Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the uh city of Cous Bay Planning Commission meeting of December 9th uh 2025 here. Thank you everybody for coming out. um like to start with uh any public comments here and if if we can if if you have any public comments related to the agenda items. If we can save those uh for the uh appropriate commenting section during those agenda items, I'd appreciate that. If we have anything not related to the two agenda items today, um please feel free to step forward. Anybody you Okay, hearing none, go ahead and move forward. We've got a not a lot on the agenda, but I imagine it'll be fairly busy and I've got some pages to read here, so bear with me. We'll go ahead and uh start with the commissioner appointment to the parks commission. We're recommending an consideration to recommend the appointment of a planning commissioner to the park commission as a planning commission representative.

Yes. So, we're just looking for a representative from the commission uh to volunteer or be appointed to serve on the parks commission. um which is a a requirement for for the parks. When does the parks commission meet? They are every I believe it's the first and third Tuesday of every month at 4 sorry

Thursday. Sorry. Thank you. The first and third Thursday of every month at 4 p.m. Well, um I would be interested, but I'm retight. I guess you guys

have a motion and second here to appointment to the Planning Commission representative to the parks commission. I carries volunteer.

Okay. Uh now moving on to our public hearing uh section here. First public hearing to consider the type 4 land use application number 17-25-0000154-g the housing development project here got a bit to read so bear with me here I now open a public hearing on land use application number 187-25-0000154 4-PG. Today is December 9th, 2025. It is 6:04 p.m. My name is Josh Stevens. I'm the planning commission chair. The planning commission will make a recommendation to the city council on this application based on the complete record, including the testimony received at tonight's public hearing. These proceedings will be recorded. The hearing will be conducted in accordance with Kouspay Development Code and state law. Specifically, city staff will first present the staff report and recommendation for public testimony. I will first ask to hear from people who'd like to speak in favor of the proposal. I will then ask to hear from those in opposition to the proposal. Finally, people who have neutral comments or questions about the proposal will have the opportunity to speak. City staff may then present additional material and recommendations based on the public testimony. After each presentation, I may ask for questions from the commission. For anyone wishing to speak, we are asking you use the signup sheet that has been provided. When called upon to speak, you must state your name and address for the public record. We ask that each speaker limit themselves to no more than three

minutes. Please remember that all presentations will be timed. You will be informed when your allotted time has expired. All speakers exceeding the time limit will be asked to immediately conclude his or her remarks. To minimize repetitive testimony, organizations are encouraged to have only one person speak for the group with other members of the organization standing to show their support. Each person may testify only once unless called back to the podium at the request of a planning commission member to respond to a question. Thank you for your cooperation. The planning commission is required to disclose any conflicts of interest and exparte contacts that we have with the proposal or applicant. That is whether we have any financial or other personal interests in the proposal and whether we have spoken with anybody about the proposal outside of this hearing. Do any commission members wish to make disclosures? Hearing none. Are there any challenges from the audience as to conflicts of interest, exparte context or bias related to any member of the planning commission? Okay. State law requires me to tell you a number of things at the beginning of the hearing. First, the applicable substantive criteria that apply to this application are contained in the notice of public public hearing, the written staff report and will be identified and discussed in the oral staff report. Second, your testimony, arguments, and evidence must be directed toward these criteria or other criteria in the comprehensive plan or development code that you believe apply to this application. Third, failure to raise an issue accompanied by statements or evidence

sufficient to afford the decision maker or other people an opportunity to respond may preclude appeal of a decision on this application based on that issue. Planning commission will make a recommendation to the city council for a final decision. A decision of the city council may be appealed to the land use board of appeals. [clears throat] We will now hear from staff who will go over the staff report. Joseph.

Okay, great. Thank you. I'm going to um share my screen. Just give me a minute. Okay. So, this um land use application, it's it's a referred to as the Englewood Housing Development Project. It is a proposal to approve a what we refer to as a planned unit development for workforce affordable housing. It includes a conditional use permit to allow for zero lot line development together with amendment of the city's comprehensive plan map and zoning map to permit small lot residential use on the property. So the proposal breaking it down the planned unit development it's something we use when a property is constrained or you need some flexibility to be creative in design. Uh the proposal is 30 single units of workforce affordable housing on approximately 2.21 acres of land. When we talk about workforce affordable, that means units affordable to Kuzbay residents earning between 80 and 120% of the area median income. The conditional use permit is specifically to allow what we call zero lot line development. Um, a portion of the 30 units will be detached uh on their separate lot. The rest will be what we call attached. They'll share a a wall along the property line. That's what that's for. And then the amendments to our comprehensive plan and zoning map, they're necessary because we

currently uh identify the property plan for it to be developed for commercial, medium, highintensity residential use. And this proposal uh would result in bringing that plan designation down to just allow residential low density type planning. Uh when we amend the zoning map, it's currently mixed use which is a commercial zoning district where you have a mix of commercial and highintensity residential uses permitted. The proposal will be to change that to allow for small lot residential use only. So this is just a brief overview of the maps. If you can I don't know if my pointer will work. Up at the top is the comprehensive plan map. Um you can see the designation. This yellow identifies the low density residential plan designation. And then this rectangular piece of property with the star. That's the subject property currently planned for higher commercial residential intensity type uses. Below is the zoning map overlay. It shows this orange. That's our small lot residential uh zone district and that surrounds the subject property which is currently identified here in purple as mixed use. And so you can see um that the subject property is kind of an island within um a lot of residential neighborhood. And the proposal is rather than to devel to to develop it with what it could be developed with stores, high density apartments to bring that back down to something that fits within the neighborhood to allow for the the single unit development.

So, a little bit of background. In 1913, this site was developed as the Englewood Elementary School. In 2014, that school was damaged um by a fire, burned to the ground. It was abandoned. In 2023, environmental cleanup of the site was completed. And we uh really emphasize this is a uh it's been five or so years of com coordination partnership between the city, the county, and developers to look at what makes sense for the property given the surrounding neighborhood. And the result has been a neighborhood infill development that meshes with the surrounding um residential uses. It's an again an example of partnerships working together to accomplish the goal of workforce affordable housing. So this is a going to provide a mix of two and threebedroom single units including parking and a trail amenity. Uh and the site is constrained and so that flexibility ability to be creative in design is necessary to achieve these types of units at the price points we're talking about. that's really, I think, geared towards your your nurses, your teachers, people like that who could afford these types of units. And then I just want to call out that a part of this proposal does include vacating a portion of unimproved 15th Street. Doing so uh provides for additional two units on the site. So, I'm just showing you a real uh snapshot of the proposal, the site plan. Uh you'll see it taking existing access off of South 15th. Maybe I should use the pointer

maybe. So, South 15th is runs north south here. The this area is what's proposed for vacation. These properties are developed with access that's all being maintained. Um the the road kind of feeds off of how it's already overlaid. It would um continue up here. You'd have your larger detached single units kind of in the back tucked on the hillside with the the smaller d attached units. Um more up front you've got another kind of existing access point that would be utilized here. the the the developers that the city has partnered with, they're here and they're I'm going to let them go into more details about this um this, you know, this part of it. Uh but I just wanted to put that out there and identify you have the the staff report, all the criteria for purposes of the land use proceeding. It's all laid out there. If we have any questions for me on that, feel free to ask. I want to point out that in a land use proceeding like this, notice is required. The city has made all the required public notices. The Department of Land Conservation and Development got their notice on November 3rd. We posted notice at city hall on the city website and in the city's newsletter back on November 17th. We also notified property owners within 300 ft of the subject parcel as well as outside agencies on November 17th. and then notice was published in the world newspaper on November 25th. And so to date, we've received some comments. Oregon Department of Transportation was included. They responded and said they have no comments based on their evaluation criteria. They typically will

look at when a city wants to reszone or change the uh plan designation of a map for is this triggering a higher intensity use that they need to mitigate the transportation infrastructure for. That's not the case. And so they've they've provided that they don't have any comments. Um, our engineering division has provided comments in the form of an engineering division staff report dated December 1st, 2025. That's attached to the staff report, your packet. It just um lays out some continued coordination that needs to happen between the developer and the city. And so a recommendation will be that appro any approval would be subject to condition that the teams continue to coordinate to satisfy all the engineering division's um needs in that letter. And then the general public, we've had lots of phone calls, inquiries. People have come to city hall to ask about the project. There's plenty of people here tonight, which is great. Lots of involvement and engagement. Um, I wanted to just kind of highlight the written comments, the general, uh, um, you know, uh, just briefly what those touched on and then we can go into those. We'll have a opportunity for public comment and we can talk about those more later. But to date in writing, I've received comments that suggest the findings of fact are flawed. They disagree with those findings. Um there was a statement made about the comp plan being amended with change in circumstances. Well, that's the case today. We have a need for housing. We have a parcel subject property within is an island in the middle of residential property. We're we're trying to develop it for what makes most sense, which

