Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thursday, December 11th, and I'm calling the meeting to order at the Planning Commission. Just for the record, so it makes it easier for AI, the commissioners present are Commissioner Kiris, Commissioner Hofkamp, Vice Chair Altman, and Commissioner Stockkamp via Zoom. Since we have a quorum, would anybody like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the November 13th meeting?

Sure. I can move to approve the minutes.

Chair Karras moves to, or sorry, Commissioner Karras moves to approve.

Is there a second?

Commissioner Hofkamp seconds. Any discussion? Nope. Votes, please. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Commissioner Stockhamper, are you there? Aye. I was not here for the last meeting, but I did watch it, so I will vote aye as well.

All right. Can you hear me now? I was supporting the motion. Yeah. I just joined as a panelist. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Okay. Minutes approved. Do we have any public comment that is not related to tonight's public hearing? Any public on Zoom? All right, so we'll move ahead with the action item. The first action item is a work session and public hearing regarding text amendments for wildfire mitigation building codes. And Kyle Collins, senior planner, will be presenting.

Yeah. Good evening, commissioners. For the record, again, Kyle Collins, senior planner, community development department. Give me one second here. I'm going to share my screen. There we go. All right. So this is the time and place set for a hearing on file number 247-25-000703-TA concerning amendments to adopt discretionary wildfire mitigation residential building code standards as allowed by Senate Bill 83. Staff will outline the hearing procedures that will be followed. On the screen here you'll see the project website which includes the full record of all materials associated with this file. So please note that the Planning Commission will hear oral testimony, receive written testimony, and consider the testimony submitted at this hearing. The hearing is also being recorded. The Commission may make a decision on this matter today, continue the public hearing to a date certain, or leave the written record open for a specified period of time. The hearing will be conducted in the following order. Staff representing Deschutes County as the applicant will give a brief report on this issue. We will then take testimony from agencies and any interested persons. And following testimony, the commission can request staff to answer any additional questions. Please note that this is a hybrid public hearing with both in-person and remote participation. For any in-person participants, if you wish to testify, please fill out a blue sign-up sheet and submit it to staff. You can find those here in the corner of the room. After your name is called, please come up to one of the tables in the front of the room before beginning your testimony. And before starting your testimony, please provide both your first and last name as well as your mailing address. For any remote participants, if you wish to testify, you must be logged into Zoom or have called in using the Zoom dial-in option. When the chair asks if anyone would like to testify, you will need to use the raise hand feature to notify the commission. To do this, you need to press the raise hand button on your computer or smart device, or if you've dialed in, dial star nine. In addition to oral testimony, if anyone has any written testimony to submit, please hand it to me directly after your testimony. And if you're participating remotely, you could submit your written testimony via email to the email address you see here on the screen. Please note that the chair and staff are responsible for conducting an orderly hearing. Any testimony or behavior which is inappropriate will be addressed and may result in that member of the public being removed from the hearing. Questions to and from the chair may be entertained at any time at the chair's discretion. Cross-examination of people testifying will not be allowed. However, if any person wishes to ask a question of another person during that person's testimony, please direct your question to the chair after being recognized. The chair is free to decide whether or not to ask such questions of the person testifying. And prior to the commencement of the hearing, any party may challenge the qualifications of any commissioner for conflict of interest. This challenge must be documented with specific reasons supported by facts, and should any Commissioner be challenged, the member may disqualify himself or herself, withdraw from the hearing, or make a statement on the record of their capacity to hear and decide this issue. At this time, do any members of the Commission need to set forth any information that may be perceived as a conflict of interest.

Does any Commissioner have anything to disclose, and if so, please state the nature of same and whether you can proceed.

Right. Seeing none, does any party wish to challenge any commissioner, the member of the hearings body in this case, based on conflicts of interest?

As no challenges are presented, the hearing is now open. Staff will proceed with a brief report.

All right, as Vice Chair Altman pointed out earlier, the proposal under review today is for discretionary wildfire mitigation residential building code standards that have recently been made available to local jurisdictions. So first I'll do a little bit of background to show how we got here today. Legislatively, starting in 2019, Deschutes County established the Collaborative Wildfire Mitigation Advisory Committee that was composed of several different members in our community of people from the building, division, people from the planning division, fire mitigation officials, people from the building community contractors, etc. And ultimately that committee was convened in order to determine whether or not new standards for residential development should be incorporated here in Deschutes County. That ultimately concluded with a summary report in 2020 that was given to the Board of County Commissioners and ultimately outlined a set of possible recommendations moving forward with new proposals. However, before any specific action could be taken on that recommendation report. In 2021, Senate Bill 762 was passed, which was ultimately intended to modernize and help improve wildfire preparedness across the entire state of Oregon. After that bill was passed, it largely removed local discretion in incorporating any type of wildfire mitigation proposals for development. And so we basically let the state take the lead following 2021. Now, fast forward a few years. As Senate Bill 762 was coming online, one of the primary things that was intended to be established through that bill was this comprehensive statewide wildfire hazard map, otherwise just known as the hazard map. And it was intended to guide new wildfire regulations for residential development across the entire state. I'm sure most of the commissioners are very familiar with this. We've talked about it at length in previous meetings. But once that hazard map was ultimately adopted, properties that were intended to be included in what was described as the wildland urban interface or the WUI, as well as classified as high hazard, would be subject to home hardening building codes, otherwise known as the R327 of the Oregon Residential Specialty Code, and defensible space standards, which were to be determined by the Oregon State Fire Marshal. However, in 2025, due to public concern statewide for a variety of reasons, the hazard map and all associated requirements were repealed with the passage of Senate Bill 83. Senate Bill 83 also now allows local governments to start adopting some of these mitigation standards previously that were to be controlled by the state hazard map on a local basis. So that's how we've arrived sort of at the date we are at today. Here in Deschutes County, just some more general context outside the legislative history, what you can see on screen is a map of all the large fire incidents across Deschutes County for the last 125 years. So there's a lot of information on this map, so don't feel like you have to take it all in and understand every element. But effectively, all the color polygons that you can see on there are large fire events that have occurred. One notable exception is the flat fire is not actually listed on here. This map was created just before that fire ignited on the ground earlier this summer. And so there would actually be an additional polygon you'd see in sort of the upper left-hand corner next to the City of Sisters. The big takeaway here is that we live in a fire adapted ecosystem. Fires happen all the time and have for certainly the last 125 years and well into the past, even before that. This just gives a general sense of fires happen all over the place here at the county level. Additionally, Deschutes County continues to be one of the fast and growing regions of the state. Portland State University has forecasted that by 2040, Deschutes County should increase in population by approximately 60,000 people, a little bit more than that. And that includes 4,000 additional people in the unincorporated county. So the unincorporated areas of our county are intended to host less population moving forward as opposed to our four incorporated cities. But there is still pretty significant growth expected outside of our city areas. To put this in a little bit more context, the Community Development Department has issued 240 permits approximately so far in 2025 for both one and two family dwellings. That's the primary development that this type of new building code standards would actually affect. And so 240 permits isn't a huge amount of permits compared to what the city of Bend, for example, might issue. But it's noteworthy. generally you can see that this increase in population is also leading to increases in residential construction countywide. So now an overview of the proposed code itself. The proposed amendments would institute what I've already previously described is section R-327 of the Oregon Residential Specialty Code for all new residential development and certain residential accessory structures. I really want to emphasize that the code itself is limited in terms of what it can apply to at the state level. We don't have a lot of discretion in changing portions of that code. And so it truly is limited to new residential development. We're talking about new houses that are built. And even there, there are some limitations where it doesn't apply to things like multi-family housing. And I'll go into a little bit more of those exceptions here in a second. So broadly, that R-327 section covers the following components associated with residences. So it's the materials and construction of a roof, exterior walls for dwellings, the glazing or the windows associated with your house or skylights, things of that nature. Ventilation, so whether that's foundation vents, attic vents, soffit vents, et cetera. Gutters and downspouts have to be composed of certain materials and capped with a material to prevent the accumulation of debris. That's one of the big pieces. And then finally things like eaves and soffits and cornices, basically the overhang portions of your house also have to be composed of certain materials. Some big exemptions and exceptions. There are quite a few things that this would not apply to, and it's probably important to call those out early on. One of the biggest is previously R-327 was intended to also at some point cover significant remodels or repairs of existing residences. That's now been stricken from that portion of the building code. And so, again, this will only apply to new residences moving forward. So if you want to add on, let's say, a thousand square foot addition to your existing house, that would not have to meet this particular requirement moving forward. You're exempt from those standards. However, if you wanted to completely tear down your house and build a new house, then the new standards would actually kick in at that point. It doesn't apply to manufactured homes. Manufactured homes are governed by completely different building codes. We've been informed by the State Building Codes Division that there may be a forthcoming update to incorporate some of these same standards for manufactured homes. But at least for the time being, this does not affect manufactured homes. It doesn't affect certain accessory residential structures. So you can think of things just like a storage shed or maybe a detached garage. There are certain size limitations, which you can see on screen here, as well as some distance limitations that kick in. And as long as effectively you're building a small enough structure far enough away from wherever your residence is on site, that particular structure would be exempt from these R-327 standards. There's an exception for what are described as membrane-covered frame structures. You can think of these greenhouses as probably the biggest area that that would cover. And then finally, two big ones are commercial developments in multi-unit dwellings, apartment buildings and the like, although we don't build many of those in the county. I'm not aware of any at this point. But those are covered by different areas of the building code that deal predominantly with commercial structures. And they have their own set of fire mitigation standards that aren't being addressed here. And then lastly, ag-exempt structures. So if you have farm-related buildings, barns, what have you, that are specifically connected to an agricultural operation on your property and that receives an agricultural exempt permit, those structures are not to fall in line with these R-327 standards. So quite a few exceptions and exemptions that are already baked into the code. It's also important to note that we cannot adopt R327 in sort of a piecemeal or a la carte fashion. So previously, for example, Deschutes County had a provision where we did implement the roofing section or at least a portion of the roofing section of R327 to prohibit wooden shake roofs. With Senate Bill 83 and this larger rewrite of the R327 section at the state level, we're required to take on the entirety of this section of code if we want to implement any portion of it. We also can't modify any portion of it. The way the code itself is propagated in the state of Oregon, building code specifically, is the state building codes division adopts and implements this code and then it propagates out to local jurisdictions. We don't have very much discretion in terms of tweaking individual elements within the code. It's basically this is the building code and then there are certain discretionary options like this R-327 option that we can choose to opt in or opt out, but we can't change the language of it in any way. Madam Chair, can I ask a quick question on that particular point?

