Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I was just gonna Okay. We're

So you'll start it off with a roll call, I think.

Yeah. No.

She just needs to see if the audience disappeared. See whatever it was disappeared. Wait. Nope. Somebody named Mark. Doesn't seem to be a member, yes, on the commission. So so we have one person in the audience, and, yeah, we're ready for roll call then.

Commissioner Lopes?

Here.

Commissioner Stevens? Here. Commissioner Murphy? Here. Commissioner Cantonwein?

Here.

Commissioner Founds?

Here.

Commissioner Peterson?

Present.

Commissioner Satter is absent tonight, and I do not see commissioner Wilson or commissioner Lee.

Hopefully, they'll be joining us shortly. You didn't hear from them in advance. No. Okay. So I I guess, first, we start out with any public comments. So if there's anyone in the audience who would like to address the commission on some other some other item other than what's on the agenda tonight. Now would be the time. Do we have anyone? No? Okay.

So I guess we're gonna talk more about the ZDO diagnostic report, which, I'm assuming Martha's gonna give us a to discuss that with us. So or, Jennifer, do you wanna have, do you have a lead in for before we

No. I do not have a lead in tonight. It's the Martha and potentially Karen show tonight. I'm just a figurehead.

Okay. Heckler in the background like me. Right. Alright. It's all it's all yours.

Alrighty. Excuse me. Good evening. I have a, hopefully always hopefully short presentation to share, and we are going to be come on. You can do it, please. Alright. I'm slow. Okay. You can see full screen my slide. Correct? Yes. Okay.

Yes.

So, yes, we have a study session this evening. We are going to be talking about the ZDO diagnostic report, also known as the urban zoning and development rules assessment. That was a name that was a second name that was given to it to try to actually explain what it is rather than sort of our wonky title of a ZDO diagnostic report. There are really three major projects going on right now in planning, and this is one of them. We came and talked to you about it, I think, last fall, about what we are doing with this project.

It ties it it dovetails and sort of overlaps very little bit with the other projects that we're working on, the minor in time sensitive code amendments that we recently talked to you about, and then the project that Joy Fields is working on with clear and objective standards. These all do tie together. But right now, we are talking about this one, which involved a a fairly deep dive assessment of our zoning and development ordinance as a whole, for the most part, to impart identify, areas that needed to be updated to comply with state land use laws. But, really, the reason that we the reason behind this assessment was that over the years, as you know, our zoning code has gotten more and more and more complicated, and Jennifer has done a great job trying to cull down some of the sections and fix things, but we hadn't done a really wholesale look of the ZDO as just as as a whole and think about how some big substantive and structural changes that would make the ZDO just easier to use, generally more understandable, understandable, easier to implement, both, you know, for easier for staff to use, but and easier for, the public and developers to use, but also to really identify, if there's development barriers, and where there would be opportunities really to streamline standards in both our residential and employment, land use districts.

We got a grant through Metro for this work to hire some consultants. Largely because of that, this assessment has been focused on the urban unincorporated area, the urban zones, generally, this green shaded area here, excuse me, inside the Portland Metropolitan Urban Growth Boundary areas around Clackamas Town Center, Sunnyside, sort of the Oak Grove and Jenning lot Jennings Lodge neighborhoods and a few other areas around Lake Oswego, but this has really been focused on our urban, residential and commercial zones and also development standards that apply to those areas. So it's been a long process. We have been working with our consultants for maybe a little over a year now, and the the sort of technical analysis part of it was done in a series of technical memos that they've created over maybe the last six months. The first three really had to do with identifying issues, including rules related to the transportation system, parking, pedestrian connections, things like that.

That was in the first technical memo. The second one really focused on housing development and housing zoning. The third one, employment, commercial and industrial, development uses and zoning. And then there were three three memos that followed that really focused more on recommendations and potential solutions, and amendments that might that are needed in our specifically in our zoning code to address some of the issues that were identified in the first three technical memos. There was a memo set up that talked really more about, sort of structurally the ZDO, what could be done, for greater efficiency.

And then, it turns out this is very timely, but we had also asked our consultants to look at options for a more efficient and accessible ZDO online. I don't know if any of you have tried to use our ZDO online. It's really clunky. We essentially have a PDF for each section, and there are lots better way maybe not better, but, potentially easier, more efficient ways to do it. And this ties nicely into some work that we are doing as a county to, under federal law.

We are required to make our, public anything accessed publicly on our web pages to be much more ADA accessible, which would include not just posting a whole bunch of PDFs. So we are working on that actively right now, actually, to update our web page, but this was really useful information to help get us started on that. And then there was a technical memo summarizing the out which we haven't seen yet. They're drafting to summarize the outreach that was done on this project. Quite frankly, the outreach was very difficult for this project because, as you can imagine, it's very technical.

And so outreach largely consisted of very specific identified stakeholders or stakeholder groups who actually use our zoning code. We had an some internal stakeholder work groups, including planning and zoning staff and engineering staff, economic development staff, some people from building. And we those those groups were sort of put together to discuss issues and potential solutions, you know, people who actually use the zoning code day in and day out. There was some external stakeholder interviews that our consultants did, talked to a few architects and developers. There was a survey put out on the project web page, and we got a few responses.

And one of the questions was, hey. Do you want us to give you a call follow-up call? And some people said yes, and those people were interviewed. And then they were invited to a focus group a little bit later in the project. We did have one in person open house in October.

I can tell you in person open houses are a little weird these days. It was very sparsely attended, and I was a little disappointed personally. The people who did show up really were very engaged and had a lot of questions and got lots of one on one attention. And I was thinking maybe well, I think in person open houses are sort of a bit of a thing of the past, and we sort of need to rethink how to do them in part. But then as I was feeling really badly about it, I spoke to sort of my counterpart in Washington County who's working on a very, very similar project, and she said they had very few people at their public open house also.

And so I think it's it wasn't necessarily an Us problem. I think it's just a little bit that we need to start perhaps rethinking how we do in person open houses if we do in person open houses in the future. But we tried. And then staff's done some presentation at a couple of the urban CPOs, because, remember, this is largely about the urban area. And then Karen did a presentation at the Lead It group, which I wasn't real familiar with, and I'm glad that we connected with, that it's a county, the leaders for equity and diversity and inclusion council.