requires this change in the maps. Um, in a mixeduse zone today, you would currently be required to put no less than 12 residential units with no max um, and have some kind of commercial uh, use attached. The change will mean that you can only have a max of 12 units per acre and then any units over that would have to be like dedicated to affordable housing. And so that's what's happening here. We're within those density thresholds. Um, there were comments that suggest there's not a need for housing because the population has been static. Well, that's really opinion a statement that says the this proposal will double the amount of housing units on Pennsylvania. I just wanted to throw up a map kind of of the broader area. So, this is the subject pro property. It's not developed. This is um gosh darn it, I've lost my words. Southwest Boulevard. It's an arterial, which means it's it's meant for heavier flows of traffic. Then Pennsylvania is a local street. And you'll see that it continues out into the county and there's still there's plenty more development. So, it's certainly going to increase the number of units out there. Um, but I don't know that it's as substantial as maybe what people are leading on to believe. There's a comment made that trail amenity will attract illegal camping and criminal activity. It's not a fact. It's not been proven. Um the trail amenity is really there to connect this 15th down to I believe it's Illinois and just provide that for the area residents. There were questions about Pennsylvania on street parking. Is the road wide enough or would those vehicles turn

around? I mean, you can see that there's there's room for vehicles to make turns at the the different roads. There's areas for that. I do believe the road's wide enough. We have our public works director here. She can speak more to that. Um, there were just general questions about off- streetet parking traffic impacts. Has a traffic study been completed? There was one done in 2022 for a 40 unit apartment complex. And so we think that there's potential that that still applies to this because this is a lower impact development. And then there were statements made that we should be we should this we should be changing this to to allow small lot residential just like the rest of the neighborhood. Well, that's what we're doing. And one comment suggesting we need conditions such as locked gates, flood lights, and background checks. um those would be conditions that likely wouldn't hold up if some this was appealed to Luba. So, I just wanted to call those out. I'm sure there'll be more tonight and we can talk about those. Um but that's what I've received in writing so far. And so, I'll just conclude with um the fact that planning commission can recommend city council approve the land use application based on the information presented with the recommended findings. again asking that a condition be that there be continued coordination between uh the developer and our engineering division to ensure that all the the items addressed in their staff report are satisfied and then also including enactment of an ordinance confirming the amendments to the comprehensive plan map and the zoning map. And then with that um I'm open to questions but I also want to call um the developer Darren's here up. he has a presentation and he can kind of go over some more information in detail if you don't mind letting him

talk and then we can have questions comments that works. Okay, Chelsea, Mr. Chair, do you want to ask questions to Chelsea first? We'll get this paused and then I can address those too. Question.

Okay. And I am going to pull up Good evening. While Chelsea's pulling up some slides, which I apologize in advance, there there's going to be a little bit of redundancy, so I'll try to go fast over the ones you've already looked at. Um, my name is Darren Nichols. I'm a member of Compass Communities LLC. We are a a collection of planners and builders and community developers who work directly with cities and counties across the state of Oregon solving challenges really. Um and housing, it turns out, is at or near the top of the list for a lot of cities and counties these days. Um so we we operate um we're a private firm. We operate without subsidies, but we use um local investments, our own kind of team of investors and our kind of skilled team to help evaluate um solutions basically, but we worked with cities and counties. So um we're not a typical development company and that we're not driven by profit. were really driven more by um problem solving. Personally, I have 30 years of experience as a community development director and agency director working on the public sector side of things. Have recently moved into the private sector to basically do that work in helping developers and cities um work together to solve problems. So, when we talk about this project, it's a this is a project that was brought to us by the city of Kous Bay. we were asked to take a look at the site and to evaluate um kind of what we thought was possible here and we'll talk about that in a minute but um that's who we are. I want to introduce a couple of my colleagues in the audience. I have um our building team lead Damon Olsen is also a member of Compass Communities and part of our development team and then Eric Kirby is our civil engineer. Eric's the one with the beard and the cool hat. Um, so, uh, this is just part of our team, the team that's been working with, um, Nicole and

Chelsea and Jennifer and Kelly and, um, Amy and Jeff and a long list of other folks on the city side to kind of evaluate, um, what really is the right kind of future for this neighborhood and for this particular site. All right. So, um I'm going to look at this map because it's um it's sorry to interrupt you before you get started. I wanted to offer this is a pointer the red clicks that and then to remind planning commission if you'll make sure your mics are on and you speak into your microphone so those online can hear.

Thank you, Chelsea. And please interrupt me at any time if you have questions as we go. Just just get my attention. Thank you. So, um you can see the map of Kusby. You're all familiar with this. So you can see where the Anglewood School site is. It's down at the south near the kind of southern end of Kuspay's city limits. We can move to the next couple slides. I think that one's not going to tell us too much. Thank you. PowerPoint. So, uh, yeah, same same slide here. just shows the Anglewood neighborhood inside the red circle generally and then the arrow points to where the site is. Chelsea's already talked a little bit about the history. This is a fascinating piece of property in that it was developed as a school, an elementary school in 1913 and really um for most of a century served that kind of use in the in the neighborhood until 2014 when a fire burned and substantially damaged the site. At that point, it was partially demolished and really became kind of a, as I understand it, a a bit of a dumping ground for folks. Um it was a you know an open public site that just kind of got worse over time until Kous County and the city of Kous Bay invested um substantial funds to clean up the site to fully clean up the old school but also remove the soil and a lot of the CA contamination and to ensure that um the site is actually ready for redevelopment. So that work finished in 2023 um when the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality um issued what's called a letter a letter of no further action. So DEEQ basically agreed that the site was clean and ready for redevelopment. Um and in early 2025, we um met with city officials and county officials and began the conversation that we're now

presenting to you this evening. So we were presented with three basic goals. One is to provide housing for the cousay area workforce. The second is to evaluate neighborhood scale infill sites. So sites that are already inside the city limits um and have an opportunity to to infill in existing neighborhoods. um partly to generate some positive reinvestment in Kouspay but also to really help redevelop the community in places where um there's an opportunity to strengthen the community the Kuspay community and then last but not least was really to demonstrate what's possible through cooperative partnerships. And I have to say that your your city and county officials have done an amazing job of working together in part to clean up the site, but also to present Cous Bay as a place, a community that's that's ready for reinvestment, a place where it's easy to approach the city staff, a place that is ready to invite and welcome um new investments in Kous Bay. And we we look for these kinds of communities. And I feel like um I just need to pause there to really shout out um that fact. Not every community works well together. And um we are pretty discriminating in the places that we choose to work. In Kous Bay, it's a privilege to work with your your city staff and officials because they're problem solvers. They want to be partners in helping to strengthen and um reinvest in the community. So, what you're asked to do tonight is to make four recommendations to the city council. The and Chelsea's already walked you through this. First of all, amend the comprehensive plan from commercial to residential. Secondly, to amend the zoning on this site consistent with the comprehensive plan from mixed use to small lot residential zoning and then approve a

planned unit development, which is really just a fancy way of saying subdivision but subdivision with some flexibilities um that would allow a 30 lot neighborhood plat to be filed on this property. And then also fourth, um, approve a conditional use which would enable the attached, um, town homes, which I'll I'll end with a picture of those. You can kind of see what those could look like. Um, there. So, here's the Engold School site back then. This is after the fire when it was really kind of dangerous. You can tell it was it was um kind of a demolition site for a period of time. And then that got cleaned up. In the next slide, there's the aerial view of the site after it was cleaned up. And then uh show you some photos here. We can just flip to the next slides, I think, fairly quickly. Thank you. Um so just to orient you, if you're traveling west up Pennsylvania Avenue, there's a fairly steep grade. You can see that here. So there's Pennsylvania Avenue on the left, South 15th Street on the right, and kind of that area in the middle there, this corner is really the southeast corner of the uh roughly 2acre site that we're talking about. This is um kind of traveling further up Pennsylvania Avenue and looking back downhill from the other southwest corner of the site. You get a little better sense for what's up there. It's mostly filled with grass right now, but you can kind of get a sense for the topography here and um some of the challenges of getting a neighborhood tucked in um [snorts] in between these slopes. I think the next couple pictures show the slope a little bit. You can see here, this is looking down the roughly down the west property line. Um there's an elevation change here on the site of about uh 20 ft, maybe a little more than