Yes, please. Sorry to interrupt your flow. It's going to drive me nuts. So where do we have discretion? If it's adopted in whole and not a la carte, and if the language is not tweakable, are you going to cover that, or where does our discretion come in? It's pretty limited, but I'll get to it at the very end. Okay.

One of the big things that has been brought up again and again as we've talked about this both with the Board of County Commissioners and just in general working groups over the years is how much would this actually affect residential development cost? It's a great question and it is extremely difficult. As you can imagine, it really depends on so many variables. It's difficult to give a very distinct and concrete answer for that. It factors on things like what does the homeowner want to do? What did they originally intend to build their house like? What's the size of the structure? Are the materials readily available in the region at this period of time? Are the contractors you're using familiar with the materials? And all those are effectively impossible to give like concrete estimates for. We do have a number of different studies, including some studies that have been compiled by the State Building Codes Division to try to get at least a universal, hopefully a range of estimates for what this could affect. And I very cautiously included a conservative estimate here that based on all those studies put together, and this matches largely with the State Building Codes Division has said, it might increase costs somewhere in the range of 2% to 11% over the cost of what we're describing as traditional construction. And I'll describe why I've put that in quotes here in a second. So there are some studies that actually suggest that in certain instances, it costs less to incorporate some of these elements, just depending on the types of materials that are chosen in individual projects. But the reason I've described traditional construction as a little bit in scare quotes there is there's not really a universal definition for what is traditional construction. I think everybody has kind of an internal sense of what we mean by like stick-built houses and site-specific built houses that have been developed over hundreds of years at this point. However, a lot of the elements that are covered by R327 are already a part of traditional construction. And that's particularly true once you start looking back over the last 10 years of some of these products that are available now on the market much more readily than they have been, have become cheaper, and contractors themselves have become more familiar with them. Probably the biggest example of this is something like fiber cement siding or hardy board siding is one product that utilizes that technology. And this has become much more common in residential development over the previous even just 10 years. Don't have numbers on how many different developments are using those versus not using them. But anecdotally, these are things that we see quite frequently. The same is true of roofing materials. So asphalt shingle roofs, most asphalt shingles that most commercial contractors are going to utilize would likely meet the standards in R3-27, although there may be some discrepancy there depending on the individual product chosen. And then finally, one big piece to keep in mind is because new residential construction is usually not built on kind of a cash payment, basis, we're talking about financing options. And so it really makes a lot more sense, even if there are cost increases associated with this, to think about it, that being spread over a 30-year time horizon, which is the standard time horizon for a residential mortgage in this particular case. And so if the cost of a house increases by 5% over traditional construction, you can think of that as a one-time lump sum payment, but it probably makes more sense to think about it as increases, incremental increases in your monthly payments against your mortgage. To Commissioner Hofkamp's question, now we're getting into what is the actual decision points that we're here to talk about today. There's really only two. The first is the obvious one, which is should the county adopt these standards at all? Do we want R-327 for new residential construction moving forward? And then if the answer to that question is yes, there is some discrepancy in terms of where the standards could apply. So the State Building Codes Division allows this a fair amount of flexibility in terms of where we could apply these standards. They don't give much direction in terms of or guidance in terms of how we choose to apply these. We could apply them universally, which is how the draft language is written today, or it could be more targeted to specific areas of the county. I hesitate to even mention the more targeted approach, although it is an option for the commission to discuss. The reason being, once we start to talk about targeting individual areas of the county to impose these particular standards, we open up some of the same arguments that we've seen over the past couple years with the state wildfire hazard map and discrepancies between individual properties and why do I have to meet these standards and my neighbor doesn't. It also adds in kind of a legislative hurdle wherein once we start targeting individual areas, we have to open this up to a land use process, which just requires more noticing procedures. We have to contact the Department of Land Conservation and Development, and it just delays the process. The Board of County Commissioners has made this abundantly clear that they see this project as a priority, regardless of what the outcome is. And so the hope is that we can move in the most expeditious manner. But... Don't want to say that that is not a possibility to target it more specifically. Last thing that I'll talk about here is defensible space. So Senate Bill 83 does also allow local jurisdictions now to adopt defensible space codes. Those have to be based around some yet-to-be-released standards from the Oregon State Fire Marshal. But the current proposal that we're talking about today does not cover defensible space. So we're not talking about vegetation treatments. We're not talking about landscaping requirements or even fencing requirements in this particular case. Those are all very important things to talk about and we likely will be bringing a similar set of discussions and proposals forward at a future date at the Board of County Commissioner's direction. But at least for the time being, this is targeted just to those fire hardening building code standards. So more to come regarding defensible space.

Kyle, could I interrupt you for a moment? Of course. I see that Commissioner Stockcamp has his hand raised.