So all of that outreach was done. It was it's it was not super robust, but it was really we really were trying to identify people who understood the ZDO and how to use it, but then also reach out to the CPOs and to LEDEC sort of with this eye for, hey. How who wants to be involved in this as we move this forward in the future, and how can we, have better connections? So maybe next time we do something like an open house, more people would show up. So it's been an interesting process.

Generally speaking, the the consultants identified a number of issues based on that outreach, also based on some conversations with, you know, Jennifer and Karen and me and things that we know about the zoning code. The issues that they identified were were which can be generalized into sort of six buckets. One is that the ZDO just itself is the organization is fairly fragmented, in in a lot of ways, and so they have some suggestions about how maybe to just even reorganize without touching, any standards, how we might want to reorganize that. There is there are some inconsistent design standards, and that doesn't mean that people are intentionally implying design standards inconsistently. It's just that across similar zoning districts, sometimes there are some differences, and that may be a good opportunity to streamline.

We have the the way that density is calculated in residential zoning districts is very confusing a lot of people. They identified it as complex. I'm not sure that it's necessarily more complex than what some other people do, but I think it is confusing. And so there's an opportunity there to to streamline or I guess streamline is not probably the right word, but there's an opportunity there to to make that a little bit easier to understand. Also, there are not in many cases, there's not clear thresholds for review and for types of different types of development, and so that needs to be made a little bit more clear.

In terms of some of the actual development standards, So the pedestrian bicycle, connectivity standards are are a little fragmented, and across across the ZDO and perhaps applied to different areas in different manners that that could be taken a look at. And then the structure of the which really ties a little bit to the first identified issue issue identified issue area. The every time we have every time there's a change in state law and we have to update our code, it just gets more and more complicated and difficult. And so with maybe perhaps reorganizing and streamlining some of our, some of our code areas, it lends to more structural resilience and will make it easier as not that it's ever that easy, but easier as we move forward to try to update to respond to changes in state law. So that is a lot.

I mean, there were a lot of issues identified, and a lot of which we knew, quite frankly. And so those were detailed in the first three sets of technical memos, largely. And so then once we identified these issues, the the, you know, the the consultants started thinking about, you know, recommendations and how to potentially resolve these issues. And these recommendations, we we fell into these four big buckets, and one has to do with usability and clarity. Under that are structural changes, but also some substantive changes.

And so a couple of the the structural changes that they've identified are some reorganization, this idea that we are trying to restructure the code to really be more of a form based code, and I can attempt to explain that in just a minute. It's just a little bit of a different way to look at development. I think a couple of interesting things that they have, recommended that I think that we are really going to pursue in the short term is creating a road map at the beginning of our code to help users even just at the get go understand how to use it. Creating is dedicated measurements chapter for things like building heights or setbacks, how how to just measure certain things, and potentially creating rather than we have a lot of definitions that are partially definitions, partially, uses. I mean, it it partially standards.

And so cleaning up our definitions and making it very clear where definitions are, and also creating perhaps a use classification system that may be a separate chapter, all with this eye toward just making it easier to understand, you know, what the heck is going on in our code. So that's gonna be a big one. And then, of course, there are some substantive, excuse me, subsets substantive oh, I can't talk today. Changes that are recommended, throughout, and a lot of those have to do with, like I said, these threshold thresholds to identify different review processes. Like, for example, if there is very small incremental increase versus a complete new rebuild of a commercial district, are there sort of different levels of review?

Right now, they would all just have to go through design review. So are there different sort of different levels and different thresholds that would make sense and make some of these little smaller, less impactful developments have a little bit of a an easier and more straightforward review process? The second one is also kind of big, and this one is kind of near and dear to my heart too. It's simplifying housing districts. It I don't I know you've probably heard me say this before. We have way too many residential districts. We have too many districts. There are 18 urban residential districts. We don't think there really needs to be that many, and so part

of this

is consolidating districts, and part of it is also maybe simplifying or consolidating or creating a a more straightforward way to explain what exactly the differences are and what the specific development standards are in each of those. Similarly, we do have an opportunity to consolidate some of our commercial districts. It's not quite as egregious as the residential districts, but also an opportunity to really take a look at the uses in the commercial districts and, to some extent, the residential districts and trying to get away from this extraordinarily long list of very detailed uses allowed and rely more on use categories, and enable there to be a a little bit more flexibility as new uses come up, that may not fit exactly in the described use that's allowed and then have to go through an interpretation to understand if that particular use is allowed even though, like, you would look at it and say, yeah, just because it's called something different than what our code says, we should probably allow it. We're looking at ways to make that a less cumbersome process. And then the fourth one has to do with improving neighborhood connectivity.

I think I stayed way too long on that slide, by the way. I talked about all my stuff on the rest of my slides. But the last one has to do with neighborhood connectivity, and I'll talk about that in a minute. I just wanna make sure as I was just talking away and not advancing my slides, I didn't miss anything. And back in the first sort of usability and clarity in addition to the other the things that I mentioned, this idea of form based code, which is a bit of a shift to emphasize this the design and building size and scale rather than these specific uses, like those specific lists of uses that I was talking about and looking more at what what we want development to look like, which isn't to say that every zone would allow every single use, but it would just be this idea of going more toward building scale and size, and you can pick from these use categories rather than you look at it and say, I can do this one specific thing and then have either confusing or not real stringent, design standards.

So it's a bit of a shift. I don't pretend to completely understand form based code. I'm learning too. But I think in terms of housing development, it's a really interesting concept. And so one other thing that was mentioned, and I'm not entirely sure how far down this road we're going to go, is to be clear between an urban and rural distinction.

And I think in terms of standards, clarifying which standards apply where, there's definitely an opportunity for more clarity. I think in terms of structurally, it becomes a little bit more difficult because, as you know, there's not a clear line necessarily between urban and rural. There's rural inside of the urban growth boundary, and there's urban unincorporated communities outside of the urban growth boundary. And so, we're gonna have to think a little bit about how structurally, things could change to make it a little more straightforward. Not sure we are going to be able to accomplish that, to be honestly, but at at a minimum, we could certainly clarify where the standards apply.

I'm just gonna skip through this because I already talked about it. I apologize. I did actually create this PowerPoint. Okay. We're gonna get over to improving neighborhood connectivity.