20 ft. In fact, it might be 25 ft from top to bottom. There's several mature fur trees. It's actually really beautiful place. Between the topography and the trees, it makes a really nice buffer. Um, and kind of a visual aesthetic ple aesthetically pleasing landscape. This is looking at that same angle kind of 90° looking straight west. You can see um there's a couple of homes up in uh up on the top of the bluff here. There's some existing homes that are part of Pennsylvania Place, an existing neighborhood. So, there's some homes up above um at the top of that bluff who also enjoy the trees and enjoy the topography and the view. So, here's the main here's the main site. This is actually the portion that is zoned mixeduse. Um I'm gonna Well, I'll try to use the clicker here. So, you can see the orange block here. contains about 1.92 acres. The project that we're talking about also includes lot 3,300 here. And this little portion of the South 15th ride ofway, which it does, the road doesn't actually go through the the South 15th ends about where my cursor is. And then there's a very steep drop off here. It's too too steep for vehicles to travel. So, we're proposing to vacate that portion of the ride ofway and replace what really can't be a a roadway with a pedestrian trail that would benefit the neighbors on both ends, both Illinois and 15 South 15th. But together, that site is 2.21 acres. So, the reason is for 1.91 or 1.92 acres and then the full development is on a little over 2 acres uh of the full site. So it takes access from Pennsylvania and South 15th. We've already looked at the steep grades, talked about the zoning. There are kind of the full suite of utilities either right at the site or or

extended onto the site currently. So you've seen the roads we have u northbay water has uh I think a 6-in mainline in 15th. We've got access to sewer in both 15th and Pennsylvania. And then there's uh storm facilities and power facilities on the site. So here's the zoning map. And I uh this actually the comprehensive plan map. I put this up just um to kind of illustrate a little bit the unique nature. Here's the here's the school site down here. You see this little island of purple, which is the mixeduse zone or the commercial zoning in the middle of a lot of residential zoning. And um we've had some discussions with staff about why that is. Nobody seems to really know, but I think you know if I had to guess, I would say it's because it was a school in the middle of the neighborhood. And so at some point in time, it just made sense to give it commercial zoning. Um, now that the school is no longer there, we think it probably makes sense to um change the zoning to something that's more compatible with with the surrounding um kind of quieter residential development. Just for context, the next nearest mixeduse zoning is clear up here at the south end of downtown um in an area that's really more appropriate for it. So, take a look at the next slide. Zooms in just a little bit. You can kind of see there's the site, that little purple rectangle. There isn't really any commercial near it. It's just surrounded by single family homes in a in a neighborhood. So, we I think we've talked about most of this. I want to highlight just um a couple things. We we worked hard as a team to provide as many housing units as possible in this zone, but also maintain a neighborhood

feel. So, these will be smaller um lots. The home footprints will be slightly smaller than the surrounding. The square footage that we're looking at ranges between 1,000 square ft and about 1,400, maybe a little over 1,400 ft². Uh there'll be two-bedroom units with one and a half baths or threebedroom units with two baths. So, you know, when I was a kid, this is what we used to call a starter home. It's a It was a place for a individual or a family to invest in a piece of property that they own um and that they could afford and would give them an opportunity to get into the housing market, build some equity, and then possibly move up or uh or maybe just stay in this neighborhood. But the idea is that these would be owner occupied homes. So, just like any other um neighborhood where folks own their homes, they would they will own these homes as well. We also really wanted to take advantage of the topography. It offers some views, some really neat little views out over the marsh to the east and then even just the view into the trees around the perimeter. It's a it's a beautiful site where where you've got mature trees. Um it really adds a lot to the site. So I chose this picture because it I think they must have put some lime down or something after they cleaned the site. So any everything that's you know basically white here is what we're proposing to build on. We are we are not proposing to get into this bluff or these trees. Want to preserve this line of fur trees. We also want to stay away from this bluff here. You can't quite see it in the photo, but this drops off probably another 20 to 25 ft. It's pretty steep. And we'd like to protect and preserve these trees here. Um, we will try to preserve these as much as possible. Um, I think we we'll at least be able to protect this bigger one. The little ones, I think it's going to depend a little bit on where the

footprint of the roads and houses go, but the idea is to protect as much of the existing um treecape as we can. Um, yeah, that's good. Thank you. So, here's the tenative plat. This shows the 30 individual lots. Um they'll all be small lot residential single family homes. Um there's a mix of off- streetet parking and on street parking. Each of the single family detached units will have at least two off- streetet parking spaces. Each of the town homes or duplexes will have either one or two spaces depending on the um the configuration. Yeah.

Will those have uh garages.

Our our goal right now, we've we've played around with different Thank you for asking the question. We've played around with different design options. Our preference is to give everybody their own enclosed garage with some of the town homes, which I'll show you. There's one bank of town homes that may have a tuck under parkport. Um, partly it just gives them a little bit more flexibility with the site. Um, we we'll we'll take a look at that, but we like to provide a garage. It just people like to park inside especially on nights like tonight. Um and it gives them a secure place to store you know bikes and and things that they care about. So also be there'll also be some on street parking. Um can we go back for just a second? I think there's one other point I was going to make there. Uh I I think we're done. You'll see the sidewalks and pedestrian access. Thank you. This picture just shows the topography a little bit. You know, when the when the lines get so close together that it looks like gray shading. You know, this is this is pretty steep along this corner and then of course along this edge it's pretty steep as well in in general. Well, this is good. So, this is just a 3D rendering. Um special thanks to Eric and his team. Um Joe and Calvin put this together. Um, it kind of lets you see a little bit what the site would look like. So, here's Pennsylvania Avenue coming up the hill hill. Here's 15th coming in off of Pennsylvania. Our our thought process here is coming off of 15th, create a loop connection into the site and then from here you can either head north up to a culde-sac or head back out here on a little alleyway that we're calling recess way. little play on um the uh former school site, but um that gives quite a bit of circulation. You can come in or out either of those locations. Um so, one of the comments was, you know, what's going to happen if

people park out here in Pennsylvania or on 15th? Do they have a way to get in or out? The answer to that is yes. Um they can just either loop around this way or or vice versa, but there's a way to just loop through the neighborhood. So right here you'll see two banks of town homes each with four units. This is a single family home here. This is a duplex. It's another duplex here. This here is the largest building on the site. This is a five unit town home. Um we've gone back and forth between whether that should be two stories or three stories. Um either way if even at the threetory height it's at the floor level of the homes above. So those folks that live up above us will be able to look out right over the top of the roof. It will it will not impact their view. And then up this way, this is another duplex. And then this row here are all single family homes backed into those trees over the bluff. Um they end up having some pilings built underneath them. It gives us a little bit more space and frankly creates a great back kind of deck view in those trees back behind. But that's the that's the way it's laid out. It's just a different um different view of the same site. You can see at two stories, these are all just represented by boxes, but at two stories, these are well below the floor level of the homes up above. And even if you even if these go up to a kind of a short threetory, they're still at that floor level. So this is the view from the north kind of just looking at the culde-sac end of things. This one you can This one shows pretty well the height the relative height of the homes up above on Pennsylvania Place over the top of the roofs. This this one here is a little hard to

see on the screen. I apologize for this. But um the the walking trail would would be publicly accessible from 15th here would walk around. You'll be able to walk around the backside of these homes or along around the side of these homes, intersect this trail, then just take a gentle grade down onto Illinois. Or if you're down on Illinois Avenue, be a gentle climb back up into the neighborhood from both ends. Yeah, please. And and with that trail there, these are all owner occupied units. Yes. Yes. How how will something like that trail be maintained a decade or two down the road?

Yeah. What who's responsible for and things like maintaining the trail?

