. We just don't really have enough

data

enough data really to make any um you know at least based on data to make any recommendations for changes to the percentages or the types of projects that should be subject to the code. But we have identified a few minor amendments we'd like to make just in working with the code. We see areas where it could be clarified. And then also now that we have Ian Gray, an urban forester on city staff, we do see an opportunity to allow more flexibility for what type of work could take place in the root tree protection zone, the tree root protection zone because we needed to adopt clear and objective standards. It has a rigid 25%. you can encroach and mess with 25% of the trees roots and claim that tree to be preserved on paper. Um, but with Ian on board now with his expertise, we'd like to recommend a more flexible root protection zone definition and then also some he can provide some guidance based on the species and the location and the existing encroachments that in many cases more of the area can be disturbed if it's done in the right way. So, we'd like to build in flexibility. I think the developers would find that um helpful because they could then make more efforts to save some of those trees if um they actually get to count them. So, council was on board with the minor amendments we recommended. They didn't give us direction to take on any more significant amendments at this time. So, we'll be working on those and then bringing those to planning commission and council probably like February, March next year. Um Pauline is in the middle. Well, the package of development code amendments that you saw just about a month ago will be going to council next week. That big

package of cleanup amendments. Then her next package will be refining and making some updates we need to to the middle housing land division section and some middle housing development standards. One or more bills were passed recently. we need to make some adjustments to our standards and also clarify some things. So, um, tree code update, what did come out of that work session with council was, um, they did receive a public comment letter, at least one, that recommended handling juniper trees in a different way. Council's interested in hearing more about that. So, they did ask staff to come back at a future work session, not to hold up the amendments that they asked us to make, but they do want to have a separate conversation about juniper trees. So, you might see that on a work session agenda in the next couple months um with our urban forester.

What percentage you said 41 applications had trees, what percentage paid the fee in L? Yeah, there was I believe mitigation only. It was 15. Oh, mitigation only. But 15 either

planted, paid the enloop fee or did a combination of that because some developers found they could replace a lot of trees on site but not the full number that was required. They just ran out of room and so then paid for the rest in in the fees. And was there any you said I think online you got some input from one party. Did any developers bring input knowing you were going to present that to the council? Have they said anything? Um so council doesn't take public comment at work sess. So we didn't hear anything that day but we have been meeting with developers and asking for their input and feedback on their experience with the code. And so we presented that

and not to get into the detail but one of the big questions that came up in other towns and also here was the timing that developers put their plans together in detail and then they get at the trees later rather than work on the trees in the beginning and shape their plan around the trees that came up in the planning commission meeting I was here that night and also came up in the city council meeting. Right. Is there any new news or experience or feedback on that because that's a big deal. Nothing that we can report out with data that we have. Right. That's more anecdotal and maybe people have information to share on that. But we didn't

that's one that you know when the developer cries and complain that oh well the plan's already set so I can't do well you should have incorporated the front end. Don't come at it later and say oh wo it was me. So we do we are working on um having a public facing dashboard that will provide updates for everyone anyone who's interested on different applications subject to the standards and what options they're choosing. We're working with our um office of performance management staff on that. So hopefully we'll have that online in a month or so that people who are interested can go kind of do some of their own digging on on those. Um so that was one update. Next, as I mentioned, that large package of development code amendments that was at the planning commission is going to council next Wednesday. I think we have two commissioners representing, right? Scott and I.

Scott and Suzanne will be there. Thank you. So that should be posted online if it's not already. That whole council packet should be available soon. Um then I want to give you an update on some other items that will be coming to you soon. So at your next meeting, November 10th, we will have the union master plan. That's property at Murphy and 15th. It's vacant right now between the canal and Murphy and 15th. About 40 acres there. master plan coming to you and then also a work session. Um our public works staff is working to update the storm water public facilities plan which is an appendix to the comprehensive plan. The last one was updated in 2014. So because it's been a while um they did want to come here as a work session first walk through what is the storm water public facilities plan. Um it will ultimately require some amendments to the comprehensive plan chapter 8 as well. So there will be a comprehensive plan amendment associated with that. So after the work session they hope to come back a few weeks after that for your recommendation to council. And then um in brainstorming with Colin about some um work session topics that we can bring to the commission um one I'd like to have Pauline come at some point and give you just a highle overview of the different development code packages that she's working on and has planned to work on for the next 8 to 10 months. I mentioned some of them already, but there's more just so you kind of know in advance like, okay, here's where here's the chapters of the development code we're working on next. Um, and then also I'd like to have Brian

Ranken and growth management team come early next year, probably late January, early February. They are undertaking a huge work effort, the growth plan, which will be at least a five-year effort. Um, if you go on to the website and start to poke around on the growth management page, you'll see some information on there. I'd like them to give you all an update of big picture their five-year plan because the planning commission will be very involved in that over the upcoming years because they will be doing updates to all those studies you mentioned, Suzanne. buildable lands inventory, housing capacity analysis, economic opportunities analysis, all that needs to be taken into account as we start to build out updates to the comprehensive plan. So, look forward to that. And then also we'd like to have Russ Grayson, the chief operating officer, come probably also sometime early next year and give hopefully a pretty detailed look at the council's work plan for implementing their goals over the next two years because you did provide your input of what you want council to take up as did all the other advisory boards and some of that did get folded in. um their work plan is online on the council goals web page and there will be points and parts of that work plan where those whether it's code amendments or plan amendments that will come to the planning commission. So, we just want you to be aware. Um, some we've mentioned like they do have an interest in updating codes and standards, policies related to wildfire resiliency, complete communities, encouraging neighborhood commercial. Um, it's just want to try to lay it out in a logical way because there's a lot in their council

goals. [laughter] So like how how do we chip away at the stuff and when does the planning commission get involved? So that I think is all that was on my list. See Scott [laughter] be busy trust me.

Um but yes we will definitely have your next meeting November 10th. Um, we will I'll say now we will be cancelling November 24th. That's uh the Monday before Thanksgiving and we don't have any projects right now queued up that need that meeting to happen in order to keep them on track for something. So, um I do expect we will have something on your December 8th meeting for sure as well. So, that's it for me. Ian, no. Nothing for me. Great. Thank you, Renee. That was You're welcome. Yeah, that was a lot.

Excellent. I'm so excited specifically. Me, too. I'm looking forward to it. This is very fascinating. I know. [laughter] Number three. Oh, no. Not a not a trick. All right. Thank you. Thank you all.