So there there are a couple of pieces to this improving neighborhood connectivity, and this is where Karen may have to help me out because she's a little more connected to this topic than I am. A couple of things are happening. One is that there are some state standards for connectivity that are are triggered by when we update our transportation system plan. And so part of the analysis is trying to identify places where we need to update our code to comply with those, state law requirements. And there are some other sort of structural or internal issues in our codes even with the things that, sort of with items that exist now that aren't going to change.

And one is this idea that there's, in a lot of cases, not clear thresholds for when certain off-site improvements are required. There's not necessarily, in some cases, clear thresholds where certain frontage improvements are required. There's not clear thresholds where certain types of where traffic studies are required for certain, types of development. And so there needs to be a a very critical look taken at how, when, and, you know, where we require transportation improvements with development. There's also a need to take a look at sort of the requirements for certain types of connections, pedestrian, bikeway connections that will be required under state law.

We have a lot of that already in our code, and we really need to just take a look at consistency across the zoning districts and areas of the county and then make sure that we're complying with the new rules under state law. So that's a lot.

Hey, Martha. Can I can I just jump in and say Absolutely? One or one or two other things? And Mhmm. So, you know, in addition to the other projects that Martha had mentioned, that are underway right now, the clear and objective project as well as the minor amendments project, we do have a fairly large update of our transportation system plan project underway.

And so there are things within, this particular topic that really are overlapping some of the issues that are emerging as a part of that project is what I would say. And then I guess the other thing I would highlight is is during kind of the staff work groups and the interviews and the discussions we had with staff, some of these issues really emerged as, these issues being ways that we can really be clearer about these thresholds for development and and have standards that, are clearly applied. It is some of the most important issues that our different groups are dealing with because we're really dealing with, and working across groups. So we have groups in our, development review team that look at these standards. We have groups, we have people in our planning, team that look at these standards and the as well as our transportation planning group.

And the standards are, not only in the ZDO, but they're also in the comprehensive plan as well as in the roadway standards. So, yeah, we're corporately looking forward to doing a little cleanup here.

Thanks, Karen. And I apologize. I didn't add the TSP to my project list. So, a lot of work has been done. We have seen draft and final copies of a number of those technical memos that I mentioned.

We have staff has reviewed a draft of the final diagnostic report, which which sort of compiles and incorporates all of those technical memos. We expect that that report will be made final within the next month. We did attach the draft of the executive summary for that report, which identified sort of these six buckets and four buckets of of issues and recommendations. We expect that to be finalized, in mid April too, and then we will be, closing out our work with the consultant. So it is important to note the one thing I didn't mention in this project is code amendments.

We are not currently developing code amendments with the ZDO diagnostic report. It truly is a report to diagnose what is wrong with our zoning code and as it ties to the roadway standards and the comprehensive plan as well. And so what we are getting out of this is a series of recommendations and something of an action plan, which put will put together some of these ideas and and recommend a plan for how to move forward. We will take that into consideration. I expect that Jennifer and Karen and I are gonna be putting our heads together pretty quickly here to figure out how we are going to package these recommendations into a series of code amendments, and then we will begin the process.

I expect it will be at least two packages of code amendments, but we haven't really had that conversation yet. With each package of code amendments, we do expect there will be some additional outreach, perhaps working groups. We there there are definitely going to be substantive and pretty significant changes, to the zoning code possibly, and we do definitely want to get the input of the planning commission of any other community groups, that are interested. And so we do expect to put together some sort of outreach plan as we move forward. We just don't really know what that first set of code amendments is going to look like.

And I can say there will be a little bit of overlap in the minor and time sensitive amendments as they relate to things that are required under state law. We had talked about that, that there are some things that we are currently implementing out of state law. This diagnostic report identified a few of those. And so those may just those are going to go forward faster, but, really, the bulk of the the recommendations that are coming out of, this project are forthcoming over the next couple of years. That's it. I and I

Questions. I I noticed, Ryan had made a comment. Oh, sorry. Jennifer first responded. So I have a I have a few if no no one else wants to jump in.

So just just to make sure I kinda understand how this is going is coming together. I'm also looking at upcoming planning commission hearing, so I'm a bit confused. We were we talked about the diagnostic report for z d o two eight nine, but then I see we have another study session planned for this summer for z d o two ninety. And what the difference is between those two? So

and I think Jennifer could probably explain it better. Z d o two ninety is a different project.

Okay.

Yeah. So the ZDO two ninety is focusing on specific subset of our regulations with the goal of making them clear and objective because of the statutory requirement for housing regulations to be clear and objective, of course. So it's focused on our environmental overlay districts, our natural hazards provisions. So really trying to keep it narrowly tailored, to those things. And that's just this project, which is broader and hopefully will not duplicate any of what we're doing under two ninety.

Okay. So they, so they there's clearly different, set of okay.

They're different, but they certainly have some similar I would say the goals are not dissimilar. Like, they Yeah. They we are trying to streamline and make it, you know, make more sense.

But We don't have the same opportunity with those like you do with this where you've got so many just specific zoning codes that easily could be overlapped and the report was suggesting. So the the this Martha alluded to the fact that this is kind of a new approach, that we're leaning towards. I'm assuming it's at this point, it's it's not a done deal. We're, you know, still sorting it out. Where has this been done elsewhere in the state?

I'm assuming this isn't something that's brand new that hasn't ever been tried with other planning planning ordinances. So do you know?

So are you talking about potentially restructuring it and leaning more into the form idea of a form based code?

Yeah. You you may may and and the report I read, you know, kept referencing that and where it's it's not so specific. It's more Mhmm. It allows to have specific criteria, but they kinda overlap the various zones, and so you're not differentiating exactly between each residential type zone. You're just saying these are the overarching criteria we want to to apply to all these zones unless there's something very specific to a zone, which it doesn't sound like there really is very much of that. It was impression I was getting.

So so, yes, this is done in other jurisdictions. We had asked our consultants to give us examples of a lot of the things that they were recommending, and they do have examples, and links in the in the bigger report. I do not remember off the top of my head which jurisdictions they gave as an example for this more form based code approach, at least for housing. I I wanna say Milwaukee and even Madras, which, of course, are very different than than unincorporated Clackamas County. I don't think we would ever be exactly like them, but we fully intend to look at other jurisdictions who've done this, pull pieces from it, and use what we can.