Yeah, I have a question for Kyle. Does the approach, does that require public hearing and notice as well, or is it more so the individualized approach for the R-327?

Yeah, so any legislative amendment requires a public hearing, which is why we're here today talking to the Planning Commission, and then ultimately we'll be bringing this to the Board of County Commissioners as well. The difference with more targeted approach in the county that I was referring to is we're required to, anytime we're messing around with the zoning code, so right now this does not apply to the zoning code at all, but if we're talking about identifying areas in the county, then you're almost immediately talking about land uses and zoning designations. And under that, we're required to go through a very specific process with the state. We issue a 35-day notice in advance of the hearing. We have to submit our proposal to the Department of Land Conservation and Development. And then ultimately, after it either passes or doesn't, they acknowledge that amendment to our local code. So because this is limited right now just to the building code itself, we bypass that process. But once we start bringing in more specific geographic considerations, we come back into the land use lane.

Okay, so yeah, just understanding kind of the path. So if, say, it was discussion heading towards individual, that hypothetical, that would mean additional public hearings is what you're saying, because it's more notices then?

Correct, yeah. So we would ultimately put this process on pause. We would issue those additional notices, and then we would back to the planning commission at a future date.

Yeah, appreciate that. Thank you for clarifying.

Of course. I know it's a little bit in the weeds, but... Agency and public comments. We haven't received any agency comments to date, although we've behind the scenes had broad support from many of the fire protection districts in the region. We have received two public comments, including one from the Deschutes County Project Wildfire Neighborhood Coalition. This is a smaller subgroup of our larger Deschutes County Project Wildfire Group, which is We meet monthly to discuss generally wildfire issues throughout Deschutes County. That includes things like fuel treatments on public lands, things like the proposal you see here today. And it's composed of a broad variety of agencies. And this neighborhood coalition is really just that subgroup that deals with individual property owners in the county that are interested in fire and would like to take additional mitigation actions. But both of those public comments that we've received are largely supportive of the amendments as proposed to date. So that concludes my staff report. You have the same options as always moving forward. You can continue the hearing to a date and time certain. You can close the hearing tonight, but leave the written record open to a date certain. You can close the hearing and set a date for deliberations. And finally, you can close the hearing and commence deliberations. I'll point out that I've bolded this here and kind of highlighted it because, as I pointed out just earlier, this project has been made a priority by the Board of County Commissioners. And we would hope, moving forward, because we are in the holidays and we have a limited meeting coming up for the Planning Commission, that deliberations could be expedited. Obviously don't have – if there's a lot of discussion and we need to come back at a future date, we're welcome to do that. That's totally up to your discretion. But because of that impetus put on us by the Board of County Commissioners, the hope is to move relatively quickly in getting this to whatever the final decision they ultimately make. And with that, I'll take any questions you might have. The final thing that I'll point out is I am not an expert on building codes at all. That's not the universe that I live in. We have a special guest here tonight. Amy Doherty works in our building safety division. And if you have like very specific technical questions around the building code, I'll probably defer to her because she has better information than I do.

Thank you, Kyle. As this is our opportunity to have a work session, does any commissioner have any questions or comments for either Kyle or Amy? Looks like neither Commissioner Stockamp nor Commissioner Williams have any comments or questions. So let's move on then to the public hearing. I have two blue slips here. If anybody else has anything they want to say, please fill out a slip and give it to Kyle. First up is Lon Leneve. Did I pronounce that properly? Leneve, please come up to one of the desks up here. Of course, come on up. Thank you. Is this Robin? Are you Robin Church? Robin Church. Thank you. Thank you. And just for the record, before they begin their comments, I just want our AI bot to notice that Commissioner Williams has also joined our meeting and is participating. Thank you.

All right, we'll comment for time. Thank you for allowing us the time tonight.

Yes, please both introduce yourselves and where you're from in the county. Yes, please.

Yes, my name is Robin Church. I live at 19013 Mount Shasta Drive in Bend.

Thank you.

I am an Aubrey Butte resident. And for the five years that I've lived, five and a half years I've lived in Bend, I've been involved in our HOA as a board member and as a Firewise member. When I was a board member, I was heavily involved in expanding our Firewise capabilities to where they're pretty extensive right now. My wife and I are also wildfire assessors. So we do property assessments for owners on Aubrey Butte, and we also do those for Bend Fire. And then I am also the co-chair of the Project Wildfire Neighborhood Coalition that Kyle had mentioned. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Tonight, I am actually representing the coalition, and through a recent overwhelming vote by our membership, I was asked to present here and ask that the Deschutes County formally adopt the Oregon Residential Specialty Code R-327, wildfire hazard mitigation. Importantly, I'd also like to note that this week we have asked the cities of Bend, Redmond, and Lapine to do the same. And as you may know, Sisters has already adopted this code, and it's going to be effective in April of 2026. What's really nice about the code is that it's on the shelf ready, as I think Kyle demonstrated, for immediate adoption. It addresses the new dwellings and accessory structures, as he mentioned, and the construction and materials are based on best practice mitigation strategies. While this code wouldn't address existing buildings, it is a very important first step in adopting game-changing requirements aimed at mitigating the wildfire disasters that we are all accustomed to seeing in Oregon and on the West Coast. This forward-thinking code, if adopted throughout the county, would greatly improve the survivability of the approximately 60,000 homes expected to be built in the county over the next 20 years. Very importantly, it addresses one of the three key requirements of good wildfire mitigation management, which is one, home hardening, which R-327 directly addresses, the creation and maintenance of defensible space, and sound emergency evacuation planning. The Neighborhood Coalition is a subcommittee of Project Wildfire, which is the Deschutes County organization formed in 2004. And its mission is to prevent deaths, injuries, property losses, and environmental damage caused by wildfires. The Neighborhood Coalition was formed in 2023 to support the mission of Project Wildfire, and specifically our mission is to support Project Wildfire's mission by improving fire adapted readiness one neighborhood at a time. So we formed this coalition a couple years ago. We meet monthly and it's intended to be a boots on the ground resource that can help communities rapidly ramp up its fire fighting capabilities. We focus on recruiting, educating, and supporting these communities across the county that either want to become Firewise or that want to ramp up their Firewise capabilities. We want communities to avoid having to recreate the wheel when they do this. So when they're developing fire readiness programs, we do so by sharing our expertise, our experience, our processes, our documentation, and other resources to get them quickly up to speed. We started with about 25 communities two and a half years ago, and we have rapidly grown to over 80 communities now, with a number of others in the process of becoming Firewise, which will join the coalition. The communities run the gamut in terms of size, location, structure. So we have large, small, rural, urban, HOA organized and non-HOA communities as members. The membership also includes a very active list of individuals with wildfire-specific expertise from a variety of local, county, state, and federal organizations and agencies. And these include the State Fire Marshal's Office, Oregon Department of Forestry, Bend Fire and Rescue, OSU Extension, the U.S. Forest Service, and Project Wildfire Deschutes County Forestry. And then a third membership group that the coalition benefits from are independent industry experts from a variety of specialties critical to our cause. And these experts come from the insurance, the power company, wildfire consulting, fuel remediation, and arborist landscaping services. Thanks again for the time that you gave me. But before I turn it over to Robin Church, who she is also a member of the coalition leadership, I'd like to end with a personal comment. I've had a crash course over the last five years in wildfire risks and wildfire mitigation best practices. I've directly observed untold numbers of properties to help improve fire preparedness. We have and will continue to make progress one property in one neighborhood at a time, if needed. But what's really needed is code adoption like we are asking for this evening. Whether it focuses on home hardening or defensible space, the only way to really accelerate wildfire safety is to require it of property owners. We need codes and regulation with teeth in them. Otherwise, as we do now, we are simply asking people to voluntarily do the right thing. And that's proving to be somewhat of a slow road. Certainly better than nothing, but nowhere near what progress would look like if we implemented and enforced best practice wildfire preparedness code, such as would be accomplished with the implementation of R-327. So thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners. I'm here on behalf of the Project Wildfire Neighborhood Coalition to urge you and the Board of Commissioners to adopt R-327 as a smart, cost-effective first step toward a safer, more resilient Deschutes County. I'd like to start with a brief video created by a colleague, Toby Weiss, who was affected by the flat fire this past August in order to demonstrate the importance of wildfire mitigation Wind swept through that fire 14 miles across Jefferson and Deschutes counties towards Sisters, and nearly 4,000 homes were under various levels of evacuation.