Good, good question. So, you'll see from the site plan, um, a lot of the site is covered by public easements either for access or for utilities, including that trail. Maybe we can go back just real quickly. Th this is good, Chelsea. Thank you. Um, this area here is all covered. It's all um it lands in the, you know, the backyard lots, but it's all covered by a public access easement. So, um, that's one of the things we've tried to do is avoid creating HOAs to cover everything in part because if you're a new new homeowner, if you're um someone, you know, who's holding down one or two full-time jobs, um, the last thing you want to do is go to night meetings on Tuesdays in Goosebay. So, we've been in discussions with the city about who who should take responsibility. I'd say that's an ongoing conversation, Mr. Chair. Um, right now the thought is that the city would maintain that. Um, we'd build that to a pretty low um low maintenance standard. So, it's not a huge cost expense, but the trail itself would be either maintained by the neighbors, probably it's in their backyard, or if needed, um, the city. Yeah, thank you for asking the question. Okay. So, this is kind of um this just shows you a little bit what what these would look like. These are the town homes. We try to build products that are differentiated. So, it's not just a big wall of it's not just a big wall. It's actually got a little bit of character. This is not uh these are neither the colors nor the exact materials that would be on this unit, but they're representative of the kinds of materials that we use. be some, you know, some lap

sighting, be some vertical bat and board sighting. Um, and there' be a mix of different balcony types. Kind of a recess balcony here versus a protruding balcony here. This particular design has the tuck under parking. So, here's a car parked under here. Each one would have covered parking, but without a fully enclosed garage. We're still kind of toying back and forth with whether those will be enclosed. So, Yeah, thank you very much questions for you. Yeah, please.

Well, talking about affordability, I'm not even sure that's a word we're supposed to use anywhere in America. Uh if uh what what what is it? What price point are you looking at dollars and cents? We've had conversations with at least a half a dozen realtors locally to ask them kind of where is the sweet spot?

Not some of the bright, but If we if we didn't speak to someone, we would like to meet them and speak with them next. It seems like the need for folks that work live and work in Kousbay is between the low to mid 200,000s up to the low to mid30,000s. Um so that's our that's our um goal. We think we can offer these for sale um as low as 225 up to about 325. And that's our that's our goal. um we'd love to visit with you more. We feel comfortable that we can deliver at that price point. You know, these are not fancy homes. They're not, you know, exotic. They're not custom built. Um but they are very nice homes. We

But they're all built by the developer. There's Yes. I see. I'm looking at this just a quick question on this where I'm looking where it says recess alley apparently references school that had been there. Um and that is that where these people are going to exit that area out onto the pavers not on the street. I It's unclear to me how that works. Mhm. So that recess alley is a two-way it's just a narrow two-way street. So, it's a street.

It's a street, public street. From block one, that's the only way you have to [snorts] get out. Well, you could take the long way around, but you'd probably just Yeah, you'd probably just turn right out of your driveway and Oh, I see. Okay. Um, I guess the other question was you say it's going to be, you know, individual family home ownership, but there nothing to guarantee that. I mean, if I were to buy eight of those or rent them out, nothing would prevent me from doing that. So, part of our conversations with the city, thank you for asking the question. My financial situation might be

[clears throat]

you want to buy them all right now at those prices, you probably do. Um, so one of the things we've had discussions with the city team is uh whether or not it makes sense to apply one or more restrictions on the deed for owner occupancy. So our preference for for this kind of a neighborhood is that it continues to m you know be in um a price range that could be affordable to workers over time. So if you know if a family who moves in first sells at some point it would stay in that price point. The question is how much intervention is required to ensure that it doesn't get swept up by an outside investor.

Yeah. Or if that's right. So, our goal is to provide as little intervention as possible, but to do but to also do what we can to try to keep these available to to local folks. And we're certainly open to suggestions. I'd say this is, you know, this is an area that um nobody's really gotten right. I think it's still a a statewide conversation about how you prevent things from becoming short-term rentals or, you know, going into a rental pool. But the intent is for these to be owner occupied by the workforce. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. [clears throat] Uh without an HOA or CCNRs, how do you how do you hold this thing down from somebody moving the great big camper in or something? Uh I mean what's

everybody just has to get agree to it. What is there any teeth in it? Well, um there's not a lot of room to park a camper on these sites anyway. So, that's kind of the first, it's actually one of the first protections, just the size of the homes and the lots don't really lend themselves to a whole lot of sprawl or extra vehicles. Um the city codes will still apply in this neighborhood the same way they apply in every other neighborhood. So, you could ask the question, for instance, of the neighbors up the hill, um what prevents that from happening in Pennsylvania Place? um if the community feels like it's important to put those protections in CCNRs or other um I think we're we're certainly open to that but it's really again um how much intervention is needed part of the roadways um here the new roadways will be parking one side only so the other side will be posted no parking and then on that little recess way alley there'll be no parking on either side of that part of the road so you know hopefully folks can read the signage and they understand, you know, it's it's a neighborhood. They're going to have to learn to respect their neighbors at the same time. Um, we are considering right now whether it makes sense to have a little bit of an education kind of session for each of the new homeowners just to talk about what it means to live in this neighborhood and how to how to be respectful of your neighbors and how how to live well here. Um, so but

another question. Yeah. Who currently owns all this land? Is it the school district?

The school district um the school district sold the property to another private entity sometime before the fire in 2014. After the fire, Kous County took ownership of the property has since deeed the city of Kbay. The city of Kbay has deemed it to us with the understanding that we that we are committed to building as many housing units as we can at those price points. So, Compass Communities currently owns the property. Okay. I'm curious about that though. How does the C or in fact give I guess did did your corporation buy it?

Um, not directly. We had to pay off some existing obligations that were on the property. Um, so we paid um I forget what the total price was, $130 or $140,000 to satisfy some of the city's commitments to um our predecessors. So it wasn't free in the sense that it didn't cost us anything. We had to put some cash on the table. However, the transaction for the property itself um was a non-monetary transaction. Uh we signed a development agreement or we were working on a development agreement currently to ensure that we're held accountable to deliver uh what the community needs. Yeah, good questions. Thank you for asking. Any other questions? So, it looks like you folks got this on last Halloween according to the deed here. If this plan is not approved, what's uh Compass Community's plan to do with the property? Well, we just continue to work with the city until we get it right. Yeah, we have an obligation. We we have made a commitment to the city to deliver a a subdivision, a product that's acceptable to the community. U we think this is a good one, but if it's not the right one, uh we would just continue to work with the city and frankly with the county and with others in the community until we get it right.

Is there any other agreement between Enco Compass or one of your other the main company? I'm assuming it's LLC is a subsidiary of Yeah, I misspoke a moment ago. The property is owned by Compass Communities L uh Englewood LLC, which is a subsidiary of Compass Communities. Thank you. Right. Okay. So, if but there's is there any other agreement between either Compass Communities and Englewood LLC or Compass Communities between the city? It's basically just kind of a handshake deal as far as

uh it's not a handshake deal. U this is the extent of our agreement is around this particular site. Um we have a We entered into a fairly complicated fourparty agreement that included Cous County, the city of Cous Bay, um another nonprofit housing developer who had previously been trying to build apartments on the site and Compass Communities. So, um what we've landed on is is a commitment to accept this property and then develop it with workforce affordable housing. Okay. But beyond the deed, there's no other document that encompasses the agreement.

Well, there's a full party agreement. Yes, there is a pretty substantial full party. It's not in your packet. I apologize, but I I think it's probably a matter of public record. Sure. Um, but that's that's the extent part of the other agreement. It it commits us to enter into a more formal agreement with the city. So, we've been operating in good faith while that formal agreement is under development. Thank you. Is this common?

Um, no. It's not uncommon, but it's not common. You don't see it too often. Um, in a past life, I worked for the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development. Um, working with cities and counties all over the state. So, I had the privilege of working with 242 cities and um, 36 counties at that point. This this kind of an arrangement is not unheard of. It's not common unless you've got a particular challenge, either the site's challenged or just the needs of the community are complex enough that this kind of an arrangement can be a tool for dealing with the non-standard situation, which this is, you know, it's a bit non-standard. So, it's not the first time I've seen them. Um, our one of our other business partners is a land use and real estate attorney who is a recovering county planner also. Um, it's really great to have them on the team because they bring a lot of experience similar to, you know, situations like this. The time table. Yeah. Well, it's okay. Uh, you're asking good questions. So, we would we hope to take your recommendation to the city council in January. Uh, city council will then review and make hopefully a final decision at or near the end of January. Um, and then then we would file the plat and begin to uh apply for development permits at that point. Um if things go well, and we we hope that they will, we could break ground as soon as March um with some of the utilities construction and have the first homes constructed in the late spring, early summer. Um part of what enables us to do uh what we do is that we have a construction team. Damon, my colleague, is here tonight. Damon oversees a team of about 40

framers and then I don't know how many other subtrades that are very good at working together. And so once we arrive on a site, we have the materials and the crews lined up to get the work done quickly and efficiently. Um, and we're able to deliver very high quality homes at price points that other folks typically can't. Um, Damon's actually Navy logistics by his background. He knows how to get things done when it's time to get things done. I I've watched him do it, so I know it I know it can happen. So So we have any other comments, questions, anything? Okay, thank you.