We're not trying to recreate the wheel here. We we don't we don't do that, and we we try not to do that because that is very time consuming. There are good examples out there.

Yeah. Well, it just it just strikes me as that's the the the end result will be a much simpler, easier code, but it's sounds like a fairly significant undertaking to redo it. Is

that fair enough? It is. I first, I say I hope so, but, yes, it is. And so we, that's why we need to put our heads together and really see what we can realistically accomplish in the next year and a half to two years Yeah. With the staff that we have.

Yeah. Well, that's what I that was my next thought is, okay. Do you have the capacity to take this on? So or will you be relying on consultants maybe to help with that, assuming you get funding?

We're trying to do the next piece in house. There may be some pieces that we would try to to get a consultant to work on, but we we have good code writers in house and Mhmm. Who are very it's just we find it easier to use staff who are intimately familiar, with our zoning code.

Mhmm. K. And, nurse, you have a question?

Yeah. Thanks, Tom. And very similar to your question, within the Tri County area, is this is can there be similarities into this code, that the Tri Counties could work together on to kind of come up with a simpler form. I mean, we're all under Oregon state law. Seems like there should be some kind of similarities from county to county instead of being unique to each county and having to create a whole new rule book just because you went across a county line.

I know this probably isn't constructive, but I'm just to me, it seems kinda funny that there's there is this like, it's almost like we're stepping into another country if you cross the county line. Now we have to change these rules, which I fully agree we need to modernize. And I am a little hung up on what form based approach is just like you are, Martha. So I was that was another question was to ask what that means. And in person town halls, I am going to applaud that, you know, they we need to just attract we need to have something to attract more people in.

And that's just you know, we need more voice. We we get plenty of complaint, but we need to focus on how to build somehow or another. I don't know if there has to be an idea out there to attract people besides free beer. Think

And I think it has to I mean, on sublevel, it has to be a more tangible interesting topic. Like, I would expect that Karen will have more success in in person, open houses for the transportation system plan because it's people looking at maps and identifying problems or, you know, issues in in their area. I mean, those things are a little bit easier than talking about a zoning code, you know, which is a document that most people probably don't ever use. But I can also say, tying into your conversation before the meeting, Tammy, there aren't there are very few urban CPOs that are active right now, and so it it's even you know, just to send out an open house notification has even become more difficult because we don't have a lot of active urban CPOs. And so that's something worth thinking about as well.

And so I guess I I hear you, Mirth, about this, you know, crossing county lines and having things completely different. I think that I know that Washington County is working on a similar project. I don't know what their recommendations are going to be and how different it is. I think at the end of the day, in terms of development, we hope that the development experience is more streamlined, and our code is more efficient. But we you're right.

We all are under the same state rules, and so there there will still be a lot of similarities across the cities and across the Tri Counties. And so I do coordinate with Washington County. There's there's not much urban unincorporated Multnomah County, if any at all. And so I do coordinate with Washington County, but at the end of the day, you know, they're different, and they have different elected officials. And they just have a lot of similar issues, but they have different issues.

And so it's it's never it's never gonna be the same code for all, but there are with more and more legislation coming down from the state, our codes are gonna probably start to look more more similar.

Thank you, Martha.

Yeah. Of course.

May I ask about thresholds for development too? Now thresholds meaning would this be upgrades to public utility that would service an area that's looking for development such as arterials of water and sewer power? Are these certain thresholds that we're looking at, or am I not seeing this as you're putting it out?

So I was gonna jump

in to this to this. Is we've really focused on the thresholds around transportation, I would say, and, and what are the triggers that would then require, first, something like a a traffic impact study, which then is used to to be able to understand the impact on the transportation system, is is one of those pieces. But I don't think we've had as much conversation about thresholds around other types of utilities. Is that that that would be accurate. Right, Martha? We really haven't talked about that. That's really kinda falls more within those different districts themselves. Right?

Yes.

Yeah. I think another part of the thresholds conversation, without getting too into the weeds, has to do with certain types of development review, specifically design review, and maybe creating a tiered system for if there are small upgrades to a building or small additions to a building, versus large additions or a brand new building, and there may be being sort of different different thresholds of review in that in that area because there's nothing really explicit in our code. You either have to do design review or you don't. I mean, you can do a modification of it. Right?

But, that has some specific standard that a lot of developments can't fall into. And so it just is sometimes seems a little bit unwieldy to send somebody through a full design review when it's just a really small project.

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. We need to minimize that. Yep. Thank you.

Any other questions, for staff? Oh, okay. You're back.

Well, I don't have a question. One thing that so when we were when I went and I spoke with Elitek, which is the leader leaders in sorry. Leaders in

Equity and diversity.

Equity and diversity. Yeah. Inclusion. Yeah. I anyway, that's what it that's the group.

And one of the things that we talked about was how can we do a better job of connecting with people on this topic? Like, are there groups out there that we're not thinking about that may be engaged with our zoning development ordinance in a way that we should be going out and reaching out to them? Or is there or is there a way that we can be presenting this project that people can connect better with? Right? And and so I don't know if any of you have ideas around that topic.

Right? Like because really our next one of our next steps as we're thinking about pulling together the packages of changes is is there a, more information gathering that we wanna do before we, you know, put together a package and and jump into the public hearing process through an amendment package? So I guess if anybody has any ideas, we we're welcome to hear them.

Sounds like Murph has Murph has a, idea or comment.

I have an idea. And just one comes to mind right away, and that's councils of councils of Clackamas County. The council of councils, which kinda covers all of the watershed councils at least. And, oh, I'd have to let there's a couple others that it that it works with. And this would be probably more on the environmental end, but you're still reaching out to a group that's paying attention to what kind of development's going on, what kind of wetlands are being affected, what kind of boundaries should be drawn.

That type. I don't I don't know if you're looking for that type of input.

No. I think that's great. And, also, maybe that could be helpful in our in the ZDO two ninety Yeah. Project as well. So that's helpful.