He's on. Open vents. Exciting. Fencing. Dark mulch. One ember. Just one. And any of it can ignite in seconds. R-327 is a new residential building code amendment. It can be the line between destruction and survival. Plurgent homes, block neighbors, resist ignition, and stop a small spark from becoming a neighborhood disaster. Deschutes County is growing fast. How we build today, we decide how we survive tomorrow. Tell local leaders about R-327. A safer central home is one of the choices we make when we move into the next climate.

Technology. So as has been described, R327 is shelf-ready for local adoption. It reflects decades of research focusing on ignition resistance. And these common sense standards reduce risk from... Sorry. There we go.

I think I'm having a technical difficulty because you can't see my screen.

Oh, I was kicked out of Zoom.

Let's see.

I apologize.

Why don't you just go ahead and tell us the rest? I think we generally have your message.

All right.

Well, you have a copy of the presentation. Yes. Yes? Oh, perfect. OK. So these common-sense standards of R3-27 reduce risk from wildfire spread and structure-to-structure conflagration, which is a growing threat in dense communities experiencing ember storms and wind-driven fire events. Momentum is building, and we ask you to be part of this regional effort. Coalition members voted to support it. Sisters adopted it. And adoption by Deschutes County certainly aligns with county goals and priorities for wildfire mitigation and preparedness. Deschutes County is growing, and the question is not if we will build, but to what standard we will build. How we build today will impact how resilient or how vulnerable our communities will be in future fires. Wildfires are disruptive and costs matter. Studies show that building to wildfire resistant standards adds less than 3% to construction costs, far less than the financial impact that families will face after a fire. In an era where two-thirds of homeowners are uninsured or underinsured, wildfire loss often results in displacement, financial hardship, or destitution. Building fire-hardened homes promotes safety, economic stability, and is a long-term affordability strategy. Nearly half the cost of wildfire disasters falls on local communities. For every $1 invested in wildfire-resilient construction, $210 in future losses can be avoided, according to Headwaters Economics. That's arguably one of the most cost-effective investments for resilience available to local government. Actions that make homes survivable to wildfire also make them insurable. When homeowners in fire-prone regions such as ours face canceled policies and dramatic premium increases, consistent community scale mitigation standards matter. Building codes and defensible space measures work and effectively outperform piecemeal measures to protect homes and preserve neighborhoods. so in summary r327 is practical cost effective and evidence-based adoption signals your commitment to building a future for residents that is safer more resilient more insurable and more stable economically we ask you to expedite its adoption and to put us on a path toward community wildfire resilience at scale thank you thank you

There anybody else in the room or online who would like to make a comment? No. Okay, so we have our list of next steps from Kyle, which were to continue the hearing to a date certain, to close the hearing and leave the written record open to a date certain, to close the hearing and set a date for deliberations, or to close the hearing and commence deliberations today. Do I have a motion?

Commissioner Williams has her hand raised.

Yes, Commissioner Williams? Yes. I would move to close the hearing and start deliberations this evening.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Commissioner Hovkamp seconds.

And I bring this motion up because There are no real changes that can be made. We either accept R-327 or we don't. The public is in favor of it. And personally, as someone who has rebuilt within the last 10 years before R-327 was a requirement, I used fire hardened materials in my home or on the outside of my home. And I do feel safer knowing that my house has a chance against a fire having hardy plank siding, having an asphalt shingle roof. And again, I feel like if the state is saying something and it kind of makes common sense, it probably is common sense.

Are there any other comments before we vote on opening deliberations?

Chair or Vice Chair? I want to encourage everybody to avoid deliberating before we're officially in deliberations. And then also... I'm a little torn on the motion because I think, you know, I was really moved by the testimony tonight and feel ready personally to start discussing it, but we are missing a couple people. That said, you know, sometimes people are able to make it and that could happen at the next meeting as well, but it just in some ways feels a little rushed to just jump right in and make a recommendation tonight without giving I don't know. At least there are other two members a chance to listen to the public testimony and hopefully attend the next meeting. So that's my only reservation. I don't know how I'm going to vote on the motion yet. I just wanted to voice that sort of knee-jerk ambivalence.

Thank you, Commissioner Karras. Any other comments from commissioners? Okay, let's have a vote. All in favor of closing the hearing and beginning deliberations now. Say aye.

Aye.

Aye. And Commissioner Kieris, how do you vote?

I'll just vote no, but that's okay. I'm all right with the outcome.

So the motion carries. We are now going to commence deliberations. Do I need a separate motion for that? Or just we're done?

Nope. Okay.

Let's deliberate. Are there any further comments to begin deliberations? Commissioner Williams?

I do apologize if I got into deliberating points too early. And I will also say that I won't be at the next meeting the second Thursday in January. So we may come up against this again and again.

Well, we just decided to deliberate, so we won't be. So that question has been addressed.

Yeah, we are deliberating. We will have a vote this evening.

Yep.

Any other comments, Commissioner Williams?

I think I've made my opinion or point clear.

All right.

Thank you. So let me lower.

Yeah, Commissioner Hofkamp.

Kyle, thanks for the presentation tonight. I'm just now catching on, I think, to a couple of things, but I want to confirm. So the...

Vice chair, if I may. Commissioner Hovkam, can you?

Yeah. The red line, blue line, strikeout version and so forth, those were amendments at the state level, not at the local level.

To the building code specifically or the proposal for our loan?

Well, that's a hard question. What's in our packet under...

So there are two items in your packet. The first attachment would be affecting our local code. That's title 15 of our local code. Okay. So those strikeouts, those red lines and edits, that is actually what is being pulled in. The second attachment, however, is an actual copy of the state code. building codes of the section R327 standards themselves. So our local code would effectively just adopt this via reference. We would say R327 would apply or would not apply in this particular case. And then you have a copy of the code itself. You can go into the nitty gritty.

And that answered my second question, which is specifically where do we roll that language into ours? And it's by reference and that's okay. Okay. I got you. Thanks. Of course.

I'll make a motion if you want a motion.

I'll just offer Commissioner Stockamp, do you have any comments?

I guess one question, probably for Kyle. So the municipality, it sounds like Sisters has already passed R-327 going into effect in April. If it were to say to be Whether we pass it or not, it still needs approval from the cities of Redmond, Bend, and Lapine for it to be enforced within the municipality. Is that correct? So this would just be unincorporated if we're talking universal?

Exactly, yeah. So the four cities themselves have authority over their own building codes and whether or not they choose to adopt this. One of the four sisters in this case has already moved forward. So there's three outstanding, and it's ultimately up to their decision makers whether they want to bring it on board or not.

Thank you. One more question, too, if it's OK with you, Jessica.

That's the chair. Sign with me, yes?

