Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

First order of business is approval of the minutes from March 12th.

Commissioner Williams moves to approve the minutes.

Commissioner Kelly seconds.

It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is public comment. anyone who has comments that is not on the agenda. We have a blue sheet from Nancy Gould. Welcome.

Hello. My name is Nancy Gould. I'm following up to being a visitor two weeks ago. I've brought you a double-sided land use application form and direct your attention to item nine on page two, which addresses domestic water source issues. As a follow-up to two weeks ago, I think it's important to be upgrading this application form so it can address water that is not necessarily domestic water, but perhaps irrigation water. or perhaps other types of water that folks might have on their property. The reason I bring that up is we are in new climatic conditions, something perhaps Mr. Cyrus and Ms. Kelly have seen in their lifetime and likely no one else in this room has seen. We are in drastic drought. and the Board of Commissioners have declared a drought on February 18th. If you haven't read that, I encourage you to read that. It talks about water conservation, and one of the things is to understand what water we talk about, what water we're using, and what water we're putting to which purposes so as we go forward in modernizing and planning how this department works i really encourage you to think about updating documents such as this so that if a property is proposing to build a new house on mua zone property you would know for instance whether it has water rights on it and whether the proposed building or secondary dwelling or RV parking area is proposed to be located on MAP water rights. Right now, that type of information does not come into the hands of a planner. And only if an irrigation district has surplus staff isn't trying to fix the leaky ditch system or get their district piped, might they actually have staff to make agency comments? And I think it's beholden on all of us as a community to be thinking about where we put development such that it's not on mapped water rights. And we shouldn't be waiting for neighbors to be asking for mapped water rights plans to be submitted as part of the land use application, these things should be brought to the planner so the planner can review them holistically. Now, we've heard Commissioner de Boom say that he doesn't deal in water and we don't regulate water. We, the public, own the waters of Oregon and it is in our interest to be stewarding them the best we can. So please think about how this form might get completed by somebody who wants to put their indoor riding arena on top of mapped water rights. Think of where property might have groundwater rights mapped and surface water rights mapped. Think of a property that might be on Avion or might be on an exempt well. Right now, this form wouldn't tell you any of that bit of information. So please sharpen the pencil. It's time. We're in a big drought. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Anyone online? Great. Next item on the agenda is the action item for a work session, the planning work plan for fiscal year 26-27.

Will. Yeah, good evening, Chair, Commissioners, your planning manager, Will Groves. I've got a presentation here. Pop that up on the Zoom screen.

Yeah, there it is.