I I have some thoughts. Having been involved in inclusion and diversity in my former life. And so the the question that comes up is how I see this is, is our current zoning have an adverse effect on certain communities or not? Do we know do our our zoning codes are more make it more difficult for certain parts of our society to develop than others. Because to me, that seems like what would be behind involving that group.

Do we know? I mean, we don't have it some of the crazy stuff that went on back in the you know, where certain certain ethnicities couldn't couldn't move into certain neighborhoods. I mean, that's that's be that's gone. I would hope anyway. So it's more of a question as and this is something that we wrestled with at the port.

We had we often didn't realize that some of our policies or practices were more were made at harder on other types of communities than others. We just assumed it was there wasn't an impact until we kinda woke up, you know, a number of years ago and started addressing that and thinking about, okay. Well, you know, how does this how do our our concessions program influence, you know, are we are we getting a good cross reference of of diversity and inclusion when we do our concessions programs, for example? So so to me, that's how I how I'm envisioning what that would mean. So that to me, it's it's it'd be interesting to know if there's an issue within within the community or not.

And and I would say we haven't done an assessment to tell our that gives us an answer to that question.

Correct.

But I do know, again, when I I went to LEDIC, one thing that was brought forward was the fact that, sometimes, one of the, members of the group said sometimes and neighbors will come to her and ask her to, like, read the, notice that they got about a land use action. You know, and because they don't because English isn't their primary language.

Okay.

And so maybe there are issues with regards to language, that are creating a barrier. And, perhaps there are ways such as in in that world of notice, about different actions. But those are the that that was the one thing that, they pointed to directly, as a barrier. That that, I'm not

I

through this project, I haven't learned of other things that are specifically related to a particular, kind of, community that has barrier to accessing the code.

So the language would be an interesting one. Does that mean we have to have the zoning codes translated to multiple languages?

So maybe I

have to go to county.

Yeah. There

there actually is an, I believe, going to be an effort kind of at the county. It's already sort of started, but, we're a little bit sidetracked right now with some things we need to deal with for ADA web accessibility. And we can only focus on so many things at once. Yeah. But there is this need to translate vital documents into multiple languages.

Uh-huh. It isn't I do not believe, however, that it's going to turn out that we have to have the entire zoning code available in five languages. It I think it's probably for something like that gonna end up being more along the lines of on demand translation as opposed to maintaining. Because, frankly, I mean, I can't even imagine, you know, exactly how we would do that. And then it'd be fine if you had to do it once, but then every time you amend it, you have to send it back out.

And, you know, the demand has been really low for that. And so I think that sort of investment is probably not as opposed to maybe, you know, things where, like, application forms that the county has for which could include land use applications, but for various benefits and services and things that the county offers legal, you know, where you're dealing with a legal system, the stuff that absolutely needs to be available, I think, yes, that's gonna be just available. But I think we'll probably be more of an on demand model.

That that would make make more sense. I I had some experience early on in my career at the airport when some of our our projects with signage, and we wanted to translate the signage. Mhmm. And you would get different interpretations by different people speaking the same language or what that sign how you and and translated it. So I could imagine translating zoning codes would be crazy difficult. Anyway Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting interesting dilemma.

I think there is something, and I don't I'm if somebody said this, I missed it. But I it's I mean, there's one thing about making our documents accessible, but then there's also just or or or doing our outreach in a way that's you know, reaches a broader cross section of people. But it yeah. It's about putting this lens on the code itself and sort of, you know, is it that we are our expectations? I mean, are my expectations, I'll just use myself, of what people consider to be quality of life or what kind of neighborhood they wanna live in or what kind of design standards they want or you know?

It's not just because I feel that way doesn't mean, right, that all groups do. And so there there definitely is that. Like, are we just are our codes for a long time have been, I think, intended to replicate nineteen fifty suburbia? And that is starting to change. And some of us still like nineteen fifty suburbia. I'll put myself in that bucket. And there's a lot of other great ways to live too. Right? And we're starting to see that sort of, like, you know, that swing, but it's painful because then people get upset about that and you see the pushback against, you know, like, middle housing, higher density, and all of those things. And I think Yeah.

Yeah.

Our code is definitely in a state of transition right now, and it's it's messy. So, hopefully, this project can, you know, kind of put that a little bit.

I just yeah. The diversity and inclusion, that could could make for some interesting conversations. Mhmm. And you can really where you take that. I spent a lot of time, because of our contracts, making sure there was opportunities for all the various and I was very active in all the all the trade groups representing all the various, so it was a big part of my world, before I retired.

So I'm very, very sensitive to that and making sure there's equal opportunities for folks. So and we're not not intent intentionally or unintentionally discriminating people against people for a variety of reasons. So I spent a lot of time with that arena and stuff. Alright. I'll get off my soapbox. Murph.

Again, translations. But it's almost like a kiosk you could have for translation to you know, your cell phone has opportunity or apps that could translate Yeah. I don't know, twenty, thirty, 40 different languages. I know you get hearing aids that will translate Mhmm. For you.

So I would think that barrier could be left to the applicant to actually get something translated to something that he could understand. I don't think it would fully be on the counties Yeah. Except to provide a Yeah. Kiosk or something to

do. Yeah. I mean, right now, the the county we have, contracts in place to provide on demand, translation, like, in the field for an inspector or a code enforcement officer, if there's a language barrier that they can, you know, call on the phone and get the person connected with somebody who can interpret. Right. I always say translation when I should say interpretation, who can interpret. Right. And, you know, we have we at our front counter in planning, we've used it a few times where you just call and and can connect the person. It's Right. You know, I have not personally used the service, but some of the people some of our staff have. So that's been available for a while.

I think, you know, there is at least the county has a policy. I'm not sure exactly what where that crosses over into what the law says, but, about the you know, us providing that. But I what you said about, you know, is there gonna be a higher tech solution to some of this than this concept of sending out the zoning code some way and having it come back in, you know, Mandarin and Spanish and, you know, Vietnamese and and then just sitting on a shelf somewhere or a digital digital shelf somewhere. I think you're probably right that that's gonna evolve into something that's a little more probably a little more fluid and a little more available on demand. But what that looks like, I don't you know, the concept of having a kiosk or whatever that somebody could come into and sort of, like, translate it themselves is a great idea.