Well, yeah, I just heard you wanted to make a motion. But just a question about, Kyle, when you referenced in our packet the history with the part of the original Senate bill that included mapping and then the mapping was withdrawn, And I won't ask you to look into a crystal ball and predict where any future mapping effort may or may not go because that's very hard to predict. But you said one of the decision points before us tonight is If it's our recommendation that the county adopt the R-327 for new residential development, then where should the standards apply? And I think you got into an explanation that the more specific we are there, the more implications there are for further process. Does it preclude if we adopt this in a more blanket fashion, a future look in connection with potential mapping efforts either locally or statewide to go back and look at this in terms of where?

So what I would say is, at least as of the way the rules are written right now and the implementation of this portion of the state building codes, unless that were to change, then no, that's not precluded. So to give a little bit more context in what happened, so Senate Bill 762, that previous 2021 legislation, which is what brought on board the state hazard map and ultimately was going to implement these standards statewide, had a requirement that they be based on the map itself. Once the map itself was repealed, the actual language in the building code was also amended as a part of that repeal to both allow us to adopt it locally, so it's not connected to the map anymore, and to have broad latitude in when and where we apply it. So if we adopt it, They give essentially no direction in terms of how we want to apply it. It really is you can apply it everywhere. Maybe you only want to apply it in certain zones. Maybe you only want to apply it on properties of a certain size, properties of a certain vegetation characteristics. There's really no good guidance in terms of how they would like us to apply it. It's left completely open to local discretion at that point. That may change in the future. The building code is updated periodically, and those rules may change. But at least the way the language is written right now, it is not precluded. Okay. Yeah. Thanks for that, Kyle.

And I guess to that point, for you framing your motion that you would like to make, we did have the two questions in front of us, which are, should the county adopt this? And then secondly, should it be applied generally or targeted? If there's no further discussion, I would like to hear Commissioner Karras' motion.

Yeah, I'll just move to recommend to the Board of County Commissioners that we adopt our 327 standards and not take a targeted approach, just a general approach. And I'm ready to say more about why I think it's a good idea if you're ready for that.

Let's see if we have a second. Oh, yeah, we have a second to this motion.

Commissioner Williams would second.

All right, great. Competition. Love it. Okay, Commissioner Karras, your comments.

Yeah, so a couple things. I mean, I've thought about this in the lead-up to the meeting, and obviously, you know, I'm always concerned about affordable housing in our community, and things that make housing less affordable are always scary. But a couple things I think I just want to kind of draw attention to on the record and say why I made the motion are... Honestly, what Robin Church alluded to just now in the presentation, that this is really a financial investment. I appreciated the statistic um or data presented here about one dollar invested in resistant building equals 210 dollars and avoided economic losses and i think like one this sort of second reason why i think it's really important is because we're talking about affecting new construction now and we're building a lot of houses right now we had a housing panel recently about just you know, like we're really trying to ramp up construction on new housing. And at some point we'll have a lot more housing inventory. And then those houses are either going to be fire hardened or not. And what happens if everything gets a lot hotter and a lot drier in the next 20, 30, 40 years? And we have this huge housing inventory of, not very fire-hardened houses so that's even more scary because then we're going to have to pay a whole bunch of money to update that those houses that are already built and that doesn't make any sort of financial sense if we're looking at the like super long picture so that's why i think um this is really important and i hope that um other people on the commission will support the motion thank you commissioner karras anybody else commissioner williams

I do know that when we rebuilt, our insurance agent specifically listed fiber cement siding as a positive for our insurance policy. So again, like the one versus 220, that is something also it can uh help in your if you know god forbid the rebuild but it can help with your insurance i know insurance is going up but it can help it not go up as much thank you commissioner williams any more comments commissioner stock camp any comments no

Okay, I think we're ready for a vote then. All in favor of adopting R327 standards generally throughout the county without targeting specific areas? That's a mouthful. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Commissioner Williams, I didn't hear you. Aye. Aye. Yes. Okay. And I vote aye as well. So motion carries unanimously. Thank you to the public for being here and for your support. Your comments are very helpful. And I think I can't imagine anybody would disagree. So thank you very much.

Vice Chair Altman, if I may. Peter Gutowski, Community Development Director. I just want to recognize a colleague of ours who doesn't always make planning commission meetings, Amy Doherty. Kyle introduced her. Her title is a Building Inspector 3. She has tremendous experience not only doing inspections, but as a plans examiner. So just wanted to let the Planning Commission, the public know that to the extent you would had questions and you wanted to get into the minutia of fire hardening, Amy would have been able to help navigate that. It's important to just maybe just remind everybody that our... building safety division provides building services not only to the rural county but to the city of sisters so as sisters has implemented their fire hardening code effective april 1st our team not just amy but our inspectors will ultimately be reviewing plans and inspecting uh new homes or accessory structures to ensure that they're meeting the requisite code. So anyway, just want to thank Amy for taking the time out this evening to be available to the extent you had questions and herself or a colleague from the building safety division will certainly be available when the hearing is scheduled with the Board of County Commissioners in the new year. So just wanted to introduce her and thank her for her time this evening and give you some further context about her subject matter expertise. We're very lucky to have her.

Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Thanks for being here. All right. I think that concludes that action item. Next. Thank you, Kyle. Next on the agenda is the Terrebonne Community Plan Update Scope and Schedule. Nicole Mardell, Principal Planner, presenting.

Good evening, commissioners. For the record, Nicole Mardell, now principal planner for long-range planning for Deschutes County. So tonight I'm presenting on behalf of Tanya, who couldn't be here, just providing a brief update on our Terrebonne community plan scope and schedule. So I understand that you've had a few panel presentations, an update from our current planner at your last meeting, so you're pretty familiar with the community of Terrebonne at this point. And we're starting to kind of get into developing our scope for the update of the community plan itself. We're here, you know, in part our zoning code for some of the necessary updates that come with the installation of sewer and new development possibilities that may come with it. So wanted to kind of walk you through what we have in the packet. First, I wanted to note that we did apply for a DLCD technical assistance grant in the amount of $100,000. We did, unfortunately, hear back just a couple days ago that we did not receive that grant. There was a major ask of DLCD grant funds this year. But we are working with DLCD to see if there are other pools of smaller funds that we could potentially use, for instance, to supplement our engagement activities. So more to come there, but that may change some of our approaches to the timing of the project and kind of some of the community engagement activities that we have. So more information to come. So we'll continue to kind of keep reworking the scope and schedule, but most of the major elements remain the same. So this is pretty similar to past plan updates that you've all been involved in, the 2040 plan, the Tumalo Community Plan. But there will be some deliverables and tasks that are a little bit different, again, because of that sewer potential in this rural unincorporated community. So we have seven or so tasks that we're hoping to kick off starting in January. The first two are focused just around kind of project administration and setup. So identifying our stakeholders, drafting our engagement plan, and setting up kind of the framework and some of the tools that we'll be using for outreach. And then really the meat of a lot of the background work happens in task three. So that's where we'll be updating kind of our standard community profile with existing conditions and trends for the Terrebonne rural community using demographic information from the census and American Community Survey and discussing key topics in areas like natural resources, tourism, housing, etc. I'd see a noticeable difference for this project is a couple of the additional tasks we've added on. So we'll be doing an infrastructure capacity assessment. This is to document sewer, water, and transportation capacity and how that might impact future growth, development, and potentially some of the uses allowed in the Terrebonne rural communities. So I think that'll be helpful for the Planning Commission to understand kind of some of the infrastructure constraints and how that might impact uses. We're also going to be conducting an economic analysis. So this is essentially a step beyond our typical community profile snapshot, kind of in between that in a white paper with things like stakeholder interviews, some research on market conditions for comparable rural unincorporated communities. What are some successful commercial or light industrial industries that those other communities have? And what we might consider that may be missing in Terrebonne, interviewing business owners, and again, just kind of looking at what's currently in existence as of today and potential challenges to operations as well. The next item is we'll be digging into Oregon Administrative Rule Division 22. I think you heard from Nathaniel in the current planner presentation that you received that there are specific rules in state law for unincorporated communities. And we haven't heard of many rural communities in Oregon having such a major change like the installation of sewer. And the rules are written in a way that are pretty discussionary, I would say. So we imagine that there'll be quite a bit of coordination with the state to really understand the sideboards of what changes can be made in terms of planning and zoning in the community of Terrebonne. With that, moving on to the later tasks. So task four is when we start our engagement. Similar to the 2040 plan, we're planning to have a couple broader community workshops in person supplemented by online open houses as well that are open a little bit longer. And then we're also planning to have some alternative engagement processes. So trying to have more pop-up events or more casual events. One idea we've been throwing around similar to the Tumalo project is having coffee with a planner or something like a root beer social. Things that are just a little bit more approachable for the average community member. And I think Tanya mentioned we're also engaging the Terrebonne School for an activity with some fourth graders, which should be exciting.