Um thank you very much.

Uh I think we can start the uh public comment portion here. Uh so now if we have anyone um in support of this proposal, three minutes to come up. Uh, please state your name and address for the record at the podium here. And if we have any any public comments in support, now is the time. Okay. Um, any opposed to the proposal here? Uh, we'll have three minutes and uh if you can state your name and address for the record at the podium, please.

Any I'm not opposed to that, but I've got some questions. If if we can give you'll have Okay, here in just a second, but if we have any just flat out opposed people now, now would be the time. Um and yeah and and now hearing hearing no none opposed to it. Um anyone who's just neutral has some questions? I have oppose. Yeah, please please. Thank you. If you guys are also Anyone else opposed would stand up at the same time but

my name is Sandra Sperling. My address is 1567 Pennsylvania Place, Cousay, Oregon 97420. In looking at the plans, the parking to me looks I almost felt horrified for the people that would live there. Um, one an enclosed garage for some, but a family two-bedroom or one and a half bath. So, if two adults live there, or maybe if they had one teenager, I know two adults would be two cars. So, some of them only had one parking spot. And then if there were two adults, say he said a teacher and a nurse, they might have one teenage child that might have a car. Yikes. Um, one parking spot. Now we have three cars. And I actually live over there. So, one extra car on the street and we only had one parking spot. Now we have So, m multiple spots would have one only spot for one car, but now we have three. And that's just one of 30, right? hope you don't have any guests coming over so we can't have company now. So I would be horrified of no place to park. And then so 30 just seemed like way too many for that area for parking. Definitely. Um I was worried about that. Definitely not enough space for that. Just seems very small. And then also as far as he was talking about price, there was no guarantees on any of that. So not knowing who gets to be the realator, who gets that 7%. So he said, "Well, we're hoping we have a goal of 200,000 for a shared wall, twobedroom or threebedroom, one and a half bath, but that could be a goal for a building structured overseas that just shows up and could be whatever quality, but it could end up being a lot more money. And now we have one parking spot maybe and we need a lot more. So,

it just didn't really seem feasible at all. And there's not sidewalks over there and there's no stop lightss. So, there's just not entrances and exits on that hill. And at the bottom, there's those curves. So they're just I was surprised ODOT would approve without parking lots where 30 housing units with multiple cars trying to come in and out at times when there's all those curves and people trying to go to work and such when they're all working families and multiple people trying to go to school and work all at the same time. So thank you. Good one.

Thank you very much. Any other any other opposed this proposal here? Okay. Um moving on now. Any any neutral comments here? Anyone questions, comments, anything like that? Um now be the time. You'll have three minutes and please uh come up to the podium and state your name and address for the record. Excuse me.

Uh hi, my name is Alan Ellis. I live at uh 2003 South 15th Street. My property above the school property. We're just down below them. Um [clears throat] the reason I'm here is because when we moved it down in 2004, uh we had water in our backyard. It was pretty bad. And uh I found a uh covert pipe coming out of the from the school district up there about a 12-in cover pipe and that was doing pretty good. And so we got a hold of the city and nobody had come and look at it. [clears throat] Excuse me. So I put a French drain in to alleviate some of it to get and my wife and I traveled during the winter cuz I'd retired at that time and so we didn't it didn't affect us that much. But now I'm wondering what's going to happen if we have this property. Are they going to take care of that watering problem? Because [clears throat] not only does it come out behind my property, my neighbor comes out on 15th Street where it makes runs into Illinois and she lives there in the corner and she has a lot of water in her front yard that comes off that hill. So, and I don't know I don't know what you're going to do about that if there's some pure way that you can take care of that. and uh we were just curious and we're not we're not against it so much although I don't like to have 30 houses in my backyard but uh we're not against that lowcost housing is really important but I I want to make sure that we can get this taken care of before it goes on. So that's all I had.

Thank you Mr. There any other uh questions comments? Yeah. Scott Cooper, 605 and a half South Main Street, Kuz Bay. Um, I've sat on a few boards that have dealt with this property over the years. This is the most traction I've seen this actually get. And and everybody knows we have a housing problem. So, nobody questions that. The numbers that this is coming in is is truly workforce housing. Obviously, there's been some concerns that still need to be addressed. It's not done and over with as far as how the city and and what parking, drainage, all these things, but it has traction and just the timeline that was stated just makes a huge difference to be able to if we obey this soon, we can start moving this project forward, get housing online. Um, yes, there's going to be consideration on how we make sure it doesn't become rental units, what we do about parking, what's happening in drainage, but all these things can start moving forward if it kind of gets moving forward today. So, just been involved with this for too long, watched it move from all these different entities. It has never made any traction. I heard a higher density number that was proposed by uh one of the boards I sat on and I thought that was crazy. So this number is actually coming down on what some other people thought the density could be in this area. So and I love the way they worked with the landscape. And that's it.

Thank you.

Any other public comments? My name is Joan Morrison. I live at the corner of Illinois and 15th. The water uh drainage problem has been a problem since I've moved in. I've been there 24 years. Um, I do have pictures that show me that the water does come from the back of the property down my property. And because my neighbors have been, not them, but other neighbors, uh, have impeded the drainage from my property. I now when it rains heavy have water up up the well I' I'd say about 20 feet from the house 25 I'm not good at all that I would like that addressed uh I'm also wondering about noise abatement property values um this is far-fetched but if we have an earthquake those two units that are at the back of the cohes could be a problem because the hill they're on is unstable. It also hasn't been maintained since I've been there. I don't know who owns it. I assume the city, but who knows? Um, there are people that live up there now. What happens to their houses? Um, I couldn't see this too well. It seemed to me, if I'm looking at it right, their houses are gone. or are you moving the street so you have

units on on either side of a driveway? Um, and are these going to be rentals or homeownership? If they're rentals, will you have a manager on premises? And will my taxes go up because of the increased uh utilities etc that are needed there. Also with 30 units it's you know 2025 most people have two cars at least. Where are you going to put them? Just throwing that out. Thank you. Any any other public comments?

My name is Ryan Bo and I live at 1525 Pennsylvania Place up the hill there. And my questions were regarding I was a little unclear of the parking on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was uh seven proposed spaces out on the main street there and it was Thank [clears throat] you, Chelsea, for sending the email that had that. I think it was on uh page 51 or something. I didn't know if there was going to be um the parking was going to be on the existing curb line that's there right now or if there was going to be, you know, like a cutout into the hill with sidewalk proposed. um you know because it is kind of a a wide street there, but people come off that hill really fast and it's it's kind of blind when you're coming down and people they like to ride the center line. So if you know if you're going up the hill and you have cars parked there kind of it pushes you towards that oncoming traffic. And we also have neighbors. I should get out and walk more, but we have neighbors that walk up and down the hill. Um, you know, and if there's cars parked there, if there's a hill there right now, so it would push them out into the street if they're pedestrian. So, I was just I was a little unclear from the drawing on, you know, what that parking situation looked like and if there was going to be a sidewalk. And then I did, you made a good point about where people would turn around those seven spots out there because I could I could see them. you know, some of them going into that the new neighborhood to turn around, but it would seem like some of them and it looked like from the drawing that they were kind of parked downhill on the wrong side of the road. I don't know if that was just the way that it got drawn or or how that works with them parking, but you know, they're going to have to turn around somewhere. And there's we're we're a dead end. It would seem like our road would be the next one that people would want to turn around at because we're the next street,

you know, uphill that would go in there. Um, but it's it's a culde-sac neighborhood. There's people don't go in there unless they live there, you know, and I could just see people maybe trying to turn around there. And and again, that hill just makes it unsafe. So, it's just kind of a safety issue with the with the on street parking. So, I just had some questions about that because it was unclear from what what I read, but I'm blown. So, I might not understand it all. So anyways, thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Go. Thank you. I'm uh Nicole Rutherford. I live at 2342 Brooklyn Drive in Kuspay. I'm also the city manager for the city of Kuspay. And I wanted to add some context to this property in general in the history behind it. So that might help you understand the difference between where we are today and where we have been over the gosh, I'd say last decade. So um prior to this developer being here, we actually had an arrangement, a three-way party arrangement with K County, the city of Cousay, and our local community action agency, Orca. they were going to build uh low-income housing on that property between 40 and 50 units with a head start there. So, when we think about um transportation and uh traffic close, a little different in that scenario than what we would be looking at today. Um those would have been for rent units and subsidized. Uh the next group that came in because Orca has gone through some um organizational changes and was unable to continue that down that process of development. Uh we had another uh nonprofit uh developer come to the table interested in building something similar seeing unit counts in that space but again being a low-inccome model and they were looking for state or federal funds to help build that uh build that out and they just their application never got approved. Uh they're just up against competition that was a little bit more stiff. And so now uh we are looking at a developer who's willing to come in without looking for those subsidies from state or federal and uh a little bit

less density on the property. But for sale units in a community that doesn't have a lot of options on that lower scale. I think uh Mr. Berg, I think you know uh working in real estate what what that market looks like. So, um it's kind of unheard of to have that and then to have a team who can come in and potentially put some units on next summer is uh actually unbelievable. But, uh so I just wanted to to tell you that the journey that we've been on hasn't ever had these properties being put on the tax roles. And that's a little bit of the motivation from uh our city team is let's get some housing in the market and let's get it um added to the tax roles if possible. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comments question? I have Yes.

Just Okay. So, my name is Ingred Hill and I live at 1525 Pennsylvania Place in Kous Bay and I just wanted to recommend make a recommendation um cuz I we've discussed the on street parking and um it looked like there was even within the it would be like if somebody could we came up that hill last night in the dark and there's no street lights. Um there's one up by Pennsylvania in our culde-sac, but that whole street is very, very, very dark. And um it's just the concern of it being wide enough for people to park on that road and then like Ryan, my husband, he said, being pushed over and then having people come down the hill pretty fast. So, it I would just like to recommend some street light be put up there, especially if people are going to be walking out there in the dark and possibly sidewalk. And um maybe bouncing the curb in a little bit just to make it a little bit wider. So, there was actually parking that is not in the street in the lanes. And thank you. That's all I have to say.

Thank you. Any other public comments, questions, concerns? Okay. Um, all written comments have been received to date are included in the record. if we can uh get staff response to to what was heard.

Yeah, I want to know Darren um would you like to respond to anything in detail? I can just briefly say I know that drainage is an issue. We know that the developer knows that and they taken it seriously to address it. Um I think they can speak better to how uh with respect to the the parking the on street parking my understanding is excuse me yes sidewalks will be built. Um there is some questions about whether or not um use of Pennsylvania for on street parking is uh desirable. I think Darren can speak to maybe why there's some uh property line uh issues there with respect to the street. And then just generally a 30 unit single residential development. We have a traffic impact analysis. It's on um file. It was done for a proposed development much higher in density and found that the the traffic impacts were not such to cause any kind of neat change in the neighborhood. with respect to parking for each unit. Most of them have the two required onsite where others don't. They're um the city code provides already a provision for any developer to to adjust down their parking requirements if if for certain reasons. So, that's an option outside of this process um for anybody. And just people um keep in mind that the street is there for the public. So, it is there for people to drive. It is there for people to park their vehicles. It is there for people to walk on the sidewalk. Um so, it serves multiple purposes, right? And so, well, there potentially be people parking on the street whether it's on

Inglewood Place or Pennsylvania maybe, but that could be a possibility today anyways with the people who live there. So, I just I make those comments, but I want to defer to Darren to really get into the the details. I think he'll do a better job.

Thank Thank you, Chelsea. And I want to say thanks to everybody who's testified um for or against it. Actually, it's super helpful to us to know what your community needs. So, thank you for taking time to come out on a Tuesday evening. Um, if you're too shy to come up and speak during the public comment period, um, I have a stack of business cards and I would encourage you to reach out and share your concerns privately, it's what helps us to deliver the best possible addition to the neighborhood and we welcome your thoughts. So, thank you very much uh, for the questions and for for listening. I'll just go back and touch on a few of the questions and some of the concerns that came up and then um if you have questions again, please just um ask. So um I heard ODOT mentioned this is these are all local streets. So I just want to be clear ODOT doesn't have jurisdiction this in this kind of part of Kuz Bay. These are all local streets. The traffic impact study that was done in 2022 demonstrated that all of the surrounding road network operates at level of service A or B even during the most kind of um the highest peak hours. So um not much has changed in this neighborhood since 2022. We are in the process of reaching out to that traffic um engineer to make sure that that all still holds. But um level of service A is sort of full unimpeded um restriction. Level service B is really good. Um [snorts] usually there's not a problem unless you get down to level of service D or F. And so um using transportation engineer speak this this neighborhood actually flows very well even at the at the highest peaks with a 40unit apartment complex on the site. So um our trip c our early trip

calculations um reduce the those anticipated 40 I think they're 38 peak hour trips reduce those to a maximum of about 30 anticipated. So um we we fully expect that the system's going to be able to handle the traffic storm water runoff. We're in the process right now of evaluating the storm water and developing a system that takes care of all of our storm water and also addresses at least some of the existing challenges. So, we're aware of some some challenges, kind of legacy challenges from the neighborhood up above that have flowed down onto the Englewood school site. Um, Eric is working through that right now to find a system that diverts that storm water into the storm system, the storm sewer system. So, our expectation is that first of all, if there are concerns, we'd love to visit with with our neighbors. And to the extent that we can address those, we'll do our best. We anticipate that because of the way we've designed the site, much of the storm water that currently runs onto and off of the Englewood site will actually now go into the storm sewer, which is where it should be. So, you know, we're I think we've addressed a lot of the concerns, but we would like to work with anybody who has specific issues to make sure that we're we're doing the best we can. Um, in terms of the stability of the site, we work with the geotechnical team. Uh, there's a local geotech here that does great work. Um, they have evaluated the site before. So, we're looking at the soil stability currently. They will also evaluate the site after we've done our utilities and grading work to make sure that it continues to be stable. So, um, we do that because we want to make sure that we protect the folks up above us. We also do that because we want to make sure that we're protecting the folks that buy in this

neighborhood or anybody below. So, um, this the site is actually pretty stable. It held an elementary school for almost a hundred years. So, you know, it's pretty it's pretty stable. Um, there will be no rentals. None of these units are for rent. These are for sale only. Um, appreciate the comments about the blind hill and the street parking. Um, Chelse, I don't know if it's possible to bring up the site plan. If you look in this packet, I think it's page 51 shows a couple of really important things. Along Pennsylvania Avenue, we propose to have full length sidewalks for the for the full length. So, people will have a 5-ft sidewalk, a safe place to walk off the street. Um, appreciate the comments about street lights. That's a conversation we've had been having with the city engineer, and we we'll take another look at that to make sure we have enough street lights, but not too many. Um, okay. Last but not least, I I want to see if we can pull up the plat map, but if you look in your packets, you'll see that there is a portion of the existing pavement. So, the pavement on Pennsylvania Avenue right now is 36 ft wide between the curbs. That's pretty wide. Um, that's enough for two 12T travel lanes, very comfortable travel lanes, and two 8-oot parking lanes on either side. So, there's plenty of room there to handle two-way traffic and parking both sides. However, the [clears throat] pavement, the current pave section actually extends onto the property about 8 ft. [clears throat] So, I'm going to step away from the microphone. I apologize if you're listening online. I want to point out on the plans

right here is the is the current a little bit fuzzy. Apologies. Right here is the current property line. Right here is the current pavement. So here's that 8 foot discrepancy. So I it's an older question. I think we could go either way. We've we've drawn it the way that we think it works best is for us to dedicate the paved section back to the city and just make that part of the city street. In an alternate form, we could use that land and the pavement that's on it as private parking spaces, which would be off- streetet parking on the current street, which we think doesn't make sense, but it would satisfy the criteria in the code. So, there's a couple ways that could happen. We think it's best to dedicate that to the city, which is, you know, pro probably how it should have been done originally, but it does mean that we lose we do lo lose some, um, land that could otherwise be used for parking. So, um, then last but not least, I would just say parking is often a concern and we understand that. We also know that homeowners make their choices of a home kind of based on what their needs are. So if if people need more room to park more vehicles that this probably isn't the neighborhood for them. Um on the other hand, if they're a senior or a veteran or a single person, this might be exactly what they want um with one or two parking spaces. So you know, at some level you kind of have to let the market make informed choices. And people tend to make, you know, people tend to make good choices uh when we think these folks will as well. So happy to answer any questions. One quick question, what percentage of

this uh development is common area or green area?

Uh so the total the total uh acreage is 2.21 acres. The total developed area streets included is about 1.5. So, um, it's roughly 25 to 30% open space. So, by the time you take the two the two bluffs out, it's actually a substantial portion of the site that is um common open space that's accessible by the public with a public access easement on it. I didn't I didn't put those in the staff report. Um, but it's, you know, it's a pretty substantial portion of the site. Um, I also I wanted to address um the concerns about the the home prices. Um, we will sell these in the range that I described somewhere between 225,000 and 325,000. Um, I say that with a little bit of hesitation because nobody knows what round of tariffs is going to hit next or what the interest rates are going to do or and so we can't really we can't forecast in the future. Fair enough. However, I have watched Damon deliver um homes at, believe it or not, even less than that price point. High quality homes with granite countertops, solid wood cabinets, um wood floors. We know from our experience and because of the relationships that we've built in the supplier community that we can consistently deliver at those prices. Um I I don't know why we don't see more of that in Oregon. From our experience, it's doable. Um, but we're committed to we're committed to make that happen. Um, Dana's also a veteran and he might not be comfortable with me sharing this exactly, but we we pay pretty close attention to the needs of veterans. One thing that we've heard in Kous Bay is that the number of veterans who qualify for a VA loan until they get into the market and start looking at the homes in those price

ranges and find out that the house that they had their heart set on actually needs another $100,000 of improvements in order for it to qualify for financing. These homes will qualify for financing. These would be beautiful new homes that veterans or seniors or families can afford to get into and will qualify for traditional financing. So, um, we feel really good about our ability to deliver a product that you'll be proud of, will be proud of. We want to be invited back. We want to be invited to the next community. And the way we do that is by delivering on our promises. Any commissioners have any questions for Chelsea? I I have one quick kind of a nitpicky thing here, but is there a reason why you can't just extend South 15th? Do we have to rename it to Inglewood Place? Then we've got South 15, Ingwood Place, and Recess Edward. We've got a couple new street names in this little couple area, couple acre area here. And it just seems to be

um I think the then typically we would name, you know, North, South, East, Wester Streets. And so you have south 15th north south and then it's going to turn into this culde-sac paying homage to Englewood Place, right? That was kind of the goal there. And then the the connecting recess way alley just really needs its own identified name for emergency response purposes. So I mean I think the streets could be named differently. I don't know that it's necessary or beneficial to do so. We've talked to um the fire department. They are comfortable with the street naming. Um just paying close attention to how would they respond if they needed to there. Um and I think people appreciate the the school relating it back to that original school site. Do we know will the uh traffic impact analysis be will will they update that with when when we get kind of something solidified here? Um, so the current traffic impact analysis is is not uh very old and nor have there been changes in the area that would necessarily warrant a revision to that. And so that analysis was done considering a development of higher impact. And so that idea being that that still applies and the impact is going to be less. Um, so if a if a traffic engineer reviews that and finds that it's still applicable and valid, then we would need to re redo it because it's not going to to change towards airing on the side of more mitigation. [cough]

Excuse me.

Okay. Yeah, it's just it's it's a little it worries me a little bit. You know, I've I've been up there obviously over the years, but I never lived up that street. And it's one thing to to look at it in a report and on paper and and measure lines on a computer and say, "Oh, yeah, this will work." But, you know, when we have people from the neighborhood bringing these pretty valid concerns, I just I want to make sure that we're really going to put something in place there that that meets those needs and and isn't going to put anyone undue danger. It sounds like, you know, if I if I might, thank you for asking the question. Um, this is something we've been in conversation with. Our engineering team has looked at it and we feel comfortable with it, but based on conversations with the city engineer, we're going to go back to the traffic engineers who did the initial report and just triple double check to make sure that it's safe, the volumes work. Um, we hope to have that letter and asurances or corrections in time for the city council meeting. Yeah.

And I guess my last real concern is just kind of about the the trail and that public space and and who takes ownership of that. You know, I hate to put something in that looks pretty and and marketing pictures and and then you know five six years down the road gets proned in or you know isn't who's patrolling that who's making sure there's no litter or no anything like that I guess and and I just I know I know we spoke on that a little and and that's down the road to be addressed. Yeah, I think the intent is that it would be covered by a public access sement and the city would help maintain it. Okay. All good. Okay. Uh So, no more questions, no more responses. Um, I'll now close this public hearing in the record at 7:32 p.m. Now, any deliberation on this from the public commission?

Sure. [clears throat]

It seems like the problems are parking, drainage, and a street light. That doesn't seem like a lot of problems to me. Um, that's pretty straightforward. Um, the positive things are affordable housing and putting them putting it on the tax roles. Um, that seems to make a lot of sense to me. Um, I think it's a very interesting project. Uh, to get that high a density on that small of area. Um, I am concerned about Pennsylvania. You better have a pretty good handbreak if you're going to park in Pennsylvania. That thing's pretty steep. Um, but other than that, I'm I'm not seeing any reason why not to move forward.

Yeah. I mean, it it doesn't seem like a unique development that, you know, you see in other communities. It's it's a little tighter, but it's I mean, it seems like a good good opportunity to bring bring some housing to the area. Now, like I notice on the deed here, it says also, and this is part of the deed that puts it into the LLC's name. Also subject to the grantor being the city of Kuspay reversionary right if affordable housing is not constructed on the property by grantee is provided for and the development agreement between the parties which we haven't seen which I don't know what it says but to me that would indicate that if the affordable housing isn't developed it's going to go back to the city of Cous Bay and we start over with a big vacant lot and since I know the city's been working on this for a long time I mean there's some momentum some inertia going forward So,

um I I and obviously we need the housing. I So, I mean this seems like a pretty option that we have out of one at this point. Um [clears throat] and I do appreciate the fact they did talk about the sidewalks cuz I know there aren't sidewalks there. It's probably what 1976. I was playing a little league game up there and got stung for the very first time on that side of the road. But anyway, so far as I know, there's not any sidewalks there. And that would definitely help the help the area there. But the lighting, too, would be an issue. It gets pretty dark in that section of town at night. And the water issue, I I do appreciate Mr. Ellis and Miss Morrison, I believe, what they stated. But that's going to be part of the development process. I'm assuming taking care of the water and making sure that it's not rolling. And if uh this development worsens, the runoff onto Mr. Ellis's property or the other properties there, they do have a private cause of action that they can bring against the person that altered the water flow. So, they have a remedy. [clears throat] And that's all I got. Um, [clears throat] I've had the opportunity to and challenge to do three subdivisions in my career. And this particular project is very challenging because of the topography and size. They've done an excellent job with the site plan and solving the affordability issue. uh the parking

this dedication to the city out of Pennsylvania great solution to it and I very much in favor of of of the change. The other option is the commercial zone here. And I I think the neighborhood would prefer to see residential housing here as opposed to some commercial development. So the change to the low density housing makes a lot of sense to me. So, is that a motion?

Well, sure. Like to make a motion that we approve the application subject to the uh city Kuspay engineering department's requirements. make a recommendation. Okay, we have a second on that. I'll second it. Okay, been moved and second. All in favor? I I

I post. This is just a recommendation though. This is this is just a recommendation to the to the council. Yeah. And so they'll be they'll move forward through that process there. So it's not the end all be all here,

right? Chair, if I can just um relay reiterate, city council is scheduled tentatively scheduled to conduct their public hearing on the matter on January 20th at 6 p.m. So additional opportunity for comment and consideration. Okay.

Thank you very much. Okay. And Okay, moving on to the public hearing to consider type 4 land use application number 187-25-0000138-PG. I now open a public hearing on land use Application number 187-25-0000138- PLNG proposal to approve and adopt by ordinance tax amendments to the CSUS Bay Development Code. Today is December 9th, 2025. It is 7:39 p.m. My name is Josh Stevens. I'm the planning commission chair. The planning commission will make a recommendation to the city council on this application based on the complete record, including the testimony received at tonight's public hearing. These proceedings will be recorded. The hearing will be conducted in accordance with the Kuspay development code and state law. Specifically, city staff will first present the staff report and recommendation for public testimony. I will first ask to hear from people who'd like to speak in favor of the proposal. I will then ask to hear from those in opposition to the proposal. Finally, people who have neutral comments or questions about the proposal will have the opportunity to speak. City staff may then present additional material and recommendations based on the public testimony. After each presentation, I may ask questions from the commission. For anyone wishing to speak, we're asking you use the signup sheet that has been provided. When called upon to speak, you must state your name and address for the public record. We ask that each speaker limit themselves no more than three minutes. Please remember that all presentations will be timed. You will be informed when your allotted time has expired. All speakers exceeding

the time limit will be asked to immediately conclude his or her remarks. To minimize repetitive testimony, organizations are encouraged that only one person speaks for the group with other members of the organization standing to show their support. Each person may testify only once called back to the podium at the request of a planning commission member to respond to a question. uh planning commission is required to disclose any conflicts of interest and exparte contacts that we have with the proposal or applicant. That is whether we have any financial or other personal interest in the proposal and whether we have spoken with anybody about the proposal outside of this hearing. Any disclosures? Nope. Okay. Any challenges from the audience as conflicts of interest, exparte context or bias related to any member of the planning commission. Okay. Uh state law requires me to tell you a number of things again at the beginning of the hearing. First, the applicable substantive criteria that apply to this application are contained in the notice of the public hearing were written in staff report and will be identified discussed in the general staff report. Second, your testimony, arguments, and evidence must be directed toward those criteria or other criteria in the comprehensive plan or development code that you believe apply to this application. Third, failure to raise an issue accompanied by statements or evidence sufficient to afford the decision maker or other people an opportunity to respond may include appeal decision on this application based on that issue. Planning commission will make a recommendation to the city council for a final decision. A decision on city council may be appealed to the land use board of appeals. staff report on this.

Yes. Let me just share my screen. Keep us in line. Okay. So, this public hearing is regarding um what I'm referring to as a code cleanup of title 17, our development code, um with the goal of addressing consistency with state and federal laws and aligning this code with current city plans, policies, and internal processes. So, you have a staff report. It has the full details. It's a fairly substantial proposal though it's not comprehensive. Um, but here are some highlights. We look at amending the procedure section which puts forth what type of projects require what type of land use process um, and how that all works. Really, it's just to clean it up, make it consistent with our current processes. We add some definitions that are needed to help uh clarify for staff and the public. We address uh child care and the there's new uh state laws in place that require cities to allow child care in certain parts of um in certain zone districts and within certain provisions. And so we're doing that through this proposal. residential infill of small commercial lots. Uh the city a couple of years ago completed a housing needs analysis together with the housing production strategy. One of the strategies was to look at providing infill residential infill development opportunities on these undeveloped small commercial lots. So under 15,000 square ft. So we're providing an opportunity for that. Also

looking at simplifying design standards in our commercial zone districts. planning commission has talked about the waterfront heritage um district for example. There are some pretty stringent architectural design standards and processes that must be followed for somebody to develop there. [clears throat] It's seen as a barrier. So, we're uh proposing to repeal those along with streamlining some other development standards in our commercial zones, manufactured dwelling sighting standards. there is new state um law in place that regulates how we can regulate sighting of manufactured dwellings. So just bringing the code in line with that. Also looking at our sign provisions and making sure those are content neutral and then chain link fences in our commercial urban renewal districts. We've talked about that and the community has very much said that chain link is a a preference and we talked about how maybe a good compromise would be um to allow where we do allow chain link in our commercial zones where it's visible from the street maybe require it to be the black vinyl coated chain link. We've worked with West Coast Fencing and others like is that reasonable? Yeah. So, we're finally bringing all of those here to planning commission to move them forward. Certainly, there's many more details in the staff report. Too much to put up on the screen. Um, I just want to give a brief background. So, our current code really has a lot of inconsistencies from um section to section. It's difficult for staff to implement. it's been difficult for the public to utilize and it does present barriers to develop development. So over the past two years planning commission we have talked through various workshops um about the updates needed. So this proposal does kind of consolidate all of those and tries to

move those forward. Looking forward to 2026. The city has been awarded a housing technical assistance grant through DLCD to complete very housing focused amendments, but the goal here would be to set the stage for that. So, if we can get these amendments in place, then we'll move forward next year and work on some more housing focused amendments. Um, just kind of going over the land use requirements. You give your notice, you take your comments. We've given the proper DLCD notice. We've posted and mailed the proper notice. It's been published in the world newspaper. And um we planning commission was scheduled to hear this uh land use application to conduct the public hearing back in um November and we had to delay it till December. So we even put out revised notice making sure everybody's aware. the the code updates have been available since online since October. We have received no comments to date. Um so we can certainly talk about any any items you want to talk about specifically, but in this case again, planning commission will be making a recommendation to city council. Uh staff believes you can do whatever you want, but we believe you can improve it based on the information presented and the recommended findings. If you have any changes that you'd like to see, you'd want to just identify those and then moving this forward and would also require enactment of an ordinance to confirm those um amendments. So, if there's questions or comments, happy to do that now.

Any questions, comments? Hearing none. Sure. Okay. So, has everybody read the 300 pages and examined it? I I got to say that this is this is beyond me. But what I would hope is that the city has done their best, I'm sure they have, to correct this and make it more usable. Um, and so I I put my hopes in their in their hands. Um, a lot of this is is is more than more than I would have time to consume.

You I think this has been quite the process over the last few years haven't read end to end at one single time. But, you know, throughout this process, I feel like we've had a lot of opportunity to go over a lot of these changes and I think it's um

Yeah. feels feels like a good positive set forward and it's cool to see some some things happening after putting in all that work. And if I can um just add, you know, when staff got as we were talking about these things and working on them, staff gets into amending the code, what we would run into is if you just amend this chapter and then you're going to have additional inconsistencies. So maybe we repeal architectural design standards in the waterfront heritage district, but that means we have to go touch the off- streetet parking standard, the supplementary standard. So it was this trickle like this constant. So this was that's why it took so long and this is kind of the the point where it's finally it's not perfect, but it's at a point where we could move it forward, adopt it. I don't think it would be worse. And we're going to keep we're going to keep making progress on it.

Yeah. And I don't think we want to let perfect get in the way of progress here. But

and and it was a nice compromise about the chain link saying you just couldn't use it in commercial zones was done it right. But maybe the black would I mean that that's a type of compromise that I think is is important. Um so so uh any person in the audience in support of this proposal three minutes to comment on this? Any interest? The audience still left. Uh any in opposition to this proposal? Same three minutes. Okay. Uh, any questions, comments? Anyone neutral to this? No. Okay. Any written comments on this?

Nope. As I said, we've received no comments today. I've had some inquiries, people who have reviewed it, but they've not come back with any comments. Okay. Any other questions for So this is recommended to go to the city council that we're making a recommendation. Correct. Okay. Yeah, we have we have little in the way of actual we get to recommend. Right. Right. You guys are making progress.

Okay. Um any other questions from Chelsea? Okay. uh close this public hearing on the record at 7:52 p.m. Uh any deliberation on this? Uh do you want to pull back up the uh the recommended verbiage there to make it easier for Mr. Bird to make this motion?

I'll move to approve 1972-000013 PLG based on the information by the applicant and second I couldn't read. [laughter] [clears throat] Okay, been moved and seconded. All in favor? I.

Any oppose? Um okay. Uh and uh again, this is just a recommendation. The city council is uh tenant schedule to consider this recommendation during a second public hearing at their regular meeting on Tuesday, January 6th, 2026. So, go talk to them. Okay. Um any Let's see. Did I Did I close that? I closed that. Yeah. Okay. Any the planning commission in comments.

I guess if I had had a comment to make, it would be um the uh housing development there in Eaglewood. I would much rather see something like that than I would what what's occurring over at North Bend um for the uh across from the new gas station or Kitty Corner 7-Eleven. Um I I I think I think people need to live in in a space that's more conducive to a house rather than just a a big box. So I I'm really kind of interested to see how that's going to turn out. I hope it goes through. I hope they actually build it.

Donna, any staff comments? I just wanted to say thank you guys for coming out tonight and getting these hearings heard. Uh much appreciated to have you here in attendance and then also Rex for stepping up uh for the the parks commission. So, thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Okay. Well, I think we can just get this thing just under two hours here and adjourn this