I just don't know. You know, I know those translate apps are pretty advanced, but when I start thinking about highly technical things like building code or the zoning code, I wonder if is that does that work? You know? I I because so much of the of the lexicon is so industry specific, and you wonder, like, how well does that translate to, you know, to another language without having somebody who's really who understands the subject matter and is able to you know? I I don't I haven't done any research, but that's what I kinda wonder about is how how valuable the translation would be if it turns out that it's like, what? What's density? Like, that doesn't work in terms of, you know, in terms of the translation. It's not

a word for it. Yeah. It's a language.

Exactly. It may not have a trans translated word just because it came out of the English language. Doesn't mean yeah. What's what do

they call it? Is it a totally different you know? So I I mean, I know AI is advancing in, like, leaps and bounds every day, but I I don't know if we're there yet or not.

Debbie, you have a question.

Well, I'm I'm kinda going back to Karen's question because I'm racking my brains on this. I mean, if a and I know half the CPOs are not active, and I've never really noticed that a lot of the urban are not. So and that's where we would be heading, obviously. I mean, if this was rural, I'd be you know, there I'd have a whole list of groups that we would wanna con granges and farmers and, you know, organizations and lots of clubs out here because, you know, we're bored. But I don't know in urban.

I don't live urban, and I a lot of you do. What I mean, obviously, not book clubs, but what about, other organizations like, trying to think of, like, Elks or I I know that wouldn't be specific to urban, but it would be to an area. And have you run that question by somebody like a Karen Bjorklund who lives in an urban, unincorporated area. I I just I can't come up with the kinds of groups that would be interested in knowing about their future inside or their land future inside urban. So I I wish I could help you with that, Karen, but I I mean, I'm sure some of you would maybe know of some groups that might be more besides, you know, quilty.

Well, no. That's us. We're. But I'm not coming up with anything. Sorry.

Well, that's okay, and thank you for that, Tammy. When we went and talked to Jennings Lodge and Oak Grove CPO, we did ask the same question. So we have been asking around, and I think it depends on the topic. You know? We also have, public and government affairs, like a community involvement department division, not sure what they are, group, who who do focus on those types of issues.

And we have a lot of other org like, areas, in the county, other departments that work with local community groups, and we sometimes can connect with them. I think the challenge with this particular project has been trying to find people who who would provide meaningful feedback because they understand the topic, because they've used I mean, because they've done development, because they use, have used the the ZDO. As we move forward with our packages of amendments, it may be I think that doing some more generalized outreach and trying to identify some of these community groups would make more sense because we would be talking about potential specific changes on the ground and how, you know, how it might look or affect their community. That's an easier sort of conversation to have than, you know, what what in our zoning and development ordinance has really made development hard for you. Right?

It just it's it's been a bit of a technical exercise to date.

Murph, I see your hands up again.

Again. Well, brainstorming. We started mountain science night up here to bring awareness for wildfire issues and natural hazard issues, and it packs the house. Perhaps some go to the taverns and start and start having zoning night or something or zoning development night. I'm

not kidding.

You could probably get a crowd.

We just start our own trivia night like they do at various taverns.

You

know? There's only trivia night.

Oh, I'm I'm sure that'll bring out a big crowd.

There we go.

Is that just attach the word wildflower fire to it, then you'll get a good turnout.

Well, I know some of the bigger turnouts in urban areas is when you wanna talk about tree ordinances, and then you can't you'll pack a house in a second. So just to add, you know, the Outside of tree ordinances? It'll be two eighty nine diagnostic report and tree ordinances. And then, yeah, you you won't be you won't have a big enough building. Okay.

Well, then you've got a suggestion. Alright. On a serious note, any other questions or comments? Okay. Well, this should be an interesting undertaking. I'll be anxious to see how it all plays out. A lot of work. Don't envy you and staff as you kinda tackle this. Just as a side note, do we have a a mandate from the state as to when the current objective standards need to be done?

Already. Yeah. We're already out of compliance. So the, it's been kind of a rolling a rolling thing. There's actually been a requirement, I'll say forever, for decades, that standards be clear and objective inside urban growth boundaries for, I believe it used to say, needed housing, which had a specific definition that's now broader than it used to be, on buildable lands, which in the urban area was basically meant you got to pull out things like wetlands and stream buffers and steep slopes and things like that that aren't necessarily weren't necessarily considered to be, quote, buildable lands.

Right.

What happened was and I'm not gonna get the facts quite right, but there was a case in Washington County, with a land, proposed land division that kind of really, surfaced this issue about buildable lands versus all lands. And, ultimately, and I went back and forth, Ina Luba Court of Appeals. I can't really remember, but but what ultimately happened was the legislature was persuaded to change the law, I think as a direct of that case. And so they removed the buildable lands part. And so, basically, at that point, clear and objective standards were required on all land for housing in the urban area, which then meant, oh, wait.

Now our standards for things like wetland buffers and steep slopes and all have to be clear and objective also. Right. And it's been a few years now, but everybody didn't just jump right on it and go out and amend all their standards. It was it flew, I think, a little under the radar, and there's been so many other things going on with middle housing and, you know, a pandemic and all the various things that it kind of got, sort of shuffled to the side a little bit. So then, they expanded it to apply to rural residential and unincorporated communities, and that took effect July 1.

So we are out of compliance. There are a number of jurisdictions around the state that are out of compliance. We have we're in good company, but it's it's not a good situation. Like, we are we are working to change that. It's just so much more difficult than it sounds. When you say clear and objective standards,

it sounds like, well, what's

the big deal? Well because, a, it's not easy it's not easy to write clear objective standards. And then

b your legislation is clear and objective.

Well right. And then but, yeah, and the state keeps passing things that aren't clear and objective also, let me just say. Yeah. You know? So that's that's challenging. But it's just it it opens up policy questions. It's not as simple as just taking something that's vague and discretionary and saying, well, we'll just make it clear and objective, and there's no policy implications for that. Of course, there are. It's like, am I making it less restrictive, more restrictive? Does it affect different people than it did before? And trying to parse all that is, it's hard. And, you know, the z d o two ninety is I I keep telling people it's keeping me awake at night, and I'm only kidding a little bit. It's Yeah. It's a sticky wicket. So, anyway, we're out of compliance, and we're moving forward as fast as we can.