Yeah.

With that, once we get into Task 5, 6, and 7, that's when we're putting that document together, finalizing some of the policies, holding more community engagement events, and eventually holding the hearing process. So with that, I wanted to note that we also do have listed in here that we are planning to undertake some zoning code amendments. That will be a separate adoption process, so they won't be simultaneous. They'll be maybe a few weeks or a couple months separated. But I think that'll be helpful to have those two kind of, you know, going hand in hand a little bit. So with that, I'm just here to kind of keep you up to date with where we on their project. We did present this to the board last month who gave us the initial blessing to move forward. But as I mentioned, we will be refining this as we go. we're into our potential grant opportunities. So more information to come, but I welcome any questions if you have any.

Any questions for Nicole? Yes. Commissioner Karras.

This is more of a thought than a question. But so I think my term runs out in like June, sometime in June, something like that. So the Terrebonne area, I think, is sort of part of the, you know, like in terms of representation, it could be an at-large member or it could be like a Redmond. I mean, sorry, the person who represents Redmond can be anywhere in the Redmond address area. So I'm just sort of thinking about Tarabon's representation on the planning commission in terms of, as we go through this process, maybe we can keep in mind that if there are members of the community that are really engaged, maybe they'd like to apply for the spot.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great point, Commissioner. I think we can include that in some of our outreach materials just to give folks a heads up that there will be a seat eventually opening and to keep in mind.

So is the Terrebonne, I guess it is a question, is the Terrebonne, do people who live in Terrebonne qualify to be the Redmond seat or is that, okay.

The answer is yes.

Okay. So I thought that I was like, wait a minute, how does it work? Yeah. So it might be good to keep an eye out for people that seem into it.

Good idea. Any other questions or comments? Mr. Williams or Stock Camp, any questions or comments? No?

All right. Not at this time.

Okay. Thanks, Nicole. Well, as long as you're here, I believe our next item would be... staff and commissioner updates. Anything else you want to bring up while you're here?

I do have another item. This relates to the City of Bend's urban growth boundary process and growth plan or comprehensive plan update process. So we've been coordinating with city staff. The city's initiating a four to five year process to update their comprehensive plan, supporting growth documents, and what they estimate will be an urban growth boundary amendment, at least over 50 acres. And as part of that, because it's planned to be over 50 acres, the city is opting into a process through the Department of Land Conservation and Development called sequential review. So this is a newish process. It was added to state law in 2019 that allows a city who's doing an urban growth boundary amendment to break that task of completing all those background studies and the documentation to support that work into a work plan with steps where they get approval from DLCD essentially at each step along the way. So you're getting a bit more certainty in the process and instead of waiting to have all of your documents reviewed, you know, at year four in the process and, you know, especially if it's a contentious process kind of managing that, this breaks it up so that you can better understand if changes need to be made and you can make iterative changes before reaching that final step. So why I mention this is that the county is required to consent to that sequential review process. So the city did present to the Board of County Commissioners in September at a joint meeting, and last week the board signed an order to consent to that election for sequential review. So they've developed a work plan which has been submitted to the Department of Land Conservation and Development. Really our main role is reviewing their land use application, the UGB amendment application. So there's not really an impact on staff, but we will be coordinating with them just throughout their four to five year process to review some of these background documents to ensure that they're satisfying state law and we're aware of that material. But just wanted to let you know, since it is a bit of a unique approach and that UGB work will likely be kicking off and in the news and eventually coming to you four to five years from now.

May I ask you a question on that? Has that land been identified?

No, not at this point. So the city has completed their housing capacity analysis, which essentially breaks down the estimated number of units that they need, including the breakdown of single family, multifamily, second homes, et cetera. But they haven't identified the exact acreage or conducted the study of eligible lands at this point. So I believe that'll happen in year two to three.

All right. Thank you. Kyle, would you like to go next? Yeah. Thank you.

So Portland State University just released their annual population estimates for the whole state, including the individual counties. I forwarded sort of a breakdown. We prepare this as a service to the board every year, basically crunching the numbers and picking out some interesting data. Pass it along to the planning commission email earlier this afternoon if you want to dig a little bit more into the details. But just some big takeaways here. Deschutes County is growing, and it is far and away the largest, fastest growing county in the state. Some of the other counties are growing faster than us, but they're kind of on the margins in terms of population. So places like Gilliam and Sherman counties, those places are technically growing faster than us, but it's because we are an order of magnitude or two larger than those counties. So when you put those two variables together, it's just we have a large population and it's also growing the fastest in the state. Another kind of interesting point here on the same note is we placed second in terms of total actual numbers added to the county over the previous year. And that includes all of the Portland metro counties. So only one county actually added more people than Deschutes County last year, and that was Washington County. Um, so even once you start factoring in all of the Metro counties, we, we have outpaced them, which is the first time, at least since I've been crunching the numbers, uh, that that's happened. Usually Clackamas County and, and Washington County outpace us. Um, Finally, a big takeaway here is the unincorporated portions of the county are growing the slowest out of everywhere. That continues a trend that we've seen really for the last five or six years. It's not unexpected. We have some different constraints that are not imposed on the city. We only have so many lots. Dividing land is more difficult in the county, and so we're not likely to see huge increases in residential growth outside of the four cities. Even with that being said, though, we last year had kind of a negative trend where more people were actually leaving the unincorporated county, and it seemed like more of them were moving into the cities. That seems to have stabilized in the previous year and started to add additional people back into the unincorporated areas. Not sure why that was. It just occasionally these things flip-flop from year to year, but those general trends seem to, since 2020 and the pandemic, seem to have changed direction.

Can I ask you? Yes. On that last point, I think I recall from a year ago that part of that trend was a divergence in the prediction or the modeling from PSU and then the census modeling. And I'm wondering, you know, if which of those two models was borne out now a year forward, if that is applicable, and then if there's similar diversions expected between those two modeling sets of numbers.

Potentially. So the census is likely the more comprehensive and accurate measure. It's done with a lot more resources. It's done on 10-year cycles, whereas these estimates are done annually. They're done with a little bit less resources, although they're pretty robust. They seem to match up from year to year. So the way they work is right now we have these preliminary estimates. They're released towards the end of the year. And then in the springtime, we'll actually get the final certified estimates that are a little bit more accurate. To your point, though, about forecasting, those are done on five-year cycles. So we're actually on an upcoming forecast cycle from Portland State University. I yesterday had conversations with them about some of the preliminary numbers that we'll see forthcoming. So sometime in the spring, once we actually get those final forecast estimates, the next five-year cycle, I'll likely bring that information for the planning commission. We can have a discussion around what the new numbers there say.

They do a little, PSU does a dog and pony around the state too, and they'll come back through Bend, I'm sure.

They do, yeah. And this next population forecast goes out through 2076. So it's quite a ways into the future. But it's interesting. And obviously, the further out you get, the more uncertainty there is with these forecasts. But there's a lot of congruency in what they've previously predicted and what seems to be happening now.

Great. Thank you. Will?

Yeah, good evening. You're planning manager, Will Groves. So I want to put a little exclamation point on Nicole Mardell, principal planner. She prevailed in a competitive process, and we're very happy to welcome her to the illustrious realm of management, which is only going to never trouble. And I wanted to talk to you tonight. I'm presenting on behalf of Tanya for an update. LCDC voted on December 4th to update some rulemaking regarding cultural areas. And so this has been a long program to coordinate better with the tribes in the state. And this is done under our Goal 5 program. So what this would protect is archaeological sites that are already governed by state archaeological laws. as well as cultural landscape features. And so the key aspects here are tribal coordination, targeted coordinations on permits, and the possibility of adding significant landscape features to the county's Goal 5 inventory. And these rules become effective on January 1, 2027. Unlike some of our other Goal 5 inventories, there's no requirement that the county undertake this. So the way that this would come to us is that a state, local government, or a federally recognized tribal entity could come to Deschutes County and request that we recognize a potentially culturally significant landscape feature. And that's a feature that's integral to the Tide's history, legends, traditions, and stories. or is traditionally used for wayfinding, gathering first foods and materials, integral to ongoing tribal cultural practices, traditional trails, and sites that support traditions of a culturally identified group. And the notion is that these could be brought to Deschutes County as effectively an application, requesting the county consider those as a potentially significant inventory resource and maybe take specific measures to protect these areas. In the presentations I've seen, that could include maybe clustering of homes, trying to preserve traditional trails, maybe height limitations for traditional vistas. The other aspect of this includes better coordination on archaeological. resources and so this would update our permits to remind people that they for any application that they certainly their state and federal rules about the disturbance of archaeological resources. And also gives us an opportunity to coordinate and let people know when they're in a vicinity of a cold archaeological resource so obviously there's some risk. and confidentiality of disclosing archaeological sites. But there's a notion that notice would be provided to the tribe that they would give us effectively fuzzy maps of areas that might be areas of concern, and they'd receive notice and they could decide whether or not to engage with a particular project. if it might impact archaeological resources. So what you would see out of this is you'd see more tribal notice and archaeological interactions. We may see from one of our neighboring tribes a request to protect those landscapes or potentially significant cultural landscape features. And again, this is like other Goal 5 resources. So it goes through an EC process. Something that's important to people is identified, and then the county gets to decide what, if anything, to do about that. So up to significant protections all the way down to doing nothing is a valid response under an EC request. And again, this is coming up in January 2027. This is because this deals with historical resources. A lot of the interaction for this will be happening with the Historic Landmarks Commission if we see action on this regard. But I just wanted to give you an update that this was undertaken. I have a handout that I'll pass out to you here at the end of the meeting so you can take home. And if you need some light reading material before bed, that's available. Also coming up on the schedule, so Kyle is working on clear and objective standards. This is Module 2 or Module 4, depending on how you're counting. And this has to do with site plan and conditional use chapters for multifamily dwellings. This is, we want to get this tightened up ahead of sewer and Terrebonne because we expect multifamily housing might be one potential result of that opportunity. Tanya's meeting with the city of Bend. There's a legislative carve out for a small addition to the city UGB through a special legislative process. And that development is called Caldera Ranch. So she's going to be working that, but that will go through a quasi-judicial process. So go through hearings officer. You won't have to engage with that one. Also interesting on Tanya's front is the Dark Skies Initiative, tremendous public interest. We had expected that on the day that it became effective, December 23rd, that we would start to see some engagement and the media has taken an interest in this. We've gotten a variety of responses, including kudos, as well as people concerned about the cost and timing of potentially having to update their lights. And so we're working our way through that, a lot of public engagement. Just wanted to let you know kind of on the medium horizon here is Nicole is working on an amendment to deal with the property line adjustment code. We've run into some difficulties where developers have engaged in huge numbers of property line adjustments to try to reformat a neighborhood, and that has left occasionally the fire department in particular unsatisfied with how it was organized. And other counties in that circumstance have rules that require a replatting process that allows expressly consideration of fire access as you start to do large-scale lot line adjustments. And so She'll be bringing that forward to you. Just wanted to note that we're, you know, of course, coming into the holiday season and that the looks like we will not be having. We'll let you know if something comes up. That looks like we, of course, are canceled for Christmas as well as January 8th. And part of that is in part because we had some family leave as well as some organizational changes. All of them good, but we're in a little bit. And oh, and also that the board, they had directed us to undertake an urban reserve project. And we anticipate that that will be delayed. We have additional time to complete that. But these were items that we were hoping to bring your way in kind of early January. And due to a variety of factors, we're in a little bit of a content drought, but there's plenty coming in the spring. So we will see you on January 22nd. Thank you, Peter.

Thank you, Vice Chair Altman. As Commissioner Karras mentioned, well, I got ahead of myself. We will be, since I mentioned it, we will be doing a recruitment at some point in the spring for the Redmond-Tarabon opening, Commissioner Karras, and we can celebrate that. when we get closer to June of 2026, but we will be initiating recruitment at some point in the spring to fill that greater Redmond area seat. This is the time of year where planning commissioners can begin thinking about who you would like to consider and ultimately nominate for chair and vice chair. Our first meeting on January 22nd, we'll be looking for, that'll be the first item on your agenda. So something to think about over the next couple of weeks. The only two more items, really the second item as a follow up to the conversation that the Board of County Commissioners and the Planning Commission had on September 22nd, which was a joint where you had a joint work session. And that was an open conversation with the Planning Commission. And one of the topics that the Planning Commission asked respectfully is, Having a better, I'm paraphrasing, but really looking into how the community development department might explore other funding opportunities to support the department as it pertains to long-range planning, code enforcement. And the direction that we received at that meeting, the Board of County Commissioners expressed support, was to look at some of our comparable jurisdictions, Bend – not necessarily Bend, but – counties, Clackamas, Lane, Washington County, and also look at a county that's comparable to us. We ultimately chose Boulder County in Colorado. And the purpose was to gain an understanding of how those departments are funded and specifically, I think, in closer examination to planning and long-range planning. So that analysis has been done. And last week or two weeks ago, we met myself, Sherry Pinner, our senior management analyst, met with each individual county commissioner with Robert Tintle, our finance director, and Nick Lelak, our county administrator. And what the analysis showed is that our comparable jurisdictions really follow the model that we have in place today. And that is we are a fee-dependent department that relies on building surcharges, land use applications. There are times when we'll get grant funding to help with long-range planning projects. There are times in the past where we've seen a special allocation for projects like the Comprehensive Plan Update to 2040. But the comparable jurisdictions have basically, either in Oregon, I think, have followed our model in ways that their fees are much higher than ours. And the one example with Boulder County, which is an Concerned about how to shoot county structures, but they were also of structured. Similarly, the other piece that came up during this conversation, and this is going to be discussed. It was discussed on December 3rd. It's going to be discussed on December 17th before the board of county commissioners has to do with the general fund. The general fund has been maximized respectfully in terms of how it's been leveraged. Most recently, an example is, and I'll say it imperfectly, is the general fund has helped provide financial backing for the courthouse. And the current... Without some austerity measures with the general fund, which have taken place, which took place last year, which are going to be in place on this next fiscal year in 27 and for the next few years, which I'll talk, give you more context in a second. But without these, what I'm calling somewhat austerity measures, the demands on the general fund exceed the revenue that comes in from it. And some of the forecasts which were done 12 to 24 months ago showed that that imbalance could occur as early as fiscal year 27 and 28. And so what was discussed on the 3rd and what is going to be ultimately acknowledged by the Board of County Commissioners to help inform how general fund departments approach their budget for fiscal year 27 is a ceiling that limits how much they can grow in fiscal year 27. That ceiling will likely be around 4%, and that 4% ceiling will help ensure that the general fund basically gets replenished by like as early as like 2033 or 2034. If the board finds that that ceiling is too constricting and they want to go to say 5% ceiling or a 6% ceiling, then of course the time it takes for the general fund to be replenished will extend further into 2030. So I provide that context for you because as we articulated verbally one-on-one with the board and what's, what's, what's been expressed in the past with the board of County commissioners is the, the demands on the general fund are only increasing. And again, The community development department was my recommendation that we're not interested in general fund support. And there's some reasons for that. First of all, the general fund right now funds the district attorney's office. It funds the county clerk's office, the assessor's office, for example. And there are tremendous demands being placed on deputy DAs to stay in, to stay, to stay To to ensure that there's enough district attorneys to, um, deal with the cases that, um, come with being the only measurable, uh, growing county, uh, in the state for the clerk's office as you probably have have been reading. There is some possibility that a vote by mail may may go away, maybe suspended. So the clerk clerk's office is dealing with potential technological or additional staffing demands. And so that just gives you context of of just the what I would say, the respectful demands that are on these departments and the sensitivity of a fee dependent department that could potentially be thrust into competition for that very limited amount of funding expressed in a pie chart. The other thing that has me concerned, or what I expressed to the Board of County Commissioners, is If, for example, we were thrust into the general fund and we had a circumstance where we needed additional staff, we had, I mean, imagine a scenario where, which is not too hard, where development activity rises significantly or we have, where we need to go to the board with a budget amendment to add additional staff for For any one of our divisions, building safety, on-site planning, code enforcement, coordinated services. When you're in the general fund model, we would have to wait until the budget for that budget amendment. And then we would have to compete with... the other departments that are respectfully asking for additional resources. So in the immediacy, if this demand expressed itself early in the fiscal year, we would have to wait eight months to get in line to make the respectful request in a budget amendment. And then there's no guarantee that they would select us because of the demands, respectfully, that health services which is the largest department, which I just accidentally omitted, or the district attorney's office or the clerk's office, the assessor's office, etc. So I give you a very lengthy update because 1, we provided it to the board of county commissioners, and they accepted the analysis that I offered the analysis that Robert the finance director offered and didn't take did decided not to individually express any interest of bringing this matter back as a regular agenda item. And then obviously what I provided to you is really what we were talking about at great length. We provided a memorandum that kind of laid out the comparisons with other jurisdictions and the sensitivity of what happens if you If we were to be absorbed into the general fund, so I appreciate the interest expressed by both the board and the planning commission back in September and we very much wanted it wanted to provide a timely update to the board and to the planning commission. And I think to the extent that there's a silver lining, it provides momentum for the department. The Community Development Department, as we go into fiscal year 27, the Board of County Commissioners has been reengaged on kind of the budget realities that come not only with the Community Development Department, but with all the general fund departments. And like I said, there are a number of Agenda items on December 17th, and some are are quite significant just to just to conclude my remarks. The community justice is going to the board and not filling. Excuse me. The community justice department is going to the board with a budget adjustment to reduce 10. the sheriff's office is going to the to the board to relinquish 10 or 11 unfilled positions and the health department is going to the board with a mid-year budget adjustment to relinquish 11 unfilled positions so these are the times we live in. There's a lot of reasons why those departments are relinquishing those FTEs, but it just heightens the sensitivity for not only CDD, but also just the tough decisions that the Board of County Commissioners is going to be experiencing going into fiscal year 27. So that was a lot. If you have any questions, I'm certainly happy to answer them. And the only other comment I had on a more maybe upbeat note is to wish you and your families a happy holiday. So thank you.

Any questions for Peter? No? Okay. Commissioner Stockamp, do you want to start with PC Commons?

Sure. I guess one question I have for Peter. Was there any update on the LCDC enforcement order for, I think you said the last one was non-farm dwellings was the second one?

uh for thank you uh commissioner stow camps uh just for anybody who's who's watching or we have we have members of the public uh still in attendance uh jesuits county received two um notices of intent to petition the land conservation and development commission um From central Oregon land watch and 1000 friends of Oregon that are arguing that we have been violating state laws. It pertains to how the county has zoned lands out of the exclusive farming zone and how we have approved non farm dwellings. The first notice of intent of enforcement order occurred sometime in the summer. I want to say it was July approximately. And just most recently was the second notice of intent for an enforcement order in the non-farm dwellings. Both of those... Notices allow the county to respond. I think it's wheels at 120 days, I think, to respond. Sounds right to me. So the 1st notice of intent that notice, our response has been provided where I can't tell you what the clock is off the top of my head. Commissioner stove can't stop camp, but. We've seen a draft response by our legal counsel, and I'm sure it'll get in at the deadline. And then at that point, it's 150 days. There's 150 day period for the petitioners. Those that brought up the notice of intent to petition, they have 150 days to determine if they want to follow up to LCDC. So long story short is we remain in a holding pattern. And I imagine that both organizations will follow through and submit a formal petition to LCDC. And then... then we'll follow suit accordingly. And we presume that LCDC will dismiss both of them. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. But more to come in the next calendar year.

I do see that Stephanie Marshall has joined via Zoom, so perhaps she'd like to comment on this?

Sure. Let's see. I guess it's only audio, no video. That's fine. Good evening, commissioners. Thanks for elevating me. Oh, I can join as a panelist. Okay, there we go.

Hope you're muted.

Now you're muted.

There we go. All right. I'm here. Yes, thank you. And Peter, thank you for your overview. Yes, our response to the second notice of intent to petition which concerns non farm dwellings is due on the 9th of January. And I've roughed out some initial arguments and kind of had some placeholders. I've reached out to planning and we're going to be talking about this early next week. Amy Nunez, On Monday to to continue, you know getting our stuff all put together as for the deadline for 1000 friends and land watch to file on the first the first notice of intent so that came in end of July. Our response was 60 days later, end of September. So we've got that date calendared as well. I want to say it's in March that they have to take formal action with LCBC, actually proceed with a petition. So those same timelines would apply to this next round. I guess that's kind of a misnomer it's not another round it's another issue so once we get our response in then I think they have 60 days um no longer than that they have um 120 days I think to initiate a petition after they receive our response so so yeah so so things are progressing on that front as well um by the time we come back to you all we will put in our response um when we see you on the 22nd of January. But I'm happy to answer any questions for legal.

Got it. I just appreciated that overview. So I was curious because Peter mentioned at the end of the last meeting. So no other comments besides hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and Christmas season. Thanks for another productive meeting.

Yeah. Thank you all. Sir Williams, do you have any comments?

I just got a text from her that she's having some technical difficulties and her comment is feliz Navidad.

Commissioner Kieris?

I just wanted to congratulate Nicole. Great job. That's exciting. And other than that, I thought it was a great meeting. Very expeditious, especially for being unplanned to get to the spontaneous chairship. Great job.

Commissioner Hofkamp, no comments. I just have to say happy holidays to everyone. Congratulations. When I read that at the beginning, I did not realize that was a promotion for you. So big congratulations. I'm very happy for you. And let's see, it's 7.06. The meeting is adjourned.