All right. So this is, of course, the draft work plan, and we are looking forward to fiscal year 2027. And off we go. So background, the work plan and CDD. Of course, what is the work plan? So this is an annual review of the past year's efforts and proposals for the coming year's efforts. And of course, it's intended to allow the board and the PC to give direction and feedback to staff on the work to be undertaken in the coming year. And, of course, CDD is more than planning. You know, if you had an opportunity to see some of our folks from various divisions in current planning, coordinated services, building division, on-site wastewater code enforcement, and excitingly, natural resources is coming to CDD. And we've had their staff physically move in, and we are in the process of recruiting, of course, for the replacement to the county forester who will be the community wildfire protection coordinator. supervisor, and that application is open now and closes in mid-April. So work plan process, just like every year, January to March, we develop the work plan based on a variety of inputs. And here we are at your work session headed into a public hearing and recommendation for you coming into April. And this also goes through the board and the Historic Landmarks Commission for reviews and recommendations and the board ultimately for public hearing. It's available at the webpage that it's always available at, and so there's copies there. For April 9th, the public hearing process. Of course, we'll go through the summary. We'll allow the Planning Commission to ask questions, and we'll conduct the public hearing. So let's talk about major themes. Of course, every year, growth and development. So we're seeing continued population growth. That's driving demand for our services. There's legislative updates that we'll talk about that come out every year from the legislative session. And of course, affordable housing and land use policies come up as a theme every year. Again, some new laws from those legislative sessions. And we've seen a lot of complex land use cases. So that consumes a significant portion of the planning division's resources as we shepherd those through a relatively complicated land use system. In this, we're trying to also be engaged with the community. So we enhance our website and digital services. We're in the process of a major website update and have rolled out things like online comment forms. that enable people to just interact with us more easily. Of course, we see a lot of public inquiries, so huge numbers of calls, publics coming to the front counter. And although these activities don't generate fee work, we're trying to make sure that we're really reaching out to our community in an effective way. Of course, we collaborate with partner agencies. I'll go into that in some depth later in the presentation. But we talk to our partner agencies, housing, transportation, environmental planning. And then we think about infrastructure and environmental concerns. So those include the groundwater issues that you're all so familiar with, the septic systems that can impact that, and thinking about trying to plan for land use in a sustainable way. Thinking a little bit about the TSP, the Transportation System Plan. We've been through some of those updates in recent years. and wildfire mitigation efforts with our new natural resources team. And of course, always, again, looking for digital tools and operational efficiencies. You know, I think everybody's seeing a theme of trying to do more with less. And we're definitely in that boat. Budget and operational issues. So we saw a decrease in both planning and single family dwelling permits year on year. Planning down just slightly and single family building permits down a bit there as well as you'll see in the slide. I'd say that the planning decrease was interesting in that the number of applications came through down a little bit, but we saw a lot of high value applications. So we're seeing A lot of plan amendment zone changes, other big movers come through. So while the number of applications went down, I don't know if it felt like the amount of work we were doing decreased. Kept us busy. Thinking about our staff. So something the board did over the past year is they engaged in a pay equity and market study. So this is a thing that the board does at some interval. comes back and takes a look at our sister jurisdictions and looks to see if the pay for county staff is similar to other jurisdictions. There's a philosophy that the board set years ago to try to pay 5% above the average of our sister our sister jurisdictions. And so they went through a extensive process to determine kind of what positions they were, match them apples to apples, take a look at that. And that was finally completed. And that those changes in staff pay will be coming through in the middle of next year. But that does, of course, impose additional costs and operating costs on CDD. So, you know, that's something that we're trying to incorporate in our operations. Staffing changes. So seven new staff, nine resignations, two new positions. We have a total of 57 FTE in the CDD building. And we're seeing some pretty decent veterancy here. 46% of staff has over five years of experience. For those of you who have been here a while, we had a real veterancy collapse there for a while. And there was all the training and the kind of getting people up to speed that comes with that. And now it's feeling like we have more veteran staff. And most people in the building have been there long enough to solve most problems that we encounter. Succession planning. So 19% of staff are eligible for retirement here in the next couple of years. So trying to make sure that particularly some of our heavy hitters that'll leave the building at some point will have a good succession plan for that. And then just thinking about recruitment. Of course, we hired a new building official. We've got a natural resources supervisor position out. Also got an opening for an administrative supervisor for code enforcement. Lots of lots of our major positions in motion. Let's see, this slide we've largely covered. So let's take a look at the annual report. So accomplishments, of course, proud that we've maintained high service and productivity during these transitions and really worked on online service. So trying to get in-person service and virtual users through our Excel portal a really streamlined experience and trying to update intake with a checklist and standardized complete acceptance practice. So I'll tell you a little bit about this. For building permits, we had run into an interesting situation. Historically, people came to the planning counter with paper, and to the extent that they didn't really have a complete application, the person at the counter would say, hey, why don't you come back when you have enough here that we can actually process this? Hang on to your paper. Come back with the engineering diagrams, the things that you need really for us to do this work. In the new system in Acela, people could submit permits at any point. And it created an interesting incentive for people to submit incomplete applications because they believed that that put them basically in line when they were deeply not ready to be processed. And that ended up having staff go through sometimes a dozen calls back and forth with a developer asking, hey, where's this? Where's that? No, that's not this. Please. And so, and what the net result of that was a really a lot of inefficiencies and people who showed up ready to have their building permits processed being delayed in those processes. So starting April 1st, there are minimum requirements to submit a building permit or you'll be kicked back out of the system and invited to a meeting to discuss what else that you need to bring. This is something that we've navigated with the Central Oregon Builders Association, and they're supportive of this. They definitely want to incentivize well-crafted building permit applications and seeing those processed in a timely manner. So we appreciate that, and some of that's already helping us get through backlogs and improve our processing time. So it was an idea, and it seems like it's working. Talked a little bit about some of our targeted updates. You know, we're thinking about driveway access permit streamlining, those website resources we talked about, and also the continuing staff development and cross-training and, again, the succession planning. So CDD actively monitors our performance measures. You'll see in the report a variety of metrics that are shown both over years and over months. This year, I'm bringing you the current planning division's statistics for the past year. And there are two metrics here. So land use decisions that are generally ministerial in nature, meaning that no one's asked to make a subjective judgment about compatibility or other discretionary matters. Those are land use decisions that are not subject typically to prior notice. And that's going to be our figure on the right. And so from a... completeness to issuance of those decisions you can see that we are after kind of surviving a relatively busy 2025 season that we've gotten that back down under our target there and we are in good shape in terms of applications which is a nice place to be right now. Usually we see some sort of summer surge and so it's good to start the year on the right foot and then the with prior notice those are applications that typically do have discretionary elements in the review may go to a hearing may be more complicated and you can see also right now um you know coming into the the end of last year that we uh we got those in in good shape but you can see that really that summer surge there where we uh surged above our our target there and that happens periodically if you can think about uh current planning what you've got is you've really got a triangle here happening where You've got a number of applications coming in, and they want to be done in a certain amount of time. You have a certain amount of staff, and those staff have to be paid by a certain fee rate. And so we're always trying to balance those judiciously, keep this cheap, and at the same time be responsive to our Our customers, and that includes Coba, is really our most direct respondent. Other people will give us information ad hoc, but Coba will give us systematic information about how their members are doing. And so we're trying to make sure. There have been times in my CDD career where Coba said, hey, we appreciate that it's cheap, but do you need a little more money to have more people so that we can have our permits faster? And fees have gone up in association with that. So right now, the balance is good. Um, that's a, we're in good shape and, uh, it seems like the, that, that kind of three-legged stool that I've described is, is balancing. Um, big year for the BOCC, uh, you know, and of course you all participated in significant parts of this with the 2025 housekeeping amendments, all that clear and objective work that we did together. Um, the Deschutes County comprehensive plan, 2040 reconsideration. Of course, we brought that back from Luba to do some tidying up and it is once again at Luba and it looks like maybe about a month out before we get to hear, um, this iteration of it. And of course, uh, the triumph, the outdoor lighting amendments got those things through. So thanks for all your work on that. A board land use activity increased. So the part you don't see, the quasi-digital land use applications were nearly doubled from the prior year. And lube applications were down slightly. So that saves a little work at that level. So 26-27, the draft work plan. So, of course, you're going to review this draft work plan. We'll conduct a public hearing at our next regularly scheduled meeting on April 9th. And we're going to ask you to provide some recommendations for work plan tasks, as we do every year. And that'll be typically at the subsequent April meeting. So, of course, there's some commitments that are ongoing obligations. These things we just need to keep doing them. Of course, monitoring the comprehensive plan. The Terrebonne community plan is in process. And excitingly, we've got our gym outreach for them on April 7th. So we're going to be out in the community of Terrebonne talking to folks there about that. very similar or nearly identical to the Tumalo Community Plan update that you all worked through, but this time for the community of Terrebonne. Sisters is in the process of amending their UGB. We have an application in, and those hearings will be coming through you all, which is a little bit unusual. This will be an opportunity to do a more structured hearing that's got really some technical elements to it, so excited to bring that to you. Kyle Collins is working on that. And also there is a comprehensive plan amendment to recognize a large lot industrial study update. I'll give you a little bit of background on this. So when you are looking to expand cities in Oregon, there's a lot of rigor that goes through about what lands you can bring in and how and when and why. And there was a recognition that there is a certain type of use called a large lot industrial user that needs large contiguous land for certain types of development. And there was a historical effort to make it possible to bring some of those lands in to attract to basically have shovel ready sites for those types of industrial users. And that was based on an economic opportunity study that was done back in the day. And that has been refreshed recently. And it is a appendix to the comprehensive plan. So we'll be bringing that new study back before you and into the comprehensive plan to recognize that kind of the types of businesses, the types of industries, the forecast for those industries has changed a little bit. And we'll go into some depth into that in the future. So of course, still thinking about our resource stewardship and community resilience with groundwater protection. Our coordination with DEQ is really important, particularly in South County. The Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan. So this is a multi-agency effort to think about the types of natural hazards that affect Deschutes County. So it ranges everywhere from volcanoes to earthquakes to winter storms to droughts. and thinking about how to best coordinate between agencies and make sure that we're making appropriate efforts to minimize and mitigate the effects of those possible hazards. Of course, floods are the ones that I know best. It was surprising to me. I participated in one of these about five years ago. It was the first time we brought a volcanologist to the table, and we had always said volcanoes weren't a problem. And they said, have you seen every hill around here? It's like, okay, fair enough. A surprising hazard, Cascadia, you know, an offshore earthquake doesn't seem like it would be a problem, but some of those models suggest that Redmond's going to be the closest functioning airport after that happens and that the fairgrounds, there have been plans made for basically refugees to come across the mountain if any of those bridges still exist. Um, to, uh, to get people, get people into a safe place. Um, and then, you know, for example, of other natural resources, the sage grouse, um, you know, we coordinate with the Bureau of Land Management as a cooperating agency for natural resources there. Um, we're doing a lot of coordination with cities. This slide, this used to be one slide for all of our cities and it's expanded out into two and too much text. So I'm just going to hit some high points here. City of Bend is in the process of updating their water treatment facility. That's the Outback facility, uh, on your way to Tumalo Falls out by Phil's trail, uh, significant expansion targeted out there. And so we're, uh, the county will have an, have a role in that in terms of, uh, a proposed zone change and as of right now they're looking into creating a new zone for the county, a public facility zone that's specifically designed for these uses. The city of Lapine, lots of interactions there. One of the things that Tracy has worked for us for a long time on is addressing. So as addresses are assigned in the county, we use those as kind of a primary key as a way to track both our workflow and what's happening on properties. And so timely and accurate assigning of addresses has always been an important theme, and the cities have contracted with us for those. And we have in discussions with the cities of Redmond, Lapine and Sisters, anticipating handing those duties off to them coming up in the end of this calendar year with us retaining county addressing and we're going to do some transitions. in terms of the staffing that we assigned to that work. So some work being done there. City of Redmond, we're working on a joint management agreement. So of course, our city partners, we have a variety of interactions with them and the JMAs help us make sure that we have a shared understanding of how those works, you know, things that typically come up in those spaces are right away agreements, but also there's some interesting things like there's an urban, there's a urban holding zone in the city of associated with the city of Redmond. That's technically a County held zone that the city administers on our behalf until such time as it comes into the city. So you can imagine that that needs some agreements about how we do that, who pays for what, what happens in certain circumstances. We talked a little bit about those large lot industrial lands. Of course, Redmond has big aspirations on the south side of town. They're looking to attract major or larger industrial players, and so we're ready to coordinate with them on that. City of Sisters, of course, we mentioned the UGB expansion process. That's a rare and historic item coming up for a city expansion, and it's an exciting opportunity. Zoning Texas. You may remember in prior years that this was quite a list. There were 12 of them previously. And we've tried to pare these down to ones that have either received some interest from you, the board, see there's some probability that it seems like we're actually going to execute on these, and or that there's somebody who's actively unhappy about how it works now, as opposed to more aspirational zoning text amendments. So a shorter list focused of the greatest hits. And so childcare, that's been on this list for a while. And we've been holding for just a little more because the state, the Department of Land Conservation and Development has indicated that they're going to propagate a model code to help jurisdictions ensure that they're compliant with state obligations. So the state, as is so often the case, says thou shalt allow childcare in these circumstances. Thou may allow childcare here. And in other places, thou shalt not. And so we want to make sure that we have all of those right in an alignment. Child care is such a difficult thing for people to find, and we want to ensure that there are maximum opportunities with minimum overhead associated with establishing those facilities. Our forest zone code, luckily our forest zone code has a provision that says, when in doubt, follow state law, because our forest zone code It has not been updated in a while and was written in not the clearest way, so it could definitely use a little bit of a cleanup there. Again, nothing that's legally out of whack or is broken, but something that's frustrating for users of that code to understand what their obligations are. Highlighted here, private burial grounds. Well, we found out this year that you just can't bury somebody on your property. There is a process in a statute, and it involves coming to the planning commission. Okay. Um, so, uh, for the time being, what will happen as we've learned from our, uh, senior assistant legal counsel is that they, uh, we planning will receive an application and bring that to you and say, Hey, does it seem like a good idea that they can, uh, bury their loved one on their property? And the answer is yes. If they record something that says, here's where we put the body so that you don't hit it with utility lines, uh, Sorry, that was maybe a little callous, but you don't hit it with utility lines or accidentally dig it up at some later point. There is, in fact, we will be bringing to a process because you're allowed to ask more at that moment. Like, are you putting the body in the water table? Is it too close to lot lines? Is it in your septic system? So... We're going to be likely assuming the board gives a go ahead on this coming to you to see if you like other jurisdictions in the state that regulate this would be interested in having some additional sideboards associated where we put our former citizens. Of course, there's a long standing interest in the road department in standardizing some of our language around road and street projects. Title 18, our primary county's zoning title is in good shape. But some of our secondary titles like Title 19, which we use in the in the area around Bend is out of date and out of sync. And when we do those projects, it can be confusing what the obligations are for developers. Title 22, this is our procedures ordinance. So we have a variety of how do we do things. And one of the things that's come up pretty regularly that we're looking to fix is a question between about the difference between legislative and quasi-judicial matters. So legislative matters are matters that involve a variety of properties or have a general kind of county-wide import, and those are brought through the planning commission for your review on the way to the board. Conversely, matters that have relatively few properties and a constrained impact area tend to be quasi-judicial. And there's a famous case called Strawberry Hill Four Wheelers that talks about how you're supposed to route these down one path or the other. And what we found out is that nobody agrees on which one should go in which direction. And there's been some confusion both for us and applicants. And we'd like to get some clarity in our code, yes. Go ahead.

So the private burial grounds, is that like a legislative process or quasi-judicial process?

It could be a legislative process because we're not talking about a particular burial. We're talking about something that anybody in the county could do.

That's what I was wondering because something about the way that you said it, I was like, oh, are we talking about like a particular person where they're getting buried or are we talking about... It says established procedure, so it sounded legislative, but I just wanted to make sure, because that sounds more familiar with what we normally do.

My assumption would be that we would be establishing the boxes for him to check.

Oh.

Literally.

I have some plans ready for this, and I'm just going to...

So let's talk about farm stores. We talked about farm stores last time. So every year, of course, there's things that come out of the legislature. This is the one that really has some choices with it. There's a couple things that I think of as relatively broad. uninteresting to you. There's some obligations about noticing that happens for certain types of applications. There's some things that make it easier to restore your house after a natural disaster and resource zones. Those things are mandated. We don't have any choices. You'll see them in housekeeping. But this farm store is interesting because, one, as we discussed, It provides an opportunity for – or provides a mandate to counties to review and largely approve farm stores that fall within a certain parameter. And so there's acreage tests. There's types of business that they can undertake. And what's interesting is it says at the end that the county can adopt regulations on certain sideboards in terms of siding and parking and some health and safety stuff. And so we have to, if we want to have any of those sideboards, we have to do those through a legislative process. So the anticipation is, and again, not to get ahead of the Board of County Commissioners and at their pleasure, that we would likely bring something to you to see what types of sideboards that you'd like, if any. Normally, commercial developments are regulated by chapter 18124 and 18116, which talk about everything down to bicycle parking. And in this case, those things don't apply by default to these farm stores. And as of January 1st, 2027, people can apply for those. And for example, if we had no parking rules associated with it, there would be no ability to enforce any type of parking. which in many circumstances, you know, is probably okay, you know, to the extent that people are out on large acreage and are, you know, putting down some gravel or making sure that people don't get sunk in the mud. But in cases where this farm store, you're allowed to have certain types of commercial farm enterprises on a farm operation. So I think I mentioned previously you could have a scenario where you've got 80 acres out in alfalfa and an acre in Tumalo and the acre in Tumalo is also part of the farm operation because you've got lavender goats there and you've got a farm store and we certainly don't want people parking out in the right-of-way or taking access to the right-of-way in a way that's hazardous. Make sure they've got enough porta-potties, these sorts of things. And so not to presume that any sort of sideboards would be put on that use, but we're invited to by the legislature. So something that might be coming your way. Um, natural resources or a new team. Um, I'm going to try to get, uh, Corinne, uh, Heiner and or Lauren street to come to your hearing. So, uh, in case you have any questions for them, but they do a lot of amazing work and it is, um, It's very impressive because a lot of this is done by grants. They chase the grants. They get money. They make sure that those grants are efficiently administered, and they get the money to the people who need it to do the on-the-ground work to reduce fire hazards. So they convene some of our key partners like Project Wildfire, the Project Wildfire Neighborhood Coalition. The Noxious Weed Board is also in there. purview. They update the community wildfire protection plans and engage the public through meetings and presentations. And they deliver a lot of real direct mitigation support and fuels reductions, sweat equities, fall fuel reduction programs, the spring bin rental program where communities are basically given essentially a dumpster to put their fire refuse in and that'll be taken away, and other grants. And so really a dynamic team and one in search of a leader. So if you know anybody in that line of work, there is an open application.

Just go ahead. Well, just a quick question on that in regards to recruiting and this relatively new division, at least under this roof. I'm roughly familiar with sort of the qualifications and degrees and stuff of planners and so forth, but these natural resource folks are ologists of one stripe or another, or what's sort of the target there?

Typically, no. It seems like it's – although there definitely are degrees in forestry, we're not expressly requiring one of these. That's about the closest that you would get in that space. But really what somebody in – as I understand it, would need to be in order to succeed in this space is one – be a really effective organizer of a wide variety of diverse group of people all the way from, you know, your kind of your fire folk down to neighborhood organizations and be a really a hub of the community in terms of organization and networking. Another part is that, you know, there's a lot of grants and grants. I don't know if any of you have ever applied for them, but they have all sorts of rules in terms of tracking timing. So there's a there's a lot of work to be done in that space. And certainly it's somebody with some real experience at the helm. You know, this is a uh it's a busy enough job in regular times and when something's on fire it's quite significant and uh you know and they um recently coming over to our building an exciting moment is that they light things on fire so they piled through grants piled up a bunch of wood outside of um kind of the widgie creek area and on just the right day this spring burnt them down and uh it was uh it's exciting because we have as a county have never started a fire before that's And luckily it went well. So, yeah, really dynamic division. And the job application's up. I've talked kind of in brief about some of the things that are being emphasized. It was interesting to hear the history of this position because prior to the kind of the Internet era, it was really hard to get information about what was going on during fire season. And so originally one of the major functions of the county forester was just to have a body at the table at the incident command center. and, uh, find out, kind of get the information of the day, bring it back to the board, ensure County interest in County, uh, citizens were represented in that, you know, there's choices that are made as fires are fought. And, uh, you know, the, the County as an entity has opinions about that, that may, may or may not align with other jurisdictions, agencies, preferences. So it was a really, it was an exciting opportunity to make those connections and, uh, That with kind of the advent of these information, if all of you probably have the WatchDuty app or something similar, that a lot of that information is available very quickly. So ongoing obligations for coordination, but less of an emphasis of, I heard someone say that an important previous qualification was that you needed to be handy with an X.

And this is going to be likely less important in this recruitment, although some significant history and

Coordination in those areas is going to likely be a viable candidate.

So there's two staff positions that are already filled, and then there's the supervisory one that's recruiting. Any educational or degree requirements for any three of those positions?

If I recall correctly, it says it has a bachelor's or equivalent degree. education and work experience. So typically for both of, you know, for our existing employees, there's a, I believe they both have bachelor's and significant experience in the field. And we would anticipate that for a supervisory position there, you've got someone who's got a very deep experience in the field. in, uh, in working in community organizing with regard to fire. And, uh, it'd be interesting to see what we get for candidates. I'm hoping we get a really robust pool because this is a, it's, it's both, uh, unique and amazing that we have a team working on this and it's three people working on a big job. So really need some people who have, uh, uh, tremendous, tremendous skills. And we're lucky to have two of them and looking for a third. Thank you. So next steps, of course, public hearings coming up, and you'll make recommendations at your subsequent meeting typically. And those zoning text amendments, there'll be opportunities there. Also, of course, the public records open. So you may receive requests from the public in terms of things that they'd like to see the county undertake on our nickel. And you as well may have either from your own experience or from your kind of people you've talked out in the community have some ideas about what the board should undertake. And so that'll be something that you can bring up. And we can definitely package those and take those onto the board for recommendation and prioritization for fiscal 27. And that's the presentation there. I know there's a lot in there. I tried to keep it a little bit abbreviated here because, of course, you're going to get it all again in two weeks. But if you've got any questions about this or thoughts procedurally, any programs that we have that you're interested in, anything you've got, I'm here for you. Great. Questions?

Go ahead.

So when I was looking at the packet, okay.

So when I was looking at the packet, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was two of the diagrams. And it was November of last year. I want to say it was on site. officials or something, but the November 25, we were like well above the average wait time or permitting time and it just it's super spiked and i'm just wondering like were we really short staffed in november or what happened in november that just jacked those two graphs uh in uh like one was like yeah we really were on it and we we really were not on it and we were really below target and i was just curious what happened in november it was like on-site something

Yeah, on-site wastewater new system permit issuance time went from 17 days to 35, and then it's back down to 7.4. I don't recall, Peter, was that during a staffing transition time?

You know, it's a great question, Peter Gutowski, Community Development Director. It is difficult to give you, to pinpoint that pulse. So I'm back of the napkin, we had a very warm fall, a very warm winter. And typically the community development department across divisions experiences a slowdown, which allows our staff to kind of dig out and be prepared for the spring rush. And that didn't happen this year. So there is a spike I can't tell you why it precipitously dropped, currently into the spring. We have seen noticeable improvements in terms of our intake system, but that's not your question. So we're adapting. The on-site wastewater division does just this month SEEING SOME CAPACITY EMERGING AS THEY WORN THE OBLIGATIONS THAT COME WITH BEING AN ON-SITE SANITARIAN. BUT IT'S NOTICEABLE ON YOUR PART. WE CAN DIG A LITTLE DEEPER IF YOU'RE INTERESTED. BUT AS WILL NOTED IN HIS PRESENTATION, WE'RE ONE OF THE FEW DEPARTMENTS THAT TRACK PERFORMANCE. DOESN'T MEAN WE'RE ALWAYS GOING TO NEED IT. We're open and honest and transparent about those various demands and communicate to our customers accordingly. So in any event, I am anticipating more responsiveness as our staff, which is an extraordinary blend of seasoned employees and emerging professionals. As we kind of right-size our departments, we should see some greater efficiencies.

Thanks. Go ahead.

I had a similar, if we're going to look at the graphs, one, and I do think that the planning department obviously does a really great job. But the one that was kind of glaring to me, I was like, whoa, was the acceptance to ready to issue graph. We never met our, we weren't even kind of close to meeting our target all year long. And I'm just kind of curious, is that something that we missed?

This is for single families.

Yeah.

Yes, it's a great question. And one of the things that's actually getting implemented next Wednesday, we have seen some modernization within coordinated services. Since the fall, we have had some challenges. We've done some things systematically and programmatically. We elevated Affirmatech to a lead position. We have two leads. When you're onboarding new staff, there's always some short-term consequences as you're devoting resources to education and technical abilities. But I will share with you for 2025 and 2026, so these are applications that are relatively fresh. it now, but it's, we've got it down to like 30 days. Okay, great. So, uh, but the statistics do show that there's this bulge of, it's taking us approximately, you know, three to four months to issue these permits. What, what, what has happened and how we're remedying this is, uh, we have had, have been willing to take applications even when they've been incomplete. And the way our system functions, it's kind of first in time. You get prioritized, even when your animation isn't complete. And we have had some design professionals take several iterations. They're modifying the plans. They're not covering the full regimen. on-site? Do they have land use? Do they have the requisite requirements for building? And what we realized starting this last fall is that we were, while the intent was there, and I'm not at all trying to suggest that the private sector has exploited the system. It's a system that we allowed and it created some unintended consequences. The unintended consequences those that submitted a complete application for single family dwellings were somewhat penalized if those before them were incomplete. So what we're doing, and we've been forthright over the last 90 days coordinating with design professionals, Central Oregon Builders Association, many of our regular contractors, Starting on April 1st, if one submits an incomplete application, it's voided. At the same time, if you're a property owner or you're a contractor and you need assistance, we will work with you to schedule a pre-application meeting for contractors to inform complete application for those property owners that need assistance we will help guide them to that complete application but this is a new system that we're excited to try for the for this construction season and i have expectations that we're gonna because this is a change of the system uh we're gonna see the private sector respond to that and those statistics that you've seen going I know it's incomplete. I'm going to get to it, but I'm kind of over, I'm just, I've got too many clients, but I got it in the system. So it's in the hopper. And then it allows them to convey a, a narrative, which I don't disagree. Hey, Deschutes County is a little slow. You've got your application, the system, it's going to take a couple of months. Now that that's just not going to be permissible. And that, that narrative to their clients are going to have to be, Hey, um, I'm maxed out right now with clients. I can get you a project in a couple of months. And when that opportunity presents itself, they will submit. So it's a great question. It's an example of us seeing this bulge that you have called out, Commissioner Kelly, working with our permit technicians who have the Um, so, um, in any event, uh, I, I think. In in 6 months time, we'll see, I'd like to believe that number will come down significantly and I, and I should say, I also think we're going to see plan. plan review, which are building inspector and the building division also have made changes to prioritize the applications that come in that can readily be issued if there's more complications. They're setting up systems to coordinate on that front. So we're really, the bottom line I want to say is we're very mindful of the partnership we have with Thrive Connectors. that they're deploying, and it's just critical that we are as responsive as possible and transparent in how we are changing certain business plans.

Thank you for that explanation. It makes total sense. Do we, when they submit the application, do we say, hey, right now we're running, you know, it could be three months until you hit Are we transparent about that?

So everything is submitted electronically. This is coming out of the pandemic. So e-filing, it's just where everything but land use permits are essentially filed online. So we certainly have our counter open. If people have questions, we are honest about what that response rate is. But like I said, for those that have been And the state has guidelines to try to get those permits out within 30 days. We've been doing that. Nonetheless, we have these kind of legacy projects that have been in the system for months. And when I say months, I mean several months that remain incomplete. So we've even communicated with them that as of April 1st, if you're So anyway, more to come. But I think it's an important step to, again, reward those that have taken the time to submit a complete application so we can get it through our system, route it to our various divisions that have a role to play to ensure that the project, the structure, the dwelling is compliant with land use and with on-site in many cases, we can do that and then ultimately get that permit out within months.

Well, to a question that you asked, do we communicate these things? One of the ways we communicate them is we have a website that's entitled Processing Time for Permits. I was Googling it, and I found it. So I was, one, glad I could find it. Two, I was worried that it was going to be horrifically out of date, and it is three days old.

Okay, awesome.

Updated. Yay. Yay.

Do we imagine that our clear and objective standard texts would also expedite this process?

I can speak to that. So, you know, as we talked about through the clear and objective process, we were in that trying to create an apples to apples experience. We were trying to avoid having policy questions. You know, really, I think there's an important community discussion to be had, which is, should we just make it easier to get housing? Should we have fewer rules? Should we have maybe less concern for neighbors, the environment? future users' infrastructure, or should we reduce the burdens that are associated with that? There's certainly, even in the planning community, some real concerns about the difficulty of building housing and the ways that regulation can both make that housing better, safer, more community-friendly, and at the same time can make it more difficult. We did not do that. Instead, what we did is we worked with the existing rules to try to create a parallel that was clear and objective. So before it said, you know, you need to be harmonious with the neighborhood, we would say, or the landscape management combining zone. Previously, you had to paint your home an earth tone color. And, of course, you recall we made a list of these are the colors that you can paint. So they're still available. Remember, the old lane still opens. You can paint it an earth tone color, and that is the non-clear and objective lane discretionary. There's a hope that the clear and objective lane would be a fast track ultimately for people to get to these permits. But people are necessarily, I think, appropriately hesitant to take advantage of that lane because although those permit types are protected against certain types of neighbor attack and are less discretionary, so the notion that either a neighbor or a planner or a court would say you did it wrong. At the same time, the flexibility of options is reduced significantly. And so for most people who don't anticipate some sort of legal attack, most of them would rather paint their house earth tone than one of the listed colors and have more. And I think that's a good metaphor for all of them, that we created these lanes we were required to because if we didn't, if you recall, by not having a clear and objective lane, our existing rules were void. Right. So if we didn't have a parallel clear and objective lane. So the project from last year was really just to assure that we had any rules at all. Or rather that the rules that had been put into place in good faith by your predecessors over decades remained in place. And I think there's a second process there, which is much more controversial and certainly couldn't have been done through a housekeeping-like process, which would be Should we make this easier? I'll point to the landscape management combining zone as a place where there's reasonable community conversation there. We've done a lot of work to make sure that people whose houses are visible from the rivers and our main corridors are painted earth tones. put some effort into permitting that. And, you know, I think people have reasonably asked, you know, is it worth it for, you know, to stop the three people in the county who would have painted their house pink over the past 20 years? You know, is that where we want to put our efforts? Or, you know, because it takes time to do those reviews. It takes money to have planners review those. At the same time, there are other opportunities that maybe do merit community – kind of a permitting-like engagement. There's some – and again, the board will be kind of receiving some presentations in this space who would say that maybe some type of wildfire-related obligations for new – at least for new construction. We certainly know that having certain types of vegetation within five feet of your house puts it at significantly additional risk of being destroyed in a fire. An anecdote, my dad got a letter from his insurance company, Allstate, that said, here's an air forwarder of your house. Get these bushes out of the first five feet or your rates are going through the roof. And so the next weekend, we were out with the trailer and the chainsaw. So, you know, that's a private market doing what it does. But also there can be regulatory components there. So, you know, there's always this balance between trying to get – You know, trying to streamline getting housing to people, a major, major issue in Oregon to ensure that we got affordable and timely housing brought to people. And also kind of deciding what sort of regulatory obligations the community wants. And I think you all in the ADU process, I think, really went pretty deep into that of trying to think about, well, what do we want from these things? And there could be a world in which you'd say. Just build them. If they can flush their toilet, perfect. And in the end, a suite of rules is selected, but that takes time and money and effort to regulate. So that balance is one that we're always a community conversation that we're always having.

I mean, Mr. Kelly's great question. I just want to say we have senior management analyst who provides monthly updates to the board of commissioners and staff about our performance measures and these performance measures that you see are for the calendar year 2025. But we, of course, are monitoring our our performance measures monthly at a minimum. So completing the new home permit process within 30 days was missed at 135. So this report came out in March. This is for February. Analysis, there were 23 permits issued with dates ranging from 2023 to 2026, resulting in that 135 days to process. Excluding the 2023 permits, the number of days to process totaled 98. Excluding the 2324 permits, that number of days to process totaled 65. number of days to process total 24 now so okay we're we're dealing with this plug and again I I credit those to our staff for engaging considering new systems but um and as I mentioned we're going to implement this new and complete intake process on Wednesday I'm very confident that that number is going to go down and um you know to adapt to these processes or circumstances as they present themselves. So those are the real numbers. And again, in a couple weeks' time, we'll see how these numbers, you know, project within another month. Great. Thank you. Anybody else?

I did have a question. As far as projects, it's a nice list that probably would keep us busy, but what's the process to add any others, additional ones that we might consider?

Yeah, certainly. We can work backwards from this. So at some point, the Board of County Commissioners will receive your recommendation. And to the extent those recommendations include these and or other items, those will be presented to them. So at the hearing, it would be appropriate for – there will be a moment for the Planning Commission to – both hear from the public, decide how and if to emphasize those as we move forward to the board, and certainly anything that you've heard that you'd like to see go forward, we'd be glad to receive those and make sure they're carried forward. If you need any help workshopping those, so a lot of times a concept needs a little bit of finessing before you know it. round peg square hole figures out, you know, who needs to work on this, who, you know, so something that might start out as there's a problem with property lines turns out to be, you know, something that we need to revise, you know, our 18124-2B3 under ORAS, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the project. So if you have any ideas that you'd like to talk about them, definitely email, feel free to email them to me. Um, if you'd like to workshop them a little bit and I can help, uh, help plug them into, uh, to what would be, you know, turn them into something that would look like a project with hopefully without redirecting the purpose in any way. And, um, or otherwise you could just introduce them at the, uh, at the hearing and we'll dutifully take them down. And in the end, you'll make a recommendation to, as a group include those who are not going forward.

Perfect. So basically, if any of the Planning Commission has any suggestions or ideas, submit them to you and you can help wordsmith it and put it in form for the hearing.

At minimum, they'll end up on a slide.

Perfect. Thank you. Commissioner Cavill.

Thank you. In thinking of, so, you know, just in the few lists, you know, a few came to mind, like, ooh, ooh, ooh. And I know that in the past we've seen charts where it's like, hey, this is a pretty big chunk of staff time. This is a little ass. This is a big ass. This is, in my mind, as I start to kind of prioritize things and listen to the public and hear questions, Are we going to be given some kind of chart where it says, this is a big ass, this is a little ass to help? So we're not asking, saying, oh, we need, I want the three big asks.

Like a matrix?

Yeah. Is that going to happen?

Because you'll be, we haven't done this in a while, but you'll be having a deliberation.

So we'll prepare supporting materials to identify the choices that you're making. And like we do for the board, try to make a kind of at least an easy introduction for something you can have in your hand to see the type of decision that you're making as you prioritize these decisions. And definitely, really, when you think about what happens is that things that are relatively simple are things that are either mandated by the state or have strong state sideboards on it. Things that get really pretty difficult are things that either are relatively amorphous or have real community outreach. Of course, some of you have been around long enough to go on our road shows where we go out to our – down into the pine and over to sisters and really just taking the temperature of the community are you interested in seeing anything like this whatsoever mule deer was an example that you know was a very significant effort in terms of staff time associated with that and um but you know so uh we can definitely give our estimate of what type of effort it is if it's real you know private burials hopefully relatively simple um you know some other items for example to the extent that uh there might be some sort of community development engagement with defensible space. I expect that would be a very significant effort. And the reason why you're not seeing this on the agenda yet is because we are waiting for the board to indicate if they want to step into that space at all. In some communities, defensible space is handled entirely by the fire department and other agencies and not handled by community development. So they're There may not be a planning nexus here. So we're sitting on the sidelines here to see where the board would be interested or not in participating, perhaps seeing CDD participate in that space. Great. Commissioner Williams.

So I don't have a question. I more had a plug for Lauren Street. My HOA worked with her a number of years ago when she was with COIC and she brought out the heart of course teenagers to clear up our common lands. and we're currently working with her for a sweat equity bin as well as the noxious weed reimbursement she's a really neat gal really has passion for what she does and I'm really glad to see that the CDD has her under their wing now and as well as with Austin we're working to become Firewise recognized within our road district so Kathy, the fire marshal, was out recently and just really good folks who really just do a great job every day.

Thanks. Anybody else? Commissioner Stockkamp.

I always like to look at the new complaints that were filed or the code enforcement each year. And I think it's cool to note more cases were closed than were open this year. So it's the first time in a long time, it looks like. What do you credit the end? It was just a lower caseload in general. I think I remember last year, Deschutes County was hiring another one. I think I saw maybe it was a priority to hire like a supervisor now this year. So is there anything specific that the county planning department credits the lower code enforcement cases to?

terms of just transition, just to share with the Planning Commission. Angie Havener was our administrative manager. She looked at the structure of the hierarchy that's in the early pages of the work plan. She accepted a position with the Rose position. So there's a direct report to code enforcement. So that's internal recruitment courses on Monday. I just spent this afternoon with our systems analysts and was refreshed or reminded to the types of reporting and systems And it's remarkable the way that they handle intake, the way they assign cases. There's systems that are, I'll just give you an example. When a case is assigned, a deputy with the sheriff's office goes out and confirms the complaint. And if it's verified, they then have what's called, this has been in place for 18 months now, 24 months approximately. But then The deputy takes photographs to confirm, let's say, it's solid waste. And then they, within a few days, the code enforcement that's assigned the case gives what's called a preliminary enforcement notice. And it's got all the characterizations of an official notification. But you have violated county code. It explicitly states in this case you have solid waste. It cites the requisite code. And the sheriff officer, the deputy, hand delivers it to the property or distributes it. Now, it doesn't compel everybody. We've had great success when a sheriff's officer provides this preliminary enforcement notice, again, 90 days. Um, and if they don't follow through, then they get a warning letter and then they go to citation and then we go through the administrative hearings process to formally find them. But there's systems like that just. To keep this relatively brief, we have systems like that in place where. A notice is delivered another 1 really quick example, and we, this goes in fits and starts because in some respects, it's been too successful. Preliminary, instead of a pre-enforcement notice, these are called almost preliminary notices. I can't remember the acronym. It's called preset. But a letter goes out that's not hand-delivered by the sheriff, but a letter goes out to the property and says, hey, I want to let you know that we've received a code enforcement complaint about this, this, and this. If you have questions or concerns, please contact us. they come to the counter and they're like, I want to resolve this. The unintended consequences, it hasn't been assigned and everyone has to mobilize. But I think those two examples have contributed to improving the accountability and responsiveness of those property owners who are compelled for a multitude of reasons to bring their circumstance or their situation to the vote.

Great, thanks. And just, I noticed your pets are visiting.

Right behind you. Anyway, great question.

I will say, just to put a finer point to it, that the demands that this section experiences exceeds the capacity. We have... supervisor and backfilling we're going to potentially train two new code enforcement specialists we have five specialists the volume that we get hundreds and hundreds of cases it it just it's it's it's imbalanced and and it's highly unlikely that we're we're not going to be able to raise fees to fund the the in my opinion i mean ultimately that would be a board decision that, and we do this already, we prioritize those complaints that come in if they're a priority one. So a dangerous building, eminent public health and safety, failed septic system, someone who's pulling electric, someone has jerry-rigged their electrical system, we're going to prioritize those. Where we run into challenges are those level two. They don't rise to an eminent how we can get those routed and it remains a work in progress. So great question. The timing is excellent as we in another division are experiencing transition.

Great. Thanks. Commissioner Hofkamp.

Did you have more?

No. Don't complain. I can remember when I think there was one code person for county wide. There used to be. Yeah. I guess a question for Will or Peter or both. First of all, a dumb one, I should know this, but the work year, the fiscal year 26-27, is that July 1, June 30? Okay. So I'm wondering about the precedent for and the degree of discretion that the Board of County commissioners has in mid year, mid work plan, adjustments, additions, changes. And I asked that in the context, uh, both of in, in a routine sense, um, that there are elections that sometimes fall in the middle, but in this sense, really an exceptional situation where three or perhaps four of the, of the board of commissioners will be new in January. and may or may not, but may want to, you know, revisit and look at strategies, initiatives, and priorities, thinking maybe legislative advocacy or other areas, and just wondering if you're anticipating that or if that's unanticipatable. I imagine that they probably have fairly broad discretion to make that, but I can imagine the headache it would be If you're thinking about, you know, right in the middle of a work plan. Anyway, just thoughts on that.

I can respond to that one. Thank you. So, you know, this work plan, in the end, it's a kind of a general direction. You know, we're trying to... If you think about how we actually operationally use this, you'll provide recommendations. The board will take a look at it. And usually the level of information that we get is they'll say something like, yes, farm stores, do that first. And fire is important to us. And so what will happen is as we have resources, as other projects finish up and we have forecasted resources, I'll come back before them for what tend to be about quarterly updates and let them know how the projects that we have are going that aren't already in front of them. Let them know that we have additional capacity and that based on their prior recommendations, these projects are queued up. Does that seem suitable or are there other things that they'd like us to engage with?

You have built-in revisiting.

Yeah, built-in revisiting. And in the end, we serve at the pleasure of the board. They could ask us over any Wednesday and say, this project – stop that, do this. And that's always available. This work plan, we've talked about this for years. We're unusual as a department that we do these work plans so that we're as explicit about what we do, how it went last year, trying to measure what's going on there. And it provides us some real, and as well as the planning commission, it provides us all some real optics to the board where they can see what we're doing in a very transparent way. And we get, in return for that, a lot of feedback from them. You know, I think I say this with my boss in the room, you know, you want to know what they're thinking at all times, if possible, and moving in the right direction. And so too with the board. And so we really appreciate their willingness to entertain this work plan and give us the feedback and, you know, really look into our operations at some depth. You know, this is quite a long report that we provide to them and to the extent that Any of that seems in their, in their opinion to need alteration. We appreciate the time they spend to give us that direction.

Great, thanks. Go ahead.

Acknowledges the zone changes fire resiliency the landfill just to list a few of them I um I know I'm speaking probably on behalf of all the departmental rights I think once we have a sense who the commissioner elects are that could be as early as May or it could be as late as November there's going to be onboarding and just educate as reflected in this work plan and the various of our four divisions. But I can anticipate us. Well, in this case, Nicole and others are circling back about the work plan, especially if we have some emerging capacity to get that direction. So about the projects that we've identified and others that you believe that warrants consideration um you know that's the we don't have any control of the election but what we do have control is this technical issue can inform the board of the projects that they think are noteworthy and then um the board can make those decisions and ultimately a new board can revisit them but I want to empower you to, as you have in years past, whether it's dark skies or water panels or things of that sort, like recent efforts, but I wouldn't have the uncertainty that surrounds an election cloud what you believe is important for the community from a policy standpoint.

Thanks. Anybody else?

I have one more question, but not

You've exceeded your limit.

You're giving me the look like I feel like I might have.

Go ahead.

Ms. Gould, I just want to ask about, you know, Ms. Gould brought up before we brought up this, and she's brought it up now twice, and I just would like some clarification on this, and if what she's saying needs to be addressed, or if it's my assumption that it has to be addressed when you apply for a building to house, but I just feel like she's brought it to us twice now.

I can give you a little bit of the planning context in this. So, you know, we operate under a state land use system and we have certain obligations, things that are either mandated by the state or delegated to the local jurisdiction in terms of what we regulate and what we don't. So, you know, what we're trying to do as we interact with the public is focus on those things that we have some control over. In addition to that, you know, there's a secondary function, which is we're trying to coordinate with other agencies. You know, for example, when we're working in wetlands, we could tell somebody we don't require a permit, period. But we really wouldn't be doing our job in some important ways if we didn't say, but Army Corps does, or the Department of State Lands does, or trying to make these coordinating efforts. With regard to water rights, as Ms. Gould noted, it has been the general direction of the board to date. that we're not at a county level looking to intrude into that space further than – that we generally are not in that space in a regulatory capacity. When I think of an anecdote, a friend of mine had a property and he bought it and his predecessor built a barn on an area that had water rights. And, you know, that's a private property choice that's not precluded as a matter of law. And in his experience, I'm not saying that this is general, what that required is that his district came to him and said, you now must sell those rights off. And he thought, yay, I get to sell some rights off. And in fact, the proceeds from the rights did not even begin to cover the processing fee of selling those rights off. So, you know, that water is, and again, an anecdote is not data. But in the one case that I'm familiar with, this is a private property decision that's regulated by multiple agencies. And to the extent that people want to build on water, an area that has water rights, it's not precluded as a matter of law. And to the extent that we ask people to fill out forms, those forms get ever longer. And this is a place, at least to date, where we've chosen to be judicious about what we're asking people to talk about on those forms to the extent that at some point in the future, for example, if you wanted to recommend a program to the board and the board was to entertain a program and implement a program where we engaged more significantly with water rights or deeper coordination with our irrigation districts, something we're certainly willing to do, but there's a balance between imposing additional information requirements on people for things that we don't, in fact, regulate. And to date, the pleasure of the board seems to be to allow this one for people to interact separately, both with community development and their water rights holders. In certain circumstances, for example, subdivisions or other things where our code has said, you know, we're interested to find out how you're going to get water to this development. There are express code hooks, but for independent or for exempt wells, we don't regulate those. And for water rights, to the extent that a farmer deems it in their beneficial interest to put some sort of farm-related item on an area that has irrigation rights, we certainly aren't the experts to tell them to do that otherwise. And they presumably have interactions with their irrigation district where they can do that. And counterpoint is we have a lot of new owners out here. And just to my friend's case, he was unaware that his predecessor put a barn on top of the water rights and then had to dispose of those rights in a way that was costly.

Thank you. That's really helpful.

Okay. Staff comments. Well, I had the unusual pleasure of telling you about everything that's going to happen for the next year. So no additional comments. Thank you. Thanks. Peter.

We've communicated to the planning committee. believe it was important to continue um that recruitment as you know we didn't get any for the first approximately three four weeks we didn't fit any candidates so uh let's see what this this uh extension holds um wanted to let you know that today we were notified that two petitions were formally submitted to the land conservation and development commission these uh these are for enforcement orders as it pertains to deschutes county's processing of zone changes out of the exclusive foreign use zone as well as how we've processed non-form dwellings um community development department staff and uh legal counsel for In my opinion, these are frivolous petitions that are more motivated to engage an audience since we're in an election season, elections in May, we're going to have elections in November. And also we have the regular session in 2027. So nonetheless, we have offered a response. They have filed a formal petition. And now it's up to the Land Conservation and Development Commission to determine if there is good cause. So we will keep you abreast. really in decades. There was a time in the early 90s where there were concerns about how we were processing non-farm dwellings. We remedied that concern by having independent hearings officers render those decisions, which resolved the concern. And I'll just note that we have independent hearings officers for contentious non-farm dwellings, independent hearings officer for every plan amendment zone change. They offer an independent decision. If it goes to the Board of County Commissioners, that's a separate hearing. And then if it's appealed to the courts, LUVA, or the Court of Appeals, in some cases, there's an attempt to go to the Supreme Court. We've never been remanded. Excuse me. We've never been reversed. Never. We've been remanded on occasion, and on remand we forbid. So I share it with you. It's, again, something that represents a new era here. As you know, our comprehensive plan update is under appeal. We just found out this week that we should be hearing from LUVA in three weeks. So more to come there. That's another project. And if it does come back on a documentality, well, we'll be, it might be, Third, I just wanted to put in a plug. I know Nicole and Will have mentioned this to you, but there's a Terrebonne community meeting for April 7th. So we're excited to kick off that plan. Four, I wanted to let you know that we may have seen this after a rigorous recruitment process. Chris Appleby prior to becoming a building official was an assistant building official for several years. So a robust external process, a diverse panel, very excited to, it was unanimous, demonstrate to the product community and our partners that they're the best candidates. I wanted to share that with you. And then lastly, the legislature CITI died. It concluded on March 6th. There were three pieces of legislation that likely will come through this planning commission. One was discussed today that Will noted in the work plan. That's House Bill 4153 as it pertains to farm stores. So this is a this is a a It's permissive. Counties can choose. Counties don't get to choose here. Farm stores effective January 1st of 2027 are allowed. They can have up to 10,000 square feet devoted to this farm store and 25% of that can be for retail. So it is an opportunity for the proponents to help farmers diversify their income, to provide products that originated a farm or elsewhere and make them available. There's an opportunity to have a kitchen on site, goods and things of that sort so a lot of coordination will go into this obviously when you talk about kitchens you're talking about on-site you're talking about bathrooms if you're talking about buildings you're talking about building to commercial standards for fire and life safety so in any event we'll note it that there likely will be we'll need to amend the code to honor uh what the legislation directed Two other bills very quickly. Senate Bill 1561, that was a bill that basically streamlined the ability to replace a farm or forest dwelling that's damaged as part of a natural hazard. So that really didn't receive much controversy, but we will likely need to revamp our language to acknowledge it. onerous land use permit and then lastly wanted to share we talked about some clear and objective standards for housing and what the goals are try to streamline that there was a house bill 4037 it's an ominous bill so it was the christmas tree bill at the very end section 17. what this section does for housing that takes place in rural residential exceptionaries um or non-resource lands I'm just going to give you any type of housing, but let me focus on a land division. Any land division in these areas for this legislation can only go to a public hearing if the applicant requests it. It can only be appealed locally if the applicant requests it. It can only be appealed to LUVA if the applicant requests it. So this came in at the very, very end. We were monitoring it from a distance, but it is somewhat unprecedented to grant that kind of privilege, authority to the applicant. But the intent, and it's when Section 17 speaks to clear and objective housing. is what obviously this planning commission has seen several amendments to get our code to be clear and objective so the legislature built on that and now one wants to do a cluster development one wants to do a subdivision if one wants to do a single family dwelling that has a requisite overlay zone there there is there is a provision for notice but the only ability to So you will see this officially. And whether it's the farm store, whether it's these omnibus bill, I will say from what I saw from a distance, while there were proponents, there were also many opponents to this. So we don't get to weigh in on that as staff. We just deal with I have, but those are significant pieces of legislation.

Thank you. Nicole, did you have anything? Great. Commissioner Hofkamp? Nothing, thanks. Commissioner Stockkamp?

Comments.

Commissioner Karras?

Nothing.

Commissioner Williams?

Glad to see all seven of us in the same room.

It's been a while.

Great, thanks. I just want to thank everybody, and it was an informative evening, and we'll see you in a couple weeks. Thank you. Meeting's adjourned.