So Okay. Because I'm I'm thinking this is is probably a bigger undertaking than what we you attempted to do a number of years back when we went back and did the updates. Yes. Those were you know, they weren't major changes in the code and how you approach the code. This is a whole different approach. And Yes. I think this is gonna take it's gonna take some time, particularly if you don't have the resources to focus on it. I was just curious what kind of trouble, you know, the county is gonna be in because we don't have them clear objective standards by a certain timeline.

Uh-huh. So there's two consequences of that when you say what kind of trouble. There's the application by application consequence, which is that we are, when when the standard is not clear and objective, it's not supposed to be applied. So it's not just that we apply our our vague standards and hope we don't, you know, get caught or something. It's that we are not supposed to be applying it. And so that's been a learning curve for staff because we're not used to just, oh, wait. I get to ignore that part. I not I get to. I have to ignore that part of the code. But we are not applying certain standards now because of that, which is unfortunate, but it's what we have to do.

So that's one piece. And and then some of it is trying to figure out, well, is this Clarinoptic? Is this not can I apply this one, but not that one? Can I apply half of it, but not the other half? You know, there's a lot of that going on. Mhmm. So we have that. And then the second potential is, yeah, we could ultimately have some state action to sort of compel us to move a little faster. But they're they're funding our grant right now on that project that Joy's working on. I mean, this isn't a secret.

They you know, the DLCD understands that there's a lot of jurisdictions in this boat, and they're they're trying to, you know, get us there as opposed to taking a heavy handed enforcement approach. But a private a private group could choose to file with the state for an enforcement order. That happened to Washington County, and it led to quite a a long and drawn out legal process before they finally got new regulations adopted and acknowledged. And, I just heard on Friday that Lane County is probably facing the same thing. So we really do wanna get this done. Just, you know, be because it's the right thing to do and because we don't want to be in that boat.

Yeah. Just a classic mandate that's not thought out and unrealistic in its expectations. And so but but it looks good to the public that they're they're acting up something.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I think initially I mean, in my mind, I think initially, it was probably thought to be things like, oh, just tell me how many windows I have to have and what my roofline pitch has to be. Don't give me these vague, you know Yeah.

Consistent with the character of the neighborhood or whatever where the builder doesn't know and the develop like, that I understand. But when you start thinking about, well, how do I you know? It's everything from well, when you say the building height is 35 feet and you show me this little whatever, you know, description of how that's not clear and objective. You have to have a better way of measuring height, or you have to have a you know, when you're starting to parse, like, every everything or, you know, for some of these, natural resources, sometimes it works better to have some flexibility, you know, and trying to make it clear and objective can be, can be a challenge.

So Yeah. Anyway

Yeah. Environmental things are not black and white. So

And infrastructure. They're really that's actually even worse. The engineers in the group should not there is no room for engineering judgment in clear and objective standards. You know? It is literally like, you know, everything. Sewer standards. We're lucky in a way because special districts aren't subject to this, so the sewer and water districts can have their normal rules. But for some, you know, public works, like, in some cities and things, if it's the city code, they have to try no. Or traffic study standards for us, we're just looking at that. We started talking about this last week. How to you know, can't just be, oh, the traffic engineers are gonna get together and kind of figure out what makes sense. It's like, nope. Doesn't work like that. So it gets to be, yeah, that gets to be a challenge.

Yeah.

So, Jennifer, what about safe harbor? That, the safe harbor rule in goal five. Can the county think on that at all, or is that only limited to goal five?

I'm not gonna say there's no other safe harbor in the lab, but off the top of my head, then, yes, goal five is the is the one I'm aware of. And there isn't a safe harbor for every goal five resource, but there is for some. And so, yes, there's a safe harbor for, like, the stream the stream buffers, and we could do that. I mean, I think that would be something the county could choose to do. At the moment, in our discussions, we're leaning more toward keeping the larger buffer that we have and then having the standards like, the the optional discretionary pathway would be to make the buffer a little bit smaller if they met certain, you know, discretionary standards for why maybe it's not realistic to have, say, a 150 feet from the Clackamas, for example.

I believe that the safe harbor buffers are actually smaller than ours. So we're probably not gonna opt in that direction, at least at this point. I mean, who knows what's gonna happen by the time we get through this entire process, but that's not where we were starting. So Well,

definitely in my neighborhood, we need bigger buffers.

Yeah. I didn't think you guys were gonna be advocating for me to reduce them. I can't remember if it's, like, 75 feet. It might be 75. I can't remember what the what the safe harbor is, but we we definitely have some buffers that are bigger than that. And so I think we'll probably just propose to leave those in place and and just sort of flip it on its head so that it won't just say anywhere from a 100 to a 150 feet depending on all these discretionary things. It'll say a 150. And then if you meet these you know, it's just a slightly different way of of framing the standard that I think will work. That's probably one of the easier ones we have to deal with. But yeah. Because the because the clear and objective pathway is pretty more obvious for that one. But but, anyway, yes, safe harbors could be the answer in some cases.

Yeah.

And, just kind of on that goal five, Martha mentioned easier to, designate or locate or identify property lines. Now, you know, like, of course, I'm not in the urban area. I saw something about property lines in your, report. In my neighborhood, property lines just disappear, and they become owned by the river. So if you have a setback from a property line, now that's changed because you can't find that property line anymore.

How do we how do we change that? It could change before the year's over. Been seeing it happen. And, yeah, that's why I say we need bigger buffers.

I don't have an answer for the for the I mean, in that case, if the property line is under the river, let's say, we would be measuring from the river anyway for the river buffer, and so probably the rear yard it's usually the rear yard, not always, but usually the rear yard. Setback ends up being kind of not important because you're measuring instead from the river. But it doesn't change what you're saying. And in fact, this exact question was asked by one of the members of the board of county commissioners at our policy session about Joy's clear and objective standards project last week and about that. Well, what happens?

Like, the river can shift. The sandy can move, and I I have no answer for that. I mean, we can't there's I don't know how we could possibly establish a buffer that would sort of predict what may happen to the river. So it's it ends up being that the buffer is from wherever the river is when you get you know, when you're ready to get your permit, and that doesn't work so well in your area. You know? But the alternative, of course, which you're gonna tell me this, Murph, is channel migration zones with no building within that area at all. Well, that is you know? Right? That's gonna go over like a lead balloon.

So you have much of that in her area, it?

Yeah. Two blocks in front of my property right now are within the channel migration zone, and they're built. So what do you do with these homes?

Correct. Yep.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think we have minutes to approve from the last meeting. Does anyone, I wasn't there. So I I

don't I wasn't there either.

So do we even have a quorum to vote on them?

No. You've only got four, so we'll just hold them over for the next time.

Okay. Yeah. And then the next, I think, is a schedule review.

Yeah. Which, of course, do I have it in front of me? No. I didn't open it up.

What does somebody wanna tell me what's on the schedule?

July is what I saw.

We have May. We have a public hearing in May. Right?

We have

a public hearing on May 11. Did I get that right?

Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

Yes. And

then and then July. I'm sorry.

So yes. So May 11 is the public hearing for, the minor and time sensitive amendments that we had a policy session about recently. I will not be here, full disclosure, on May 11. I'm very sad to report that I will be in Italy on May 11, and you can me. I will probably not be missing you. But, but that yeah. I'm gonna miss I'm gonna miss a meeting. So Okay. Martha will be here running point on that, and, you met Mel, Melissa Lord and Nick Hart at the last meeting also, and they will be here providing an assist for Martha on that on that package. So you will be in excellent hands.

I don't think at this point we anticipate that this is gonna be controversial, but, I mean, one never knows what may what may come out. But at the moment, we're not we're assuming that it probably will not be. K. And then, yeah, Joy has a policy session. We're back with, I think, the consultants, right, in July, Karen? Is that right? The consultants will

be July 27 and, August 10.

Yep.

So is it both?

Think it's both because we're starting to actually delve into there there will actually be drafts of the, clear and objective standards amendments for yeah. There'll be a lot, I think. Somewhere

we need to chew on that.

Yep. Yep. And I guess I would say those I would call those dates semi firm. They're pretty firm, but I still feel like this project is really big, and we're trying to get our arms wrapped around it. So maybe it could move again, but that's the that's the goal. And then we have a quasi judicial comprehensive plan amendment and zone change to go to rural industrial, based upon an it being an abandoned or diminished mill site. That's their argument. We don't know yet whether we agree with them or not, but that's, that's the argument. And so that application, I don't have a hearing date for it yet. Taylor Campy is gonna run point on that.

She's been here once or twice for things, but she hasn't actually kind of been the the person on one of these files yet. But she's been shadowing Martha, helping Martha on a lot of them. So, she will be the lead on that, and I'll be working with her to figure out what date. But I don't think we're looking at anything sooner than June for that. So at the moment, we don't have anything in April.

Okay. Okay. Recruitments, is that all wrapped up?

I need to check with Darcy, but I do know that Louise and Murph both reapplied last I knew anyway unless you've pulled your applications. So we did have to open it. We still have to open for a full recruitment, and I have not heard from Darcy yet who you know, what what we got. Okay. So more to come on that, but it's certain there's nothing official yet as far as appointments.

Okay. And then, I think my term is coming to an end here sometime this year.

April or as soon thereafter as, you know,

we can Even next meeting?

So we probably will not just given you'll have to have elections, and I don't know if you wanna do elections right before we start a hearing that night. So I'm guessing we probably won't have the transition happen in on exactly May 1, which is okay. But, yeah, you probably wanna be thinking ahead to maybe doing officer elections on May 11, like, maybe after the hearing, and then we can have the handoff because Tom is term limited. This will be the end of his second consecutive term as the chair. So Right. Yep. Alright.

And second time.

Exactly. You have more than done your

Yeah.

With So

I had a nice gap in between. I think it was, like, ten years. Yeah. That's scary, isn't it? Alright. Alright. So we'll so we'll plan on election. So any any I I might be tapping on some people's shoulders to see what interest there is out there in the meantime. So so, hopefully, we'll have some potential candidates who we can vote on. So

Sounds good.

Alright. Well, so one last question. So where are you going in Italy, and how long are you gonna be gone?

Yeah. So I'm gonna be gone well, the total trip, we're gone just over two weeks, but we're doing the where you fly through Iceland and get to have a stopover.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we're gonna do three nights three nights in Iceland on the way there. Makes packing challenging, I gotta say, but we're gonna rent some rent some, like, jackets and things in Iceland. So and then, yeah, five nights. We've never been to Italy, so anything good would be brand new. Decided to do we decided less was more in this case, and we're not doing the let's try to see the whole country in two weeks. So we are doing, five nights in Rome and then five nights in Sorrento from where we'll do Pompeii and Capri

and Oh. Oh.

Positano and all the things

on Yeah. We off the coast. Last time I was in Italy, we did that.

Yeah. So I'm very excited.

Yeah.

Nice. Very, very excited.

Martha, I see you have your hand up. Oh, changed your mind.

Oh, no. No. I just I wanted to jump in here. I thought there was a for good of the order, line item. So not to not to get back from take away from the fun conversation.

I've been a little negligent, in doing my report back for, items that you have heard, over the last several months, and I was really hoping to have it written up and put together for you, and I did not. But I just mostly wanted you to be made aware that the board of county commissioners hearing for the last land use hearing that you had for the irrevocably committed goal exception zone change, that has been put up that has been postponed sort of indefinitely. The applicant has requested that we put that applications on hold, and he is trying to pursue a nonfarm dwelling on that property. And so if they're successful and he gets his dwelling on that property, we expect that he would withdraw that application. And so that one, if you recall, is the one that's both staff and you recommended denial on.

Mhmm. So the applicant is trying for that route. The other two that I was gonna write up, are the one for the Recovery Campus, and also Rosevilla, and the board approved both of those. It's the short version Right. With no changes, I I believe.

Okay.

So I had pen I had penciled commission meeting. I've got county commissioners meeting. But since it's been postponed, I don't have to worry about it.

That's right. Okay.

Alright. Well, I think that's that's about it for the night then. So I guess we'll adjourn the meeting, and we'll see you all back in May except for Jennifer. Yeah. And we'll wanna hear all about her trip when when she gets back. Excited to hear at

least Wonderful.

Compare notes with you.

That's right.

Yeah. Alright. Good night, everyone.

Hey. Thanks. Good night.

Bye. Bye